Right. Good evening. Good evening, Sangha. I hope you're all well. Well, just a few minutes for sitting. It's a really amazing time, that little brief period of time. In the morning when we were sitting for like an hour, you know, it feels a little more free-rangey, like all kinds of things can happen and different senses are triggered and, you know, the dawn chorus, all the birds and all these different, you know, changes in the early morning. But just now, in the short time, it's kind of interesting because like what shows up there is kind of always surprising. So just now I was sitting and I was remembering, I was sitting here thinking like, well, I'm just sitting here. And then I remembered this young boy, he was a junior high student, had come with his class from somewhere in Marin. And I was giving them zazen instruction, which was a total of five minutes really, which was a little... A little bit longer than we just said.

[01:11]

And most of them had a hard time sitting still. You know, they tried, but you could tell it was really not a very natural thing for them. And then this one boy was very still. And I kind of noticed him. And afterward, I asked them all, you know, how they felt or how that was for them. And different ones said things. And then that boy said, you know, it was wonderful. No one has ever asked me not to do anything before. So please, enjoy not doing anything. I think that's the gift that we are given from this amazing ancient practice of just don't do anything. You'll be fine. So tonight I'm going to continue kind of rambling through the Genjo Koan, which is kind of like a great forest of words and thoughts and inspiration. So I've noticed I'm just not hurrying. I don't feel like there's any point in getting to the end of it. Each sentence, each paragraph has quite a lot in it, so I'm just going to keep unpacking it.

[02:17]

And, you know, we'll get to the end, maybe, maybe, maybe not. So you may have noticed that usually at the beginning I start to recap a little bit of what we've been talking about the last week. So in trying to stay in touch with Dogen as he twirls around through the galaxies and the Buddha fields, it's not that easy to summarize what's going on here. So I thought I'd just give it a brief try for some of the highlights. So for these last few weeks, we've been looking at the fascicle called the Genjo Koan. meaning translated two ways that I found that I liked. One was the realization of the Dharma as it truly is. Realization of the Dharma as it truly is. And the other one is actualizing the fundamental point. So this classical is from this masterwork, a collection of Dogen's lectures that were written down by his Ejo, his disciple, and then eventually put together into a collection called the Shobo Genzo.

[03:26]

the treasury of the true Dharma eye, which is basically the eye, the Buddha, that the Buddha opened when he awakened. The morning of his awakening was the true Dharma eye. So the Shubha Genzo was written over many years of whatever left of Dogen's life. He died fairly young. I think he was 53 when he died. He was quite young. So I found it interesting that on his return to Japan from China, following his great awakening, called Daigo, under Ru Jing, his Chinese teacher, Dogen gave these words at an opening ceremony of his first training temple. So he tried to find, you know, he tried to live with the monks he'd been with before, which was a Rinzai temple, where he'd first studied. And he'd gone with a Rinzai teacher to China, who died in China. So Dogen returned without his friend. He brought his remains and some other memories of his friend.

[04:27]

But he wasn't so happy being inside another tradition or one that seemed alien to what he'd learned in China. So he gave these words at the opening ceremony of his own first training temple in Japan, which was called Koshouji in Kyoto. He said, my career of visiting Zen monastic temples is limited, except my late teacher, Yu Jing, whom I met intimately. However, upon meeting him, I realized at once that two eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. That my two eyes are horizontal and my nose is vertical. Ever since, I have not been misled by anyone, and I have returned to Japan with empty hands. Hence, I have no Buddha Dharma. I brought nothing back. You know, referring perhaps to scriptures or commentaries or ritual objects. I have returned. I have no Buddha Dharma. I returned to Japan with empty hands.

[05:30]

And then he said, just depending on the celestial movements, I have passed the time. Every morning, the sun rises from the eastern mountain. Every evening, the moon sets in the west. When the clouds dispersed, the mountain's shape appears. When the rains pass, the mountains seem lower in all directions. So he's really starting to resonate with this kind of deep quiet that he's found in his realization, his daigo. You know, something very quiet and still has happened for Dogen. So he's not so much... You know, he's not in this super expressive phase at the moment. He's not really producing these great works, the Genjo Koan and so on. You know, he basically seems to be registering the sensory world, you know, caring for the experiences of the day, what's going on, the change of light, the wind, the trees, you know, the things that are of the immediate present. He uses that term, immediate present, Genjo Koan.

[06:35]

So the Japanese commentary about this statement I just read to you of Dogen's tells us that he had returned from, he had returned, no, had he returned with something to grasp or something to hold on to, then his body and mind would not have fully become the Buddha Dharma. So, you know, if I say, well, I brought you this, you know, no, I brought you these things, I brought you these gifts. He said, no, I brought you me. I brought you what I have... I've received, you know, in my studies. So he had become the Bodhidharma. He was the sutras and commentaries embodied. He was embodying this inspiration. So as Dogen himself said about Bodhidharma, our first Chinese Zen ancestor, came from India. Although Bodhidharma did not bring any sutras or commentaries with him from India to China, he was the authentic master who transmitted the authentic Dharma. So we can see that this wish to transmit the authentic Dharma is at the heart of everything that Dogen teaches.

[07:40]

So throughout his writing, Dogen is admonishing his disciples, these days that's us, not to forget the truth, which is that the authentic Dharma is nothing other than becoming a Buddha yourself and living a life of Buddha yourself. That's it. That's the authentic Dharma. There's no substitute. There's no thing you can bring or give that would be worth that, you know. That would be the most generous you could ever be, is to become the Buddha and live the life of Buddha yourself. So that's quite a high bar that he's setting for himself and for the rest of us. So for this reason, the practice of Zazen, the Doga tirelessly... tirelessly promoted on his return home is only to be accomplished by the one that does not seek after Buddhahood. It's only accomplished by the one who doesn't seek after Buddhahood, out of something that's out there, something other than themselves.

[08:46]

So to be merely or just sitting and nothing more, nothing extra, such as trying to seek Buddhahood, is Dogen's upright sitting practice. You know, like that little boy, he said, no one's ever asked me not to do anything before. He was on the right track. He already figured that out. In other words, for Dogan, Zen practice is simply a devotion to upright sitting in self-enjoyment and self-fulfilling samadhi. A samadhi in which the sitter and the world are one. So I wanted to say a little bit about this word samadhi. There's a couple of terms that are somewhat interchangeable, and you might hear them running past you when you read Zen writings, or maybe just in the common culture. I think they've made their way into the common culture. So the word samadhi can mean both a one-pointed concentration on a single object, like really focusing on one thing, such as mountain climbers do when they're going up vertical cliffs, really focused on the next step that you're going to take.

[09:55]

That's the whole world is right there. and not getting distracted by anything else. So that's one way to understand samadhi, is one pointed concentration. And then the other way to understand samadhi is as this broad field of awareness. You know, like there's a really wide lens that is stable and discerning and focused. So everything's in focus. And so this is a Sanskrit term, samadhi, and it refers to the time and the depth of non-dual experience, where the doer and the deed are not separate, completely fulfilling the actions. Whatever you're doing is completely full. There's no space for, you know, I'm doing this. It's like, no, doing this, just doing, doing this. So this can vary. Samadhi can vary. for human experience, from something that's very slight, you know, occasional, like a couple times a day you might slip into samadhi around something you're doing, to very profound and prolonged experience.

[11:01]

So, Dogen says something about this, quoting the Buddha. He says, when you monks unify your minds, the mind is in samadhi. And since the mind is in samadhi, you know the characteristics of the creation and destruction of the various phenomena in the world. When you gain samadhi, the mind is not scattered, just as those who protect themselves from floods guard the levies. So it's that kind of feeling that you're really guarding the mind against distraction, against, you know, the temptation to, I just got to do something else right now. Just staying with the thing that you're doing. It's a... Definitely a kind of discipline that eventually you will develop if you keep sitting zazen because you have to. Otherwise, it becomes torture. You know, I want to do something else. I want to do something else. You know, they use the description. This is a really great description of Zen training as putting your snake in a bamboo tube.

[12:03]

You know, poor snake. So you put the energy of your life into this... bamboo tube and you know for a while the snake is just going crazy trying to wiggle its way up but once it gets still it just slips right out so that's sort of the that's sort of a good analogy of upright sitting as well just just be still just relax just relax and you'll just fall right out of there out of your resistance So arising from Dogen's understanding of the authentic Dharma, the emphasis in zazen is on a practice called shikan taza. So here's another term, it's a Japanese term, meaning just hitting zazen. Shikan, just taza, hitting. Shikan taza, just hit it. You just hit that zafu, or just sitting. In which the mind comes to silently rest with an awareness of the stream of thoughts that are passing through. And as they do, and just aware of how thoughts do, which is they arise and they vanish and they arise and they vanish, like the waves on the ocean.

[13:11]

So the mind is more like the ocean. It's just aware of these subtle or gross or grand variations, you know, rising and falling and tides and all of that. But the ocean doesn't have much concern about that. These are just little variations on reality itself. arising and passing away without interference. So that's part of Shikantaza, is you don't mind your mind. You're not objecting to what's coming into your mind, which is probably something most of the young people I talk to over the years really object to their minds. You know, they really don't like what they're thinking. They especially don't like what they think about themselves, and often it's about other people, and that's why they feel that way about themselves. And there's this whole complicated thing that's going on that really is the way they're thinking, but they don't see that. I mean, it's very hard to see that. Oh, that's my mind. That's my mind that's going on here, running around like a wild monkey.

[14:13]

So Chikantaza is also referred to by the term silent illumination. So our school is called the school of the silent illumination, Zen. So the lights are on. You're aware and you're quiet. The mind is quiet. And there's a caution here around this style of teaching, this form of teaching. It's been criticized for hundreds and hundreds of years by another very well-known Zen tradition, the Rinzai Zen tradition. So one commentator says that this prescription to merely sit and do nothing more, when interpreted literally as the practice of Zazen, cannot escape the criticism of a doing-nothing Zen. Sometimes the other team, the Rinzai folks, have gone so far as to call our style of Zen, you know, this precious just sitting, they call just sleeping. So... You know, this is a little friendly competition that goes on between the two sides of the Zen school around technique.

[15:20]

You know, what's the better way? Is it better to just rest, to have the mind open and resting in appearances with the appearances that arise? Or are you supposed to be going after something, trying to penetrate, get some understanding, like by using what they use, which are koans or these little word puzzles that I think you're all familiar with? So for this reason, Dogen's life work was to educate his disciples to the fundamental relationship between Zazen practice, as he understood it, and the authentic transmission of the Dharma. So much of his writing, when you begin to, you know, kind of see, what's he doing? He's really, you know, validating sitting or Zazen as the authentic transmission of the Buddhist Dharma, the Buddhist teaching. This is all you need to know. And it's right there in that experience you're having in each moment, but it's awfully nice once in a while to sit quietly and have that moment be one that's stable and focused, samadhi.

[16:23]

So it's for this purpose that Dogen wrote his whole collection of discourses called the Shobo Genza, because he had a deep understanding, a profound understanding of what this practice could do and what it had done for him. you know, after his many years of seeking. So the first fascicle of the Shobo Genzo, which we studied a few months back, is the Fukanza Zengi, which is called the Manual for the Practice of Zazet, was written when Dogen first returned to Japan, which was in 1229. He was 29 years old. He was born in 1200. So at that time, Dogen was staying at Kaninji Temple, the Rinzai Temple I mentioned, where he had resided years before going to China. So he stayed at Keninji for three years before moving on to found another little temple, Kosho Horinji, for those who wish to come and study his own somewhat unique style of spiritual practice. In one of his later writings, Dogen explains the distinction between his zazen, silent illumination zen, and the forms of zen that are oriented toward a satori experience, like bring on the satori experience, such as kana or koan zen.

[17:37]

of the Rinzai tradition. So, again, another term, samadhi, that's kind of gathering the mind, focusing the mind, concentrating the mind on what you're doing, if it's just sitting, on just sitting. Now, this word satori, another Japanese word, it refers to a very deep awakening concerning the true nature of reality. You know, Buddha had a really big satori. which is illustrated in the endless pages of the Avatamsaka Sutra. That's basically just this fast description of what happened when the Buddha awakened. All these Buddhas showed up, and then they called out to all the other Buddhas from around the universe to come and join them. And they had this huge party of all the Buddhas and galaxies and everything else coming around and sitting there and appreciating that they had a new Buddha to celebrate. So that's a big Satori. That really is where the bar has been set by this tradition.

[18:41]

So I think there's another term that you may be familiar with. It's related to Satori, and that is Kensho. Kensho. We don't talk about Kensho very much at Zen Center, and that's because we don't talk about Kensho very much. We don't emphasize Kensho. these breakthrough experiences, you know, like, oh, you got it, you know, people never tell you, you even have a clue, there's really not much encouragement regarding your experiences in Zazen, it's more like, okay, that's nice, now go back to the kitchen, you know, so go help somebody else, go do something, you know, get a job, it's like, don't make a big thing out of these, you know, fireworks. It's fine. It's nice you have those. Those are really lovely. They're like ornaments on our lives. But they're not the point. The point is benefiting others with whatever we've got. It's to bring home, as Dogen did, the true dharma. So this term kenjo, which is sometimes used interchangeably with satori, and at other times it's considered to be merely an initiatory experience of seeing reality.

[19:52]

that may over time ripen into Satori. So Kensho is more like a thing that happens, like a knock on the head. You really notice it, something happened there. But it doesn't last long. So one example offered by a modern Zen scholar of the difference between these two is that Kensho is kind of like seeing the trailer for a movie, and Satori is the movie itself. So, and then another example I found in one of the texts is that they liken Kensho to a lightning strike and then Satori to one of the four seasons, you know, like summer or spring, something like that. It was just more like you're in this space. This space is actually has transformed your relationship to perception, to feelings and so on. You're really beginning to soak up... this realization about the non-dual nature of reality, of yourself and the world as not separate.

[20:58]

So Dogen says this about these two approaches to awakening. As a rule, for those schools of Zen, and he's here referring primarily to Rinzai Zen, that have a type of enlightenment-oriented Zazen, or Satori-oriented Zazen, their Zazen may be compared to a ship or a raft by which people cross the great ocean. When they reach the other shore, however, it must be discarded. But the zazen I have received from the Buddhas and the ancestors is not like that. It is the Buddha's practice in itself. So, you know, he's making this amazing point about right now, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, is the Buddha's practice itself. And how is it for you? Do you see it that way? Do you understand that your life is the Buddha's practice itself? And are you able to, you know, try that on as a possibility that that's really what you are? As he discovered when he had his satori in China, that he dropped body and mind, he dropped all of that weight he was carrying about not having what he needed to have to understand his seeking, even seeking resolution, the pain of his life.

[22:15]

You know, it just kind of fell away. And... And it was such an amazing and simple. There was no sound. You know, I like the thing I said last week to you all about, you know, enlightenment doesn't boil water. You can't really use it for anything. It's not something that has any real power to it. But it has this wonderful transformative. For the person, it's a transformation of a great deal of suffering and a great deal of confusion. So it's the Buddha's practice itself. All things, everything you do is the Buddhist practice itself. And so, you know, it's like, that's just how you orient. You orient yourself as, what would Buddha do? You know, what would Buddha do right now with this problem? How would Buddha handle this problem? So that said, it's also clear from Dogen's writings during these years that he rejected assigning a particular school name, such as Zen School or Soto Zen School, to this tradition. He did not call...

[23:17]

This school, Soto Zen, that came later. And he later on was called the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, is what I've always referred to him as, but he didn't call himself that. He wasn't interested in these sectarian names. He categorically stated that such a name reflected a one-sided view. It was a partial view, as in Ji, and not the Buddha Dharma of authentic transmission, the wholeness of reality. So he was into this wholeness of reality. I mean, Dogen, I think, tries to keep his mind and his practice on the wholeness, on the vastness of reality and using human language and his human experience to try and call out to us, you know, come here to this big space. Come into this bigger room, you know, where there's more room for you and more room for you to really be alive. You know, very much alive. So for this reason, Dogen never uses the term Zen sect, but rather he uses the term for his school, Buddha Dharma of Authentic Transmission, or simply Buddha Dharma.

[24:29]

The Buddha Dharma. Buddha Dharma Sangha. That's actually the name. It was wonderful. When I spent some time some years back with Jiryu, our new abbot, who had a sitting group, He and some others and elders had started a sitting group in San Quentin. And so they invited me. I went three or four times over to sit with the people there, the men at San Quentin. And it was so amazing. I wish you all the chance of doing that. Most of them have been there a very long time. They're adults. And many of them, they told us their stories. had done something as teenagers. They killed somebody when they were teenagers in the fights or, you know, gangs or whatever, whatever crazy stuff they were into. And then they are now going to spend their lives in prison. And they have found a way, as one of them said, the way I live my life here that has some, you know, some satisfaction or nourishment for me is by helping the young ones when they arrive.

[25:38]

Try to help them to settle in and find a way of living here, you know. and in a peaceful way with each other. So they have this beautiful community, and they have built a little altar. They only give them a tiny bit of space to store things, and so they have this altar that expands. They pull it out, and it opens up, and there are quite a few really good craftspeople, and they've sewn their own zafus, and I've gone for some precept ceremonies over there, and they've sewn their robes and all of that. It's very inspiring. Really inspiring. So, oh, why was I talking about that? Because the name of their community is the Buddha Dharma Sangha. The Buddha Dharma Sangha. So whenever I drive by San Quentin, I can almost see it from here, I kind of feel this, hi, hi guys, hello Buddha Dharma Sangha, and I give them a little bow. So this method alone,

[26:42]

This zazen that Dogen's speaking of, free from human purposiveness, being purposeful, free from being purposeful, is the dharma transmitted from the Buddha to another Buddha without any deviations. For entering and enjoying this samadhi, the properly seated practice of zazen is the main entry gate. And he goes on to say that the dignified deportment of the Buddha engaged in practice, in whom truth, speech and action are totally undifferentiated, is the essential meaning of the Buddhadharma of authentic transmission. Truth is experience, speech is teaching, and action is practice. So this fascicle called the Genjo Koan that we're studying now, as I said, was written, no I didn't say, was written in 1233. So four years after he'd returned from Japan.

[27:43]

So now he's in his early 30s. And it was written for a lay practitioner by the name of Koshu Yo. And as I said last week, for Dogen, this term Genjo Koan refers to nothing other than the entire universe appearing as the present moment. So this is the Genjo Koan. Always. It's always the Genjo Koan. And so... From the point of view of reality itself, re, and from the point of view of the individual elements that are making up reality, g. So that arising has these two perspectives of the wholeness and of the particularities. So we've looked at that quite a bit. Ultimate truth and the relative truth. And when one side is illuminated, the ultimate truth, samadhi, satori, the other side is dark. When the relative truth is illuminated, the ultimate side is dark.

[28:45]

But you know it's there. I mean, that's the beauty of coming to, you know, fuller understanding is that you don't forget. It's like experiences you've had of some wonderful place you've been coming to mind for me right now is the fjords in Norway, which were so painful to look at after a while. I was like, I can't look at another fjord. They're so beautiful. It was amazing. So that, you know, still it influences me. To this day, when I think of something beautiful, I oftentimes remember Norway. So Ri and Ji, as we know, are these Japanese names for the two truths, the ultimate truth, Ri, and the relative truth, Ji. And since the Dharma Datu, which we talked about last time, which is another name for the entirety of the universe, is never outside of oneself, then there is no enlightenment outside of delusion either. Finding within ourselves this confluence of delusion and enlightenment, of ri and ji, is what the Buddha ancestors call das.

[29:48]

Das have I heard. Just das. So the work that Dogen is giving us to do in this teaching is to keep us moving, not to get stuck. That's kind of one of the big... experiences that I think is most common as we read Dogen is like, why did he just say that and now he says the opposite? Or what's he doing now? It's like he's not even on topic anymore. So he's constantly kind of pulling the rug out from under us, you know, just as we're about to step forward. Off it goes again. So not to get stuck in either one side or the other of any two propositions, nor to get stuck in the middle. So that's a trick. people like to do. Well, I'm not going to go to that extreme or that one, but maybe I'll just do this one, the middle one, as though that takes care of it. But that's a stuck, too, as though you could put these two sides together to make their differences disappear. So when we look at the next few paragraphs of the Ganjo Koan, what leapt out to me is this admonition from Nichira Bokasan, whose commentary I've been looking at is really good.

[30:56]

It's in Dogen's Genjo-Kon, a text, I think it's on your reading list for this class. And it has these three commentaries. There's Nichiara Bokusan, who was the teacher of Suzuki Roshi's teacher, Kishizawa Iyan. So there's a really close family connection for us between this commentary by Bokusan and Suzuki Roshi. They're one generation apart, but the influence is there. from these teachings. And then one of the commentaries is by Suzuki Roshi, and then one is by Uchiyama, who's the teacher of Okamura Roshi, a very well-regarded Zen teacher who's living in America. So, Ichiara Bokusan says that we cannot hope to understand this profound statement by Dogen. the one that I'm going to say right now. When myriad dharmas come forth and illuminate the self is enlightenment. So the first statement was to carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion.

[32:01]

So I'm reading from the Genshin one. That the myriad things, the myriad dharmas come forth and illuminate the self is enlightenment. So it's kind of the reversal of flow. You know, the flow that we're used to is the flow of from here to all that out there. I am going to the store. I'm getting in my car. I'm going to talk to my friends. I'm going to do this. So me and whatever verbs I'm working with and the object. So the subject object and then the action. So this is reversing that. You know, the store, as I walk through the door, the store comes forth and realizes me with all this stuff, you know, and all of these people and this shopping cart and all of this amazement, you know. It's really reversing the direction of our understanding. So when the myriad of dharmas come forth and illuminate the self cannot be understood unless we practice. So unless we put it to work, unless we put ourselves to work. So unless we put our wholehearted effort into practicing and embodying the way of the Buddha, we won't understand.

[33:10]

We won't understand how the mind of the Buddha works. How do you awaken? What does it mean to awaken? Are you already awake? A Buddha says yes. Dogen says yes. The trees say yes. The birds say yes. Everything says yes. The highway patrol. Nothing more alive than when you see that light behind your car. Yes. I see you. I hear you. What did I do? So... Unless we put our wholehearted effort into practicing and embodying the way of the Buddha, we won't understand. So it begins by studying ourselves thoroughly and honestly, just as it says a little further down in this text, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. Probably one of the most repeated lines at Zen Center, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. It's a big surprise that I wasn't expecting that. I've done a lot of studying in my day, but I never heard about that.

[34:13]

Study yourself. How do you do that? You need help. I mean, we all need help. You do that by looking in mirrors of others. The others are the mirrors. I've often said to myself and to friends, other teachers, that I think our job as teachers is to reflect the virtue of others. Because oftentimes they don't see it. They don't see their virtue. Much too often they just see things that are wrong. It's just like... you can see their suffering. And so how kind to try and help them see their virtue. So Bokasan then says that the oneness of self and others will naturally be understood without explanation when you penetrate where the border lies between delusion and enlightenment. So that's where you want to put your samadhi focus. Where is the borderline between delusion, borderline, Being the borderline.

[35:14]

Delusion and awakening. What would that line look like? Again, if you're in a mind like the ocean or a mind like the sky, it would be hard to find where is that border and when do you cross it? How would you know? Is there a sound or a feeling? Maybe there isn't one. Maybe there's no distinction. Maybe we just get confused. So once understanding the border between delusion and enlightenment, you naturally understand the Genjo Kwan of delusion and enlightenment within the Buddhadharma of all dharmas. So all-inclusive means delusion and enlightenment are included. You're not going to get rid of one and just be left with the other. And you're not going to just think you're deluded and that you don't have enlightenment, because they're always together. You know, they're conjoined twins. So then, again, as I said last week, the practice that boksan recommends is going to that place up the mountain, ri, and looking back at that place down the mountain, ji, from where you've come.

[36:25]

So you go to the ultimate truth, whatever way you understand that. Also, it's called, in some texts, called the dark side. Looking at the source is dark. You can't really see where you're coming from. Like right now... You know, I'm coming from, I don't know where I'm coming from because it's dark. I don't know how this is happening. If I try to catch the moment of creation of this person, it's not, I can't get it. There's no way. You know, I've tried that. I mean, when you're sitting for an hour, you try lots of things. So sometimes I've tried to see if I can catch that moment of emergent, you know, when I emerge from out of the chaos or whatever's going on back there. And I'm, nope. There's no way, just this person, without any sense of how this is happening. So that would be the source or the dark. We emerge from the dark into the light. I wake up in the morning and I step up and I turn the lights on, and that's the beginning of my day as a conscious being.

[37:29]

So we go up to the mountain, we go to the dark, we sit there quietly, we do nothing, and then we look back where we came from, and then we do the other. We go down, we get into the village, we go to town, we do our shopping, meet with friends, and then back up to the mountain. This is pretty much defies what Zen Center is doing all day long. You go up the mountain, and then you come back down. You go to work meeting, go to your crew, and then go back up the mountain, and then you come back down. Until there's not quite such an oscillation, the rise and fall, ceases to be quite so dramatic you know it's like yeah it's okay things are okay it's okay it's a little more the road gets a little smoother the more you do this up and down the mountain so and then boksan says you just keep doing that go up the mountain and then come back down and look from where you came and you continue doing that for years and years and years asking yourself along the way the question what

[38:37]

what? Yeah, just what? What is it? What is it? When the self is completely the self, there's no self. There's no self. When there's no self, there's no other. And in such a case, whether you like it or not, delusion and enlightenment are one thusness. No self, no other. Just this. Just this. Just this moment. Genjo Kwan. So being free of some dualistic views, such as a self and another, or subject and object, or delusion and realization, or Buddhas and sentient beings, being free from these dualistic and delusional views of these two separate things, as if they could be separated, allows us to function in the world as it appears. the way it looks, in which the self is the self, and the dharmas are dharmas, and nothing gets in the way of what's appearing.

[39:40]

Without hindrance, we can have a free life, we can behave freely in the world, unbounded by delusions of separation. Dharmas are dharmas, self is self, cheese is cheese, moon is moon, dog is dog. It's on all day long. It's just like no complaint. Things are as they are. And then there's Suzuki Roshi's words which I really appreciated. I'll repeat some of them for you again this week to help us with these really amazing turns. Suzuki Roshi says that we say things are good or bad without knowing what good or bad even means. When we have no particular concrete idea of good or bad, we expose ourselves and accept criticism. And that is enlightenment. When we have no particular concrete idea of good or bad, we expose ourselves, like, I don't really know.

[40:44]

And we accept criticism. And that is enlightenment. That vulnerability, you know, that openness, that wonder, what? What? Is it good? Is it bad? And then he says, since most of our life is unconscious, when we say, I am right, this is only a small fraction of ourself. The more you understand yourself, the less you know what you are exactly. And in most cases, don't know is what's right. Don't know. Not knowing is nearest. So that's why Dogen says, to know what is delusion is enlightenment. To know what is delusion is enlightenment. We cannot escape from ignorance in order to attain enlightenment because enlightenment is not somewhere else. You just don't know it. Don't know is nearest. So feeling an urge myself to move on, although there isn't anywhere else to go, I thought I would forge ahead through the next several paragraphs and some of the commentary.

[41:50]

But I think we'll probably wait till next week to do that since there's only about 15. 15 minutes left before the hour. So next week I'm going to focus on the next three paragraphs, beginning with, when you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, And unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. I've been asking a lot of people about this. I told you last week, I don't get this one. I really don't. So I haven't really talked. I talked to Rev and I'm talking to Kokyo and, you know, I'm going to talk to Jiryu. So I'm going to collect all of these very bright and devoted Zen folks to help me with this one because they all have a little different idea about it. So that's kind of good. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things.

[42:51]

When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So you really hear Dogen's own enlightenment experience in this body-mind drop away. So that's really probably the motto, you know, the bumper sticker for Dogen Zen is body-mind drop, drop body-mind, body-mind drop. Shinjin datsuraku, drop body-mind, body-mind drop, drop dropping. I like that poem about the raindrops. I think that's a really good example of, you know, the raindrops, they're happening, but they're not, you know, they're just... dropping just you know and uh and we call it rain we just say oh rain it's raining you know but it's so much more than that yeah when you first seek dharma you imagine you're far away from its environment but dharma is already correctly transmitted you are immediately your original self

[43:59]

And then he does this thing about when you're in a boat in the open ocean, which I really like, and I might have time to get to that one too next week because that's kind of a fun one to be imagining yourself out in the open ocean in a boat. Very helpful image. When you're out in the boat watching the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine married things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. That this thing is always here, that this is here, you know. And eternal, hopefully, in some way. People hope that. And when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. You know, just the rain. Just the rain. Or like Reb used to talk about snowflakes landing on a hot iron skillet. It's quiet, quiet. always changing, everything changing.

[45:04]

So Boksan then says that when the one who realizes and then that which is realized are both empty and serene, today's activity is just today's activity without regret or longing for something different than this. So every day is a good day. You know, that's our Zen thing. It's like just today is where it's happening. You don't have anything left over and you have nothing to go forward with. Just today, it's okay to plan. I mean, that's a thing you can do today. But to dream about something else or somewhere else or just to be caught up in memories of the past, things from the past, is a dream. It's just dreaming. It's just being lost to the present, to the sights and the sounds of the present moment, the Genjo Koan. So in this way, we are not stuck in the ascent into emptiness, into re. So if we just keep allowing ourselves to not get stuck in this realization of re, of emptiness, of the ultimate truth, nor to get stuck in the descent into phenomena, the relative truth.

[46:19]

Again, it's this image of going up and coming down, going up and coming down. It's important to have to go to that side. There's another Zen saying, you should go to that side so you know that it's there, this top of the mountain, but come back to this side to practice. So the learning only happens on this side, in G. G is the learning mode. This other non-dual realization, you don't learn anything there. There's no there there. So there's nothing to learn there. There's no you there, and there's no objects. So it's more like a knowing, and knowing this kind of vast and unified field of reality. But we don't live there. We do live there, but we don't camp out. We don't try to make it into a home or decorate it or something. Really, we come back to town. We come back to the village with our friends and that sort of thing. So that's today's thinking about things, and I'd love to hear from you, whatever you'd like to offer.

[47:26]

Please, please come. Please come. has ever asked you not to do anything before I'm asking you please do something no pressure all right hi Hey, Dean. All right. Thank you, dear. Oh, Marianne. Okay, I'll take either one.

[48:26]

Dean, you're next. Marianne. I don't know. Oh, Karina's playing a little bait and switch here. Okay, Dean. Okay. I'm wondering about, so when you've been sitting for a long time, a number of years, there's a possibility that you've developed an understanding or knowing of everything that the Genjo Koan talks about and everything that they all talk about because it's always the same thing. Right. What I'm wondering is something that you said, it says once you have it, you have it. And what is it at the times when... You don't have it. I mean, you know you have it because there's an ongoing phase that automatically develops when you're doing nothing.

[49:30]

It just is very magical. It develops after a time. But when that knowing seems to have taken leave, what is... Yeah. What is that? Where does that fit into all this? Well, that is one side's illuminated, the other's dark. So when you're caught up in delusion, when you're caught up in G, and the details of your life have really got you, you're in samadhi with like your bills, you know, you've gone into merger with these various difficulties, then you don't see the oneness. You don't feel the serenity and so on. That's okay. I mean, it's not like none of us are... are bad because we do that. I mean, if we had no contrast, if we hadn't had that peaceful abiding, then that's all we know. We just know that trying to get out of the anxiety of needing more money or needing a better job or needing a better relationship, I mean, that would just be a chasing, chasing, chasing situation, which I think is characteristic for a lot of people of how their lives are.

[50:38]

So I feel like we have this, both the burden and the gift of there's, oh, there's something else. about me that's really sweet and really special. And I didn't know it was there until I sat down and did nothing. And it's like, wow, you know. And then, you know, the folklore is that it takes 20 years to integrate that, you know. If you work at it, it takes 20 years to integrate that understanding, a profound wider view with your everyday, you've got to still work out your karma. You've got to go through that collection of conditioning that you've been carrying around, and you have to take them and look at them and make a different decision about how you're going to relate to when I get angry, when I feel jealous, when I feel insulted. These are very common, right? These are the things that arise from our conditioning.

[51:39]

And just because you've had this experience... of silent illumination, you still need to do the work of making different choices. And that's the part that we talk about all the time, that's practice discussion and docks on, and very personal. And everyone's a little different, like some are greed types, some are hate types, some are confused types. And so the work that's being done there is maybe in a different angle. on what needs to be done to support the effort to be less angry or less greedy. So I'd just say there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong. It's just that is the job. That's the job. And I think once you have those peaceful feelings, you sort of long for those too. That's good. She had really liked to feel feel that way again that I felt that last day of Sashin, you know, remember that?

[52:45]

Yeah. So is there a different way? I don't believe there is, but I'm wondering if there is a different way to practice. You know how if you have a profession that, for example, you're really good at building things or creating things and you're a wonderful chef and you You become this wonderful chef and you've been being a chef for 20 something years. And something's not quite working. Now, for the first 20 years, what you did is you just kept doing this. And maybe for the first 20 years of practice or 25 years of practice, you just kept sitting, sitting, sitting. But does there come a time when there's and it almost sounds like it's a different effort or it's the same effort? but because you've moved so far that sometimes there's a different kind of effort?

[53:51]

Almost it sounds like that's what you're saying. Yeah. Well, now I'm presuming you're talking about yourself. You've been, yeah, just guessing, but it's a long time, and so have I. And I feel like we came to a point where, you know, I could have left. I could have said, I'm so much better than I was that I don't need to be here anymore. I don't need to be in the hospital anymore. I feel like, you know, it worked. And I feel so much happier and more balanced and more sane, literally sane. And so, and I could have. You know, I could have gone and done something else in probably my 40s or my 50s maybe. But there was something about staying the course for the sake of the people coming. And they were interesting enough to me. That's why I keep telling you, you know, you've got to take this other job on, which you do, but also like, you know, to be able to offer the teaching and to be able to then start to all that...

[54:57]

wonderful nourishment you got is turning into like a mother's milk. And then now you will not feel good until you start getting that out and start nourishing others with what you've learned. And so I think that is, it's a circulating system, you know, getting and giving is one word. So you get this nourishment and then your job is to give it to others. And I think that's probably the next step that we're talking about. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Hello, Helene. Start again. Thank you. You're on. You're on. I've got this little message here that I need to get rid of. Okay. Hi, and thank you so much. Hi, Helene. wonderful talk.

[55:58]

Thank you. And hi, Sangha. It's great to see everybody. So I wanted to say first that well, going back to Taiching's Fox. Yeah. Like those reborn lives. I mean, it's like really, it's such a simple but fascinating concept that this priest ordained, you know, promised acts in a tricky way. And it's such a beautiful, you know, it's kind of, and so he's born 300 times as a fox. Yeah. You know, 500, even worse. So that really gives you the power of the responsibility of not taking your G for granted.

[57:14]

I mean, so there's all this re to plug it into. And anyway, looking back over my 500 lives, I'm just kind of horrified right now. You know, I just I see my mother, my father, my grandmother, and I'm kind of like, oh, no. You know, so I'm just kind of dealing with trying to. understand the relationship between myself and them which has been a source of a lot of trouble but also I wanted to say that in talking about coming back that seems to be I think I'm changing the subject in speaking of coming back as you often do use that language

[58:20]

It seems that that is just the practice of Zazen, is just coming back to your breathing, coming back to your cushion. You know, it's all about coming back. Coming back to your beautiful fox body. You know, if you read that koan, he says he was a beautiful fox. It's not like, what's wrong with a fox? You know, he spent 500 lifetimes with his big red bushy tail foxing around. So, you know, partly we think, oh, no, that's terrible. Right. So it's sort of like rather than judging or trying to figure it out, it's like, okay, here's the story and here's the narrative and it's mythic and wonderfully free of... imposing limitations on the fox or on the, you know, the old Zen master or the new Zen master. So without those three elements, we wouldn't have a story. It wouldn't be this really wonderful thing that we can, you know, think about and consider for ourselves.

[59:24]

So don't shortchange the fox, you know? Okay. You know, I think we're all doing one of our fox incarnations, you know? Yeah, that's a good point. That's a great point. Thank you. It's very good, Phil. Thank you, Elaine. Yeah. Okay. Marianne, did you want to... I don't see you were up there a minute ago. No, I wasn't, but thank you. You wasn't? Oh. Well, here's a question. Taking from Kyoko's talk this morning, he talked about... walking through the tall grasses and pushing away the tall grasses and picking up the weeds as we look towards enlightenment. And he did this wonderful comparison with Rinzai and Soto Zen in looking at passing those gates that he talked, bridges or gates.

[60:27]

So my question is, for Soto Zen, maybe we're sitting in those grasses. We may not be pushing them away, but Maybe metaphorically we're pushing them away, but we're sitting in those grasses, right? And we got the past, present, and future. And the more we sit, the more we mow them down. Is that kind of a... Yeah, it's just, and we're together. Not just me sitting in the grass, you're sitting in the grass with me. We're kind of calling out to each other. How are you doing over there? Okay, fine. I can't see very well. Yeah. But whatever. Why don't we stand up? Let me see if we can see a little better. We all stand up for a minute here. I mean, I think that's one story about why we stood up is because there were all those grasses out in the savannah in Africa. And so we got up like these little meerkats do. We got up on our legs so we could see what was going on. So, you know, it's a wonderful to come up with the metaphors that really kind of work to be encouraging.

[61:31]

I think that's a fun part of this practice is the poetry. and how to find what resonates for you in terms of practice. And I like the koans. I like the chopping down the trees and jumping off the cliffs and all that sort of thing, you know, because it's just mental gymnastics. You know, you don't really hit the ground when you jump from the pole. So you learn a lot from both sides of those wonderful teachings. Yeah. You know, and then I guess for me, too, that just sitting has been, yeah, it's just been like, wow, okay. Sort of like I can do that. You know, the first day. Sometimes I remember the first time I sat in that Zendo at Page Street. I kind of flashed back to that because it was weird. And I was like, where am I? Sort of like open ocean rowing. Mm-hmm. very quiet, and there's obviously people around, but they're not talking, and no one's moving, and they're wearing black clothing, and I don't know how long it was, facing the wall, you know?

[62:41]

Is there someone behind me? I mean, what is going on here? And somehow it was intriguing enough that I came back. I came back and came back. As Helene said, you keep saying come back. I said, yeah, I keep coming back. You know? I'm sorry I missed Al. I used to call him Al. His name is Luminous Al. Kokyo is the Japanese. Yeah, I'm sorry I missed his talk. I know he always gives these really lovely talks. He's one of my resources. He asks him all kinds of things. He always knows. Or he'll find out. He'll send me a long email. I'll ask him a question. He sends me this long email with this wonderful set of references and stuff. So it's lovely to have friends. I like that. Very good. I also want to just give a special greeting to the Sangha and to Millicent. I'm watching Millicent, and she's so wrapped up, maybe because it's winter there in Australia.

[63:43]

And I live in Contra Costa County, and we've been having a heat wave. So it's wonderful to see Millicent. I feel cooler just seeing her in the Sangha tonight. Thank you, Millicent. Yeah, it's winter down under. Yeah, that's right. Okay. All right. I'm going to go on gallery view so I can see Millicent, too. Where are you, Millicent? There is she. Oh, Millicent. Don't you hide. Oh, she's keeping warm. And how many of you are in a heat wave right now? Yeah. Yeah. that's right 117 in phoenix so it's a little different are you serious yeah yeah we got driving over got up to 115 when we were driving but it's getting up to 117 in here so that's crazy yeah oh my goodness oh my gosh i don't think i've ever experienced more than 110 it's

[64:52]

It's an experience. It's nostalgic for me. It reminds me of summer. I feel 117. You get in the car and you try to not fall asleep and remember that you have stuff to do because it just feels like you're in a sauna immediately. You can take it either way. It's just an experience. That's for sure. They're out there in the heat. Yeah, just look at Millicent. See, she has a sweater on. Exactly. The secret is going from air conditioning to air conditioning. That's the way you have to live out here, unfortunately. We one time put my daughter on a plane to Minnesota. I don't know what we were thinking, but here we were in California. I forget what time. It was in the fall, I think. And we didn't pack a coat for some reason. She got off the airplane. She called and said, I'm freezing! Why? It's snowing.

[65:52]

Oh. That's how it goes. It's so dramatic, the change. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay, you all. Please take good care. Wonderful to see you all. See you in a week. And we'll keep plodding through the ultimate truth.

[66:17]

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