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Endless Bottomless You

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Summary: 

This is the last talk in a 3-week series of the Zuimonki. Zoketsu Norman Fischer brings alive the teachings of the last book of the Zuimonki and explores the teachings of casting aside body and mind. What is it to cast off something we never were?
03/20/2021, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, dharma talk at City Center.

AI Summary: 

The talk explores the practice of Zazen in Soto Zen, emphasizing its essence beyond meditation, as the embodiment of Buddha Dharma. The discussion delves into three stages of Dharma practice—listening, seeing, and experiencing—as explained through Dogen's teachings in "Zuimonki." The talk also explores how practitioners embody and express the Dharma through conduct, emphasizing the idea of practice through action and embodied learning rather than intellectual understanding alone. The speaker highlights Dogen's emphasis on continuous practice and personal transformation, culminating in the abandonment of fixed views and self-concepts through Zazen.

Referenced Texts and Authors:

  • "Zuimonki" by Dogen: Discussed as a central text in the talk, Dogen’s teachings in "Zuimonki" illustrate the transformative process of practice and the importance of embodying the Dharma. The text underpins the discussion on stages of Dharma learning and continuous practice.

  • "Shobogenzo" by Dogen: Referenced in the context of Dogen's teachings on Dharma expression, particularly in the fascicle discussing the dignified conduct of the practice Buddha, known as "Gyobutsu Igi."

  • Shohaku Okamura: His updated translation of "Zuimonki" is noted for its structural differences from earlier versions, affecting the order and emphasis of Dogen's teachings.

  • Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt: Translators of "Shobogenzo," whose work is cited to explain the concept of dignified conduct as "the awesome presence of active Buddhas."

These references are critical for understanding the transformation through Zazen, providing a foundation for interpreting Dogen’s teachings on practice and embodiment within Zen philosophy.

AI Suggested Title: Embodying Dharma Through Zazen Practice

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Transcript: 

This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Morning, everybody. Happy equinox. Happy spring. Maybe some of you attended our... Equinox ceremony this morning. It was really lovely. With beautiful words from Kathy and lots of beautiful words from the assembly. And especially, to me, the great chanting of Kodo in May. It is really inspiring to hear with good sound quality, right? a male and a female voice chanting together they blend so well and the thing is when one has to breathe the other one continues and then the other one breathes and the other one continues so in this way there's no gap at all in the chanting and so you hear two and then for a moment you hear one

[01:27]

and then you hear two, and you hear one. And I just found it very, very beautiful. The previous morning, the last day of this long winter, we had another ceremony that was equally powerful, but in another key. we were grieving and thinking about the really terrible killings in Atlanta a couple of days ago or so. And in that ceremony we saw the beautiful Gringo Zindo, which was empty except for Linda, who gave really strong Dharma words, and then we heard the Resolute, powerful chanting of Yuki as she chanted the echo, the commemoration words.

[02:39]

It was very moving. This new, not so new, but now we're hearing about, newly hearing about this violence against Asian people, especially Asian women. It's pretty hard to take. And as a person who's practiced in an Asian tradition for many, many decades, I really feel it. And it was so good to have a chance to have my feelings held and expressed in the ceremony. So I'm thanking everyone who produced that, starting with Linda and Yuki and the rest. As Kodo just mentioned, this is the last talk this morning in a series of talks that Kathy and I have been giving on Zui Won Ki and our intensive.

[03:41]

It's also like just the ordinary Saturday public talk that happens every week and has forever and ever. It's also at the same time the concluding talk of our three-day session. It's the talk of the all-day sit. So we're doing a lot of work with one talk, right? As I'm sure everybody here knows, in Soto Zen, Zazen is more than a meditation practice. As we learned from reading Zvi Monki, and as we heard specifically yesterday from Kathy in her Dharma talk, for Dogen, Zazen is not a meditation practice. It's the whole of the Buddha Dharma. It is itself the awesome presence of active, living Buddhas.

[04:41]

Now, outwardly, and even inwardly, Zazen is... Nothing special, it's just basic Buddhist meditation. It's the same meditation more or less that people who do mindfulness meditation are doing or people who are doing Vipassana are doing more or less the same simple meditation on the breath. Nothing extraordinary about it. But as we understand Zazen through the inspiration of Dogen and Suzuki Roshi, we come to understand and then eventually actually feel this in our body and in our breath and in our heart and in our thoughts that Zazen really is awesome awakening itself and we really appreciate doing Zazen and that's why it's

[05:48]

useless or silly to think, how are we doing? Are we doing it right? Are we doing it wrong? Are we doing it well? Are we doing it poorly? All of that has nothing to do with it. We just need to do it. And this teaching that we can sit down, you know, and enter the healing mind of the Buddha is so comforting and so supportive for our human life, which in these times is difficult. But the truth is, life really is difficult and it has always been difficult. And it's not my fault. It's not your fault. It's not our fault. It's just the way it is. But because it's so difficult, there is a path. And that path makes life joyful, even in the middle of all the difficulties.

[06:57]

The other day in my talk, I was quoting the Zrimonki passage where Dogen says that the process of practice is a process of reforming your views, letting go of your conditioned views, even though you still have them, you know, you let go of them. And Dogen says that you do this by taking in the views of your teacher and fully embracing them. And I was thinking about this. And it's so interesting to me how a teacher's view, a teacher's particular way, becomes the unique embodiment of the Dharma. And, you know, I've been hanging around the Zen Center for a long time. And I find it astonishing that all the people who practice with Suzuki Roshi, many of them now passed away, but some still around the Zen Center, that every one of them expresses his spirit.

[08:14]

And you can tell when you hang around them. that they've completely taken in Suzuki Roshi's way. But it's even more astonishing that their disciples have never met Suzuki Roshi. In fact, all the disciples in our Suzuki Roshi Dharma family also share this way of Suzuki Roshi, this dedication, this gentle humor, a lightness, a kindness, a big wide forgiving spirit, however you want to think of it, you can feel it in these people. Even though they never met Suzuki Roshi. And here's what's even more astonishing than that. Even though all these people share, unmistakably,

[09:19]

a particular way, in a particular spirit, each and every one of them is completely different. As if each one was expressing a totally different dharma. It's weird, right? It doesn't even make any sense. But this is something that I have noticed. And I mention this because when you read the Zwimanki, you recognize the spirit of Suzuki Roshi that I'm talking about in the Zvi Monkey. So it's been great to study it during this short intensive. So this morning I'll bring up a few last passages from book six, which is the final book of Zvi Monkey. This is talk number six from book six. An ancient said, you must listen, you must see.

[10:25]

He also said, if you have not experienced, and the earlier translation says, if you have not attained, you must look. If you have not seen, you must listen. He meant that we should see rather than listen, that we should experience or attain rather than see. If we have not experienced, we should see. If we have not seen, we should listen. So this is a really interesting passage to me because it makes you think about how we practice and how we develop in our practice over time. So he seems to be bringing up here three ways to study and digest the Dharma. To listen, to see, and to attain, or as Shoha Kunal wants to translate, we experience.

[11:29]

So we listen, we see, we attain, or experience. So as you know from the Mahayana point of view, the early students of Buddhism are called hearers. In other words, they listened faithfully to the teachings, even to the point of memorizing them. They deeply respected them. They followed them. But from a Mahayana point of view, they didn't really make them their own. So this is the practice of listening or hearing. And this is the practice that we all do at the beginning. We just listen. We take it. And if we're critical and we disagree or don't like what we hear, we pay attention to that. But rather than do what we usually do, dismiss what we don't like or agree with, or possibly worse, pretend somehow to ourselves that we do like it when we really don't,

[12:42]

We say, okay, that really doesn't sound right to me, and I don't like it too much. But rather than just throw it out and decide that it's no good, I'll just keep turning it over in my mind. I'll investigate, and I'll see later on how it looks to me. That's the spirit that we have to have in the beginning. That's the spirit of hearing. In other words, we're willing to give the teachings and the teachers the benefit of the doubt. And if we didn't do that, what would be the point anyway of studying the Dharma? It would be a total waste of time. Because the point of practicing is to transform. And how are we going to transform if we go on accepting and rejecting what we already accept and reject in the beginning? But after a while, we go beyond just listening to what here Dogen calls seeing.

[13:50]

Because listening is a little bit passive, right? It's good in the beginning, for sure, to be passive, to be receptive, to be like we say. It's a beautiful expression, isn't it? All ears. I'm all ears. To take in something without messing with it. or of course we mess with it a little bit, but not messing with it too much. But seeing is a little more active than this. When you see, you know, in some way you can feel almost your eyes going out to meet objects. The eyes searching and scanning the environment, interacting with the environment. And in this case, seeing is a metaphor that means to really see, really get, what we have heard. So that we're no longer just a receiver. We're now an active participant.

[14:52]

Which means our view has begun to reform and the Dharma no longer feels like an exotic or external teaching that we've been listening to. It is becoming our own life. Our life is beginning to be the sutra. just as much as the sutra on the page or in our ear. Then the third stage is we experience or we attain. I guess Shohaka thought it over and thought, well, I don't like attain, I'm going to say experience. But I think that neither of these words in English quite fill the bill. I'm guessing myself that probably the original word in medieval Japanese probably does translate more like attain.

[15:52]

And I apologize that I didn't go into this and investigate this word further. But my sense is that it means, in a way, yes, attain. But the word attain, you know, it has a strong sense of acquisitiveness or accomplishment that I don't think... is meant there and yes experience is right but that word also has a kind of sense of pride or accumulation to it right I am an experienced person I've had experiences you know so that's not quite it so maybe I would say if I were translating it even though I'm sure it doesn't say this but I think the sense of it is to express to express or maybe to live in other words We hear, then we see, and then we begin through the ongoing living that we're doing to express the Dharma in our own unique way.

[16:54]

Just as I was saying earlier about all the disciples in the Suzuki Roshi Dharma family, each of whom, and that includes all of you too, express the Dharma in his or her unique way. In the body. in the way you stand, the way you walk, the way you sit, in your emotions, facial expressions, your eyebrows, you know, very expressive eyebrows, in your actions, small and large, and of course in your words too. And I think this is what we value so much about our Zen tradition. And I think what may... possibly be unique about it among the Buddhist traditions is that it emphasizes expressing the Dharma. Expressing the Dharma. Something Dogen writes about directly in many places in Shobhogenso. Bringing the Dharma alive anew.

[17:57]

Through your own living and dying in the conditions in which you find yourself. So here's the talk that comes next. Talk seven in book six, the final book. Nogin also said, when practicing the way, we must be cautious of our deep-rooted attachments and cast them aside. If you change your physical behavior, if you change your physical behavior, your mind will change as well. First of all, if you maintain activities according to the precepts based on moral codes and forms, your mind will be transformed. In Song China, there is a custom among lay people. They gather at their ancestral shrine and pretend to cry in order to demonstrate their filial piety toward their fathers and mothers.

[19:00]

They pretend to cry, but then eventually they actually do cry. Students of the way should do the same. Even if you don't have the mind of awakening in the beginning, if you compel yourself to choose to practice the Buddha way wholeheartedly, eventually you will arise, you will arouse the true mind of awakening. So this is an interesting, perhaps kind of foreign instruction, very characteristic of the old Japanese and probably all Asian cultures have this way of learning. It's kind of an old model, maybe we had it in the West too at one time, the apprenticeship model. To be an apprentice is actually quite different from being a student. Because an apprentice just, you know, does stuff following the lead of the master.

[20:03]

even though they have no idea what they're doing. They just do it. And eventually, they know. In the old days, in the Zen Center, no one ever told you what to do. I started practicing in the Berkeley Zen Center, they never told you what to do. Even though there's a million rules and picky little details, more or less, they wouldn't tell you about them. You were supposed to just sort of observe and conform. And Kathy was mentioning this the other day, I think, in one of her talks about how clumsy and stupid you would feel for quite a while until eventually you got used to it and then you were the insider and you could look down your nose at the other people who came and didn't know what they were doing. So a lot of people, I think, found this to be unfriendly or even hostile. And I'm sure there were probably thousands of people who came to the Zen Center once, experienced this, and never came back.

[21:10]

But the idea wasn't to make you unwelcome or to express a kind of exclusivity, even if it felt like that. I think, ultimately, the idea was to practice as Dogen is recommending here. Just do what you see around you, even if you don't know what's going on, and your body will learn. But in a multicultural world in which you can't expect people to understand this or appreciate it, and the likelihood is that they will take it in exactly the wrong way, we have to explain everything all the time so people can understand. Or at least we try to explain. And since there are all the time new people coming, you have to explain it again and again and again and again. I guess it's all now written down and codified so you can just read the script because you have to explain it so many times.

[22:17]

But here, don't get to saying the opposite. Don't explain. Just do it, even though you don't understand it. Don't worry about explanations. Just do it. Fake it till you make it, I think we say. Pretend to cry when everybody else is crying. And eventually you'll start crying. Now this, you know, strikes us usually as being like really false and a stupid thing. You know, it's insulting, right? That we would be asked to do this. We are, after all, autonomous, intelligent people. And we're not going to do something just because we're told to do it. We want to know why we're doing it and how do you do it. So I think more or less we don't do it that way anymore, but actually it's a pretty good method. And I think the reason it's good is that it emphasizes the body, which is so smart, compared to the mind, which thinks it's so smart, but might not be as smart as the body.

[23:25]

But there's also more to it than that. Dogen is specifically talking here about physical activity, as he says, monastic comportment. He's talking about the specific ways that we walk and stand and bow in the Zendo, the way we wear our robes, if we wear robes. In other words, the whole feeling, the whole protocol is evoked just when we walk into a Zendo. So, Shohaku, in his translation here, gives... an explanation, a footnote here, to the phrase physical behavior in the passage I just quoted. And here's Shohaku's footnote. He says physical behavior is his translation of mi no ego. And he gives the characters from mi no ego. Mi means body, not ego, igi, sorry. Mi no igi. Mi means body and igi

[24:33]

in Chinese, can be translated as comportment or dignified conduct. As, for example, in the fast-field show of Genzo, entitled, The Dignified Conduct of the Practice Buddha, Gyobutsu Igi, which Kaz translates, Kaz's translation of that phrase in his version, is the awesome presence of active Buddhas. Kaz and Peter Levitt translate, the awesome presence of active Buddhas. That's what Dogen is referring to here in this passage. So, to go on with Shohaku's footnote, Dogen's title of this fascicle represents his unusual alternative understanding of this phrase, which would normally be read as practicing the Buddha's dignified conduct. So I... looked up this fascicle in Shobo Genzo.

[25:37]

And it is a very long and difficult fascicle, so I didn't, you know, go into the whole thing. But to make a long story short, in that fascicle, Dogen is expressing that our conduct, our practice in the Zendo, not only in Zazen, but everything we do in the Zendo, in all its detail, is not, as it would appear to us, just a bunch of traditional Japanesey, picky, external stuff. I mean, maybe it is that too, but it's also the awesome, dignified conduct of the Buddha's own practice. In other words, when we practice monastic comportment, you know, cross the threshold with this foot and not that foot and so on and so on, bow to your seat, walk in shashu, and so on, we are enacting the true nature of who we actually are. We're physically transforming.

[26:42]

We're sloughing off the everyday body and mind that we have grown over a long habit to deeply disrespect. And we're entering our actual body, our Buddha body, and our actual mind, our Buddha mind. And it reminds me of Suzuki Roshi once saying somewhere or other, when I see you guys walk into the zindo, slouching and walking in your usual way, I can't tell who you are. You all kind of look the same to me. But when you stand, up and walk in Shashu the way a person ought to walk in a Zendo, then I can tell each one of you who you are. And somehow when you appreciate this point, you begin to start, you begin to feel it in your body and in your heart.

[27:44]

You don't feel like yourself anymore. Or maybe to put it the opposite way, you feel finally, actually like yourself. Anyway, Dogen speaks about this in that fast goal, which is number 24, I believe, in the two-volume Kaz and Peter translation. Maybe you'll study it sometime and appreciate it more. Dogen then goes on, if you practice following other practitioners, you'll be able to attain the way. For example, when it comes to sailing a ship, If you do not know the ancient practice of sailing, or even if you do know how to steer or how the boat sails, if you entrust yourself to good sailors, whether you understand or not, you will reach the other shore. Only if you follow a good teacher and practice with fellow practitioners without harboring personal views will you naturally become a person of the way.

[28:53]

So here again, as we've seen a number of times in Zuimoki, Dogen is emphasizing the importance of simply putting yourself in a good environment for practice. And that includes, you know, a good practice place with a tradition, long held and long practiced, serious fellow practitioners and teachers to guide everyone. And just putting yourself in that and trusting the process, giving yourself to it, with, as Kathy said yesterday, I think, in her great Dharma talk, with sincerity, meaning, without worrying about gain or getting anywhere, but just fully giving yourself. And when you do that, you will get there by and by. It's a beautiful metaphor that Dogen uses elsewhere.

[29:58]

This metaphor is practice as sailing in a ship. When you live shipboard, you know, you have to be very mindful. You have to be very aware of every detail. Everything has to be in its place. Life has to be very precise and simple. And you are quite aware. that there are only a precious few of us here on this vulnerable little ship in the middle of a vast ocean that surrounds us everywhere we look under a vast sky that stretches as far as the eye can see and we're sailing together across this endless ocean toward the horizon. And then Dogen ends this passage this way.

[30:59]

Students of the Way, even if you have attained realization, do not think that you have reached the pinnacle and stopped practicing. The Way is infinite. Even if you have attained realization, continue to practice the Way. Remember the story of Liyamsui, who visited Zen master Magu. So yes, the horizon is always, what is it, 27 miles ahead. And after 27 miles, the horizon is 27 miles ahead. We're always sailing toward the horizon. And we never get there because the voyage is endless. As we say in our precepts receiving ceremonies, even after becoming a Buddha, Even after you become a Buddha, will you continue to follow this path of precepts?

[32:03]

And all the Urdanese in unison are supposed to say, yes, I will. So again, another footnote from Shohaku here. He gives us the story that Dogen only alludes to of the Yangsui and Magu. And here's Shohaku's telling of that story. The lecturer at Liang Sui visited Magu for the first time. Upon seeing Liang Sui coming, Magu grabbed a hoe and went out to the fields to hoe weeds. And although Liang Sui went to where Magu was working, Magu ignored him. And then he went back to the abbot's quarters and he shut the gate. The next day, Lianxue visited Magu again, and Magu shut the gate again.

[33:04]

And Lianxue, this time, knocked on the gate, and Magu said, Who is it? Lianxue! He called out his own name. And when he heard himself calling his own name, he suddenly attained realization. And he said, Master, do not deceive Lung Sui. If I had not come and made obeisance to you, I would have been deceived by the sutras and commentaries for my entire lifetime. And when he went back to the lecture hall, he gave a speech saying, all you know, Lung Sui knows. But what Lung Sui knows, you don't know. And then he quit. being a lecturer, and everybody, all the students, dispersed. So this is, as Dogen tells us, a story about a person who continues to practice even after awakening.

[34:12]

And I guess the idea on a simple level is that Liang Sui was a great expert, you know, lecturing on the sutras. And yet, he wanted to go visit Mago to receive further instruction. So I guess we could say that Liyang Tsui has beginner's mind. He's willing to see past what he knows, to ask further, to investigate, and to seek the help of others. Which is a great attitude, I think, in general, in living, right? Beginner's mind. If you lose beginner's mind, maybe you also lose the mind of the way. Maybe the mind of the way is beginner's mind. Maybe it's one and the same mind. Yesterday, again in her great talk, Kathy brought up the idea of longing. She said a lot of stuff about it. She said she's been investigating this feeling of longing for a while.

[35:16]

She said you could long for something, like she said I long for chocolate, but then you get the chocolate, but you're still longing. Or maybe you could long for the kind of enlightenment that is going to solve your problems and bring you relief. But also, maybe there is longing for the way. A true longing. That is not about something painfully missing. But, yes, it is about something missing. Because Being human is already something missing. Dogen writes in Genjo Kahn, and one of the most wonderful things he ever said in my mind, something always sticks in my mind, when the Dharma fills the body and mind, you feel something is missing.

[36:19]

This is like his saying the other day, which we were reading and talking about, when you see what life really is, and you realize that before you were not seeing how life really is, you're ashamed. And then you enter the way. In other words, when you understand who you are, it's very humbling. You understand, I am a poor person. human being. Of course, I am lacking. But you cherish this kind of lacking because you know that right in the middle of that feeling of lacking is the sense of wonder and awe that makes you appreciate everything in this life. and makes you know that the only thing to do is to continue to practice and grow in the Dharma endlessly.

[37:28]

But there's still another point in this story that I appreciate. Notice the turning moment in the story when Lianzue answers what he's called. He calls out his own name. And when he hears himself answering the call, he awakens. This also reminds me of probably the most famous of all Dogen's sayings, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. So endless awakening and endless study and practice is not just study and awakening and practice of the Dharma as something external to you. It's study and practice and awakening to the self. I always feel so lucky, you know, when I give a Dharma talk.

[38:35]

It's a tremendous honor, you know, to give a Dharma talk. Because you're talking to awesome human beings. Not like regular schmoes, you know. You are talking to awesome human beings. This Human birth, as many Buddhist texts point out, is an amazing gift. It is an immense privilege. It is an immense responsibility. And there is no end to our appreciation of this human life. There is no end to appreciating that you are you. Unique in all the cosmos. There's no end to it. So when Liyansui calls out and hears himself calling out, in that moment he feels the endlessness and the bottomlessness of Liyansui. There is no end and no beginning to him.

[39:39]

Just as there is no end and no beginning to you. And this trope of call and response is really common. There's a whole bunch of Zen stories you've noticed before, I'm sure, where this same thing happens. The master calls, the disciples answers, and in answering the call, on the spot awakens. And our lives, each one of our lives, also includes a calling. We all have a calling. As they say, you know, a vocation. And it demands a response from us. And when we respond to the call from the teacher, which is the whole world, which is our whole life, then we embark on the path of endless awakening, just as Yang Tsui does in this story. So now I'm going to give you the last talk, the last word of this book we've been studying.

[40:45]

Talk 17. It's about how, as he said repeatedly, we need to forget our views and forget, in this case, not only our views, but even our worldly needs for food and clothing to escape hunger and cold. Don't even worry about that. Just practice the way. So this is the very end of the book. Very short. I'm just reading the end, the little short end of it. True Attainment of the Way. is casting aside body and mind and following our teacher straightforwardly. If we maintain this attitude, we will be true people of the way. And this is the primary truth. And with those words, the book ends. So casting aside body and mind is an important phrase in Dogen, as anybody who's studied Dogen, even a little, knows. When you first hear this phrase, it sounds a little scary, doesn't it?

[41:49]

But when you think about why does it sound scary, you realize it sounds scary because you think you have a body and a mind that belongs to you and you really feel kind of squeamish about casting it off. But after you practice and listen and express or experience or attain, as we were saying before, your view changes. And you realize you never actually had a body and mind that were yours to begin with. And that thinking you did was actually the source of all your suffering. It's actually quite easy to cast off something you never had to begin with. Because you already cast it off. It doesn't require some giant leap into the abyss, some big scary thing.

[42:55]

All you have to do is notice who you are and who you have been all along. That's casting off body and mind. And then, of course, nothing could be more natural and easy going. than following your teacher straightforwardly because now you know who your teacher really is. And of course there's no other way but to follow your teacher. Now I mentioned several times for those of you who have been following this text that in my quoting from the text I'm using a newer translation than the one that is generally available than most of you have. It's also a translation by Shohako Okamura, but it's an updated one. What I didn't mention, because it's a little complicated, is that in the new translation, he's using a different Japanese version of the text.

[44:00]

In the Japanese version that he's using here, there's a few talks that are left out from the other text. Some talks are collapsed two into one, which makes the numbering of the talks in the text, two texts different. But the biggest difference, and this is why I'm bringing it up, it's interesting, the biggest difference is that in the new version from the other Japanese text, book six, the concluding book, the last words of which I just read for you, is in the beginning. So book six is book one, which means that the second to the last book, book five, is the last book. Now this is probably too much useless detail for the final day of session.

[45:06]

But it's interesting because, you know, like... means that the text has a different ending, right? So in the one version, the one that you have, the one that you can easily find online, Zui Monkey ends with all these admonitions about how important it is for you not to think of eating or sleeping or anything else. Don't have any fun, you know, don't read any books, any poetry or anything like that. Just practice. Practice hard. Let go of everything. And it ends with the passage I just quoted cast off body and mind. That's the end. But in the newer version, all of that doesn't come at the end. It comes at the beginning. And in the newer version, the last passage in the book is not the one I read you. It's the one Kathy read you yesterday and discussed with you, some of you who were at that talk yesterday.

[46:08]

It's a passage about Zazen. Zwi Monki ends with a passage about Zazen, actually with a kind of love song, a praise song to Zazen. So to end my talk and to end our series of talks on Zwi Monki, I'll quote that passage for you again. This is, as I say, the last passage Really, in this other version anyway, the last passage in the Zui Moki. The most essential matter in studying the way is Zazen. In Great Song China many people attained the way and they all did so through the power of Zazen. If even an untalented, dull-witted person who cannot penetrate a single sentence devotes himself or herself to Zazen practice, she can exceed an intelligent person who has been studying for many years. Therefore, students must just sit and don't worry about other things.

[47:12]

The way of the Buddhas and ancestors is simply Zazen. And then Ajo said, well, in learning both sitting and the reading of sayings, when I read the sayings, the khaans, I feel I'm only able to understand one thing out of a hundred or a thousand. But in Zazen, there's nothing like that at all. So should we nevertheless be so fond of Zazen? In Dogan instructed, even if you may seem to have some understanding when examining koans or their fundamental points, such studies keep you distant from the way of the Buddhas and ancestors. To spend your time sitting upright with nothing to gain, And nothing to realize is the way of the ancestors.

[48:14]

Although the ancients recommended both reading koans and just sitting, really they primarily promoted sitting. Although there are some who have gained realization through the fundamental points of koans, even if they have, it's because of sitting. sitting is the cause and condition of the unfolding of realization true merit can only come from sitting so many of us together here this morning have been practicing zazen for three days many of us have been practicing zazen for you know months and years and decades. Everybody here has been practicing Zazen. Some. And I hope every one of us will continue to practice Zazen together for a whole lifetime.

[49:25]

And even after that, we are so fortunate to have found this simple and sincere, clear, pathway through life. I am really, like I said before, quite thrilled and honored to be able to share that path with you this morning and always. Thank you very much for being here, for your practice, for your listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge And this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[50:24]

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