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Everyday Enlightenment Through Dogen

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Talk by Shinshu Roberts at City Center on 2025-09-13

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The talk explores Dogen's teachings, particularly focusing on the Genjo Koan and the idea of "realization beyond realization," illustrating how Dogen's teachings remain relevant in contemporary practice. These teachings highlight the importance of listening intently to the world, understanding Buddha nature as intrinsic, and recognizing that enlightenment lies in everyday actions rather than extraordinary experiences. The speaker also emphasizes that each moment and action is imbued with the potential for realization and underscores the interconnectedness of existence as described by Dogen.

Referenced Works and Texts:
- "Genjo Koan" by Dogen: Central to the talk, this text is described as fundamental to Dogen's teachings, illustrating the essence of Dogen's Zen philosophy.
- "Being Time" by Shinshu Roberts: Discusses Dogen's Uji and is developed from a decade of monthly teachings on Dogen's work.
- "Dogen's Genjo Koan: Meeting the Myriad Things" by Shinshu Roberts: Origins and insights into practice are discussed, with a focus on Genjo Koan.
- Shobogenzo by Dogen: A collection of Dogen's writings, including Genjo Koan, and cited as important for understanding Dogen's overall teachings.
- "Mujō Seppō" (Sound of the Valley Streams and Form of the Mountain Peaks) by Dogen: Reference to how insentient beings teach the Dharma through all phenomena.
- The translation by Shohaku Okumura: The version used for Genjo Koan in the speaker's work, noted for its accuracy and footnotes.
- Soto Zen Text Project: Mentioned for their comprehensive translation of the Shobogenzo.
- Commentary by Zuiko Redding and translation by Shohaku Okumura, referred to as "Okikigakisho": Provides a historical perspective on Genjo Koan, showing how Dogen's contemporaries understood his teachings.

AI Suggested Title: Everyday Enlightenment Through Dogen

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Transcript: 

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Tim Wicks, and I'm head of practice here at City Center. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. This morning, our speaker is Shinshu Roberts, who is co-founder and teacher with Daijaku Kunst of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, California. She's a Dharma heir of Sojin Weitzman Roshi in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi. She holds the appointment of international Dharma teacher in the Japanese Soto Zen school.

[01:21]

And she is author of Being Time, a practitioner's guide to Dogen's Shobo Genzo Uji. And she has a new book out, which is Dogen's Genjo Koan, Meeting the Myriad Things, which she will be signing. and perhaps talking about it a little bit afterwards in the dining room. Thank you very much, Shinshu, for making time to be with us this morning. Thank you very much. Oh, is that what this is? And I just clip it on my ear. Okay. How's that? All right, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. You know, one time, Jocelyn and I were talking to Pema Chodron, and she told us about having given a talk here at San Francisco Zen Center, like, I don't know,

[02:41]

back in the 80s, and everybody was like this the whole time. And she said, I thought everybody was mad at me the whole time I was giving the talk. So please relax. So first I want to thank San Francisco Zen Center for having me here to talk about my new book. And also I want to thank Anna Mallow, and Lorenzo Garbo, and Ken Collins, and Tim Wicks, Tonto, who helped me, and Brendan Crow, who all helped set this up and make this happen, and all the rest of you who also, behind the scenes, made this happen. So I moved to City Center in 1986 and lived in... either here or at Tassajara for the next 17 1⁄2 years, and did a lot of jobs.

[03:44]

I was Eno here for a while, Tenzo at Tassajara, Abbott's assistant, the treasurer at San Francisco Zen Center, and a bunch of other jobs. And then I guess I left about 2005, and during that time, Linda Gallion, who I'm sure a lot of you know, came to me and said, you know, we'd really like it if you would teach a kind of seminar to some people on Dogen. And so we did that for the next 10 years. We met once a month for three hours. I don't know what you call it now, but we call it the art lounge down the hall there. That's still there. And... No? It's gone. So anyway, there was a room right down there, and we would meet there. And some of the people who were in this group, you probably know, Abbott David Zimmerman, and Marcia Lieberman, and Linda Galleon, and Susan O'Connell, and Ryuki Tom Hawkins, and Julie Tenecke were all members of the group, among some other people, and we

[05:01]

As I said, we met for like 10 years. And out of that teaching that I did and their participation came my first book, Being Time, about Dogen's Uji. So that was, you know, greatly facilitated by their encouragement for me to write that book. This book, Meeting the Mirried Things, came out of a class that I taught at Ocean Gate on Genja Koan. And so let me just say something about Gencho Koan. Probably a lot of you are really familiar with this text because I'm assuming that you're still chanting it as part of the San Francisco Zen Center liturgy. So Gencho Koan was written in 1233, and it's part of a larger text that

[06:03]

Also, you're probably familiar with the Shobogenzo, which usually has about 90, 99 chapters in it. Dogen's idea originally was that he would do this 100 chapter of Shobogenzo. They're called fascicles. He actually put together a 75 fascicle Shobogenzo. The other ones are kind of collections that were added together over time and has now, so mostly what we see, is the larger collection of his texts, like the Nishijima Cross four-volume set. There's recently been one put out by the Soto Zen Text Project, which I really highly recommend. It's kind of expensive. It's eight volumes. Lots of footnotes, which actually is quite helpful. I found it quite helpful. So they do the 75-chapter version, then they do the 12-chapter version that Dogen put together, and then they do all the rest of them. So it's really a nice text.

[07:06]

Anyway, Ganjo Koan was written in 1233 by Dogen, 13th century founder of Soto Zen in Japan. Now, Ganjo Koan has lots of different translations. The publisher here decided to call it Meeting the Myriad Things. It's also translated as The Realized Universe, The Realized Koan, actualizing the fundamental point and the issue at hand. I'm just going to call it Genjo Kawan. So this text is considered fundamental to Dogen Zenji's teachings. It's the first essay of the collection that he did, although it's not the first thing that he wrote, but it's the first thing that he considered to be in his 75-chapter version of the Shobha Genso.

[08:08]

And one of his students said that Gencho Koan could be put in the front of any festival. There could be the Gencho Koan of being in time, Uji, or the Gencho Koan of washing the face, which is actually an essay in the Shobha Genso on how to wash your face. So it's considered so important that it really is an introduction to the, and a sensibility about the totality of Dogon's teaching. Okay, so I wrote this book primarily for Zen students. I think that what's in Genja Koan, the message that's being given in Genja Koan, is good for all of us to hear, whether we're Zen students or not. But I have to confess that I did write the book for Zen students. And so that means that I included quotations from Dogen.

[09:17]

And the reason I did that is because I think a lot of us are only familiar with a few fascicles that are famous. And we are not familiar with the other things that Dogen said in the Shobo Gensa or the Heiko Roku or the other things that he wrote. So... That's why I included a lot of quotes from Dogen to say, to supplement the commentary and say, yes, Dogen also said this somewhere else in his writings. I include a lot of footnotes, and the reason I do that is because if you want to, actually there are endnotes in the book, If you want to, you can look at the end notes and know where I came up with what I came up with, and you can study yourself the source material that I used. So that's why that's in there. And sometimes also I just want to clarify something that I do feel is a little tangential to what I've said, but I think is important.

[10:18]

Also, I include contemporary examples. of what I consider to be the teaching that Dogen is presenting. I think that what Dogen wrote applies to our practice today. We're not so different from the students that he had back in the 13th century. I mean, we haven't changed that much as people. We're all kind of grappling with the same delusion. That's why we say, you know, We can talk about no self because we all understand that we struggle with that selfish side. And so that's been the teaching of Buddhism from the very beginning. So Dogen wrote for us. When we read Dogen, he is alive for us. I hope that he's alive for us. He's in the room with you while you're reading Dogen. And he's trying to convey something to us about the nature of our experience. as practitioners of Soto Zen, and just as human beings, wanting to be better human beings.

[11:25]

So he's in the room with us. Don't think of him as being some guy from the past who you have no connection with. He's a teacher in this lineage who's trying desperately, really, to communicate with us about the nature of what it is to be human being in this world. The translation I used was Shohaka Okamura's translation of Genjo Kawan. And so that's what I follow in the book. I think I'd mention this. I try to give contemporary examples of what I think this is. You know, I believe that all of us You know, okay, so we have a teaching, which is in some ways fairly radical teaching, which is not new with Dogen, although I would say that his presentation of it is perhaps radical, is this teaching of Buddha nature.

[12:35]

Dogen said, we are Buddha nature. We are not trying to acquire Buddha nature. Some schools of Buddhism say... that we must be born lifetime after lifetime after lifetime in order to have or to acquire this thing called Buddha nature. For Dogen, and not just Dogen, because he didn't think this up, this precedes him in the doctrine, but Buddha nature is reality itself. Buddha nature is everything functioning, suchness, and that we are not separate from that. That means that we are inherently able to do these teachings. And I also think that we unconsciously do these teachings with each other far more than we think that we do. We tend to think that enlightenment or whatever is some kind of special experience, but actually you're engaged in actualized response, manifesting a myriad of things in your life all the time.

[13:40]

and you're just not really aware of it, and you don't give it much credence, because you're looking for some kind of special experience. But realization really is just a skillful response to things just as they are as they arise in your everyday life. So about the structure of the book, there are also four appendices to the book. So this is the geeky part of the book. And the appendices are, the first one talks about the meaning and characteristics of a dharma position. A dharma position is how reality manifests itself in the present moment as a particular person, situation, or thing. So that's a kind of short definition. This is super important for our practice. And... So I wrote an appendix about it.

[14:41]

And then the second one is a discussion of the translation of the word shisho. And the shisho means practice realization or practice verification. Technically, the more correct translation is practice verification. But for a long time, it's been translated as practice realization. So it's kind of interesting to play with what exactly that means. So that's what I talk about in that appendix. And then the third appendix is an introduction to a commentary on Genjo Koan that was done by two guys who studied with Dogit. So this is pretty amazing. So their names were Kyogo and Senne. And this translation of They did it for all 75 fascicles, but we have the Genjo Koan one. This is probably the only published translation in English.

[15:45]

The translation was done by Shohako Okamura, and he taught this at San Francisco Zen Center back in the 80s when he was the director at the International Center, as it was called then. And he lived here in the building. I wasn't part of the group that studied it, but somehow... I ended up getting a copy of this text, and it's about 20 pages long. And I wrote Shohaku, and I said, can I publish this? I really think it'd be great if we could publish this. Like, just think about it. We can read what two people who actually sat and listened to Dogen talk about this text. We can actually read, and the best part is it's comprehensible. Right? I remember in the 70s reading something like The Mystical Golden Flower or something, some Taoist text. I had no idea what it was about. This text actually is comprehensible. So the introduction to it was written by Zuiko Redding, who died in 2024.

[16:55]

She just barely got this done. She did the editing of it. Shohaku said to me, I'd like you to edit this. And I said, well, I don't read Japanese, much less medieval Japanese, which is what this is written in. I said, I could maybe fix, you know, your verb tenses or something. And I got in touch with Zuwiko, and she said, yeah, I'll do it. She was studying medieval Japanese, and also she's close to Shohaku Okomoran, and so she and Shohaku worked on this. So it's really, I'm just thrilled that this is out there. The Japanese name of it is Okikigakisho. Okikigakisho. It's kind of a mouthful. And it means something like transcription and manuscript summary. So it's not a very sexy title. But this is what it is. It's about gencho koan. And, yeah, so... Let me read something.

[18:01]

from the book. I want to start out by saying that Dogen wrote everything he wrote, all that he taught, was based on the idea that those who were learning from him, studying with him, reading his text later, that we all have kind of already signed on to the bodhisattva path. That we have, we were have this deep desire to see our own delusion, to acknowledge our delusion, and to engage in the practices of transforming that delusion into realized action. So I think it's important to know when you read Dogen that this is kind of the baseline of his assumption, and also the baseline that we are all Buddha nature, as he says in Boucho. So with that in mind, I'll read a little section here about... First, I'll read what the commentary is on, my commentary.

[19:13]

Okay, so the name of this chapter is... Let me make sure. What does realization look like? In some ways, the Gencho Koan is actually a primer for... how to be realized, how to engage in realized action. Dogen says it's pretty famous, you've probably heard this. Conveying oneself towards all things to carry out practice enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice enlightenment through the self is realization. Those who greatly realize delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded in realization are living beings. Furthermore, there are those who attain realization beyond realization and those who are deluded within delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhists, they don't need to perceive they are Buddhas. However, they are enlightened Buddhas and they continue actualizing Buddha. So I'm not going to read the section of the book here today about this, but when Japanese is... Dogen didn't write in paragraphs and also...

[20:23]

these sentences, the way they're structured, English is a very linear kind of dualistic language. Japanese is not. And so when we read a translation like those who are greatly deluded in realization are living beings. Furthermore, there are those who attain realization. It sounds like we're talking about two different kinds of people. But this can also be translated so it's exactly the same person. And I think that's what Dogen means. He's saying, yeah, sometimes we're in delusion, sometimes we're in realization. Sometimes we're awake to it, sometimes we're not. So I talk about that in the book, about how this is translated and offer other translations. Okay, so let me read my commentary on this, my example in everyday life. Here is an example from my life, which I think sums up the complexity and unfolding of this kind of interbeing of practice realization.

[21:38]

I met my local grocery store, which I didn't say in the book, but it's Whole Foods, so I met my local Whole Foods. I met my local grocery store the day before Thanksgiving. The express line is not open. There are only a few clerks. and the line is very long, maybe 20 people. I'm about four people from the back, and I have two items. The clerk from the coffee bar comes over to my area of the line and points to four of us who have a few items and says, come over to the coffee register and I'll check you out. We all peel off and head to the coffee bar register. I'm the last one in line. A man rushes up behind me and says in a whiny voice, what about me? I was ahead of you. I reply, don't complain, just go ahead of me, which he does. The woman in front of him, having heard our exchange, also lets him go in front of her, so now he's in the front of the line.

[22:43]

I could see the delusion of the guy who complained. He thought he had been slighted when he hadn't. The clerk didn't see him. Nevertheless, his delusion annoyed my delusion, so I said, Don't complain. I realized my delusion because don't complain was unnecessary and unjudgmental. But I said it nevertheless. Although I was not perfect, I was good enough. I let him go ahead of me, although somewhat begrudgingly. Clearly, my actions were not completely awakened. They were in the ballpark. but they did not have the quality Dogen later characterized as realization beyond realization. My response was spontaneous, but not necessarily skillful. Often in practice, we don't see what we're doing as off the mark. The first thing we have to do is see that. What do we see? We see that we are only perceiving our situation from our own perspective.

[23:47]

We are carrying the self forward. Feeling irritated, I characterized the other person as perceiving himself as a victim. Responding without anything extra would have been to say, please go ahead, without the judgmental comment or thought on my part. It is my observation that the person Dogen is calling Buddha and the person he's calling sentient being, as well as the times of their realization or delusion, are fluid. Very likely, the guy who complained does not always complain. This complaining is empty of inherent existence. In a different scenario, surely he is the one responding with his Buddha mind. Consequently, we go back and forth with varying degrees of success. Perhaps when the woman ahead of me heard our exchange and said, please go ahead of me, her Buddha was actualized. Maybe it was already actualized.

[24:49]

And she immediately said, go ahead. But her ability to say go ahead of me was still contingent upon me saying go ahead. My saying go ahead was dependent upon the guy's complaint. And so on back through the causal chain of events. In our stumbling manner, we were Buddhas actualizing each other. Each one of us has a affected the outcome of the situation and in some hidden way carried forward the practice of no self by acknowledging the needs of one another. By doing so, we may be Buddhas who continue actualizing Buddhas, although we have no intention of doing so or even defining our actions in such a way. Sometimes a person engages realization beyond realization, while at other times, we activate being deluded within delusion. Sometimes a person functions as a bodhisattva in both states.

[25:52]

Sometimes we go back and forth or do both simultaneously. These states are not oppositional. They are situational and informed by our level of awareness. But delusion and realization are our actual state. We swim in both. Good swimmers, that is bodhisattvas, swim effortlessly without thought while totally immersed in the delusional samsaric world. Sometimes we greatly realize delusion. And sometimes we are greatly deluded in realization. And sometimes we facilitate the practice of others as we continue to actualize Buddhas, resulting in both self and other co-functioning in realized activity. So... For me, that's an example of the way that we, you know, we're not perfect. We are not perfect in every situation, or I don't know, maybe in most situations, but that we actually do kind of get there, and I don't think we should ignore that.

[27:03]

Maybe an example that I use in a book that's very brief would be like, Somebody drops something or they're trying to get in their car and they've got too many bags or whatever, and you just immediately lean over and pick it up and hand it to them. That's realization beyond realization. You just don't even think about it. You just do this thing. You just engage in this activity. So that would be an example of your Buddha mind just coming forth immediately. Nothing woo-woo about it. Nothing like, you know, it's just you just immediately respond. Okay, so in another section of Genja Koan, Dogen wrote about how we experience the self as an independent being by comparing our situation, or that would be a Dharma position, as firewood and ash.

[28:05]

So this is another famous part of Genja Koan. He wrote, we should know that firewood dwells in the Dharma position of firewood. and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of Ash with its own before and after. So I'll read a little bit of what I had to say about that here. Your life is uniquely your life. This particularity, called you, has its own experiences, memories, desires, futures, and so on that have created an original personality with specific ideas and ways of seeing the world. In this way, we have a unique before and after.

[29:08]

Our past experiences and our future life are particular to us while being part of the whole of creation. But if we mistake this independent aspect as a permanent or fixed self, we will limit our ability to engage our awakened mind. Because we're talking about how something exists in the present moment, not how it might have been in a previous Dharma position, Dogen writes, past and future are cut off. Each Dharma position is completely expressed within this moment's arising. This is manifesting total function. From this perspective, our perceptions of past experiences and our desire for future events are dropped in service of a more flexible attitude towards our present experience. In this way, we cut off our attachment to experiences

[30:11]

and past and future desires. It is only from this perspective that we can meet others with an open mind and a freed heart. We can become curious about that person and not walled off from them because we have placed them in some ideological box, so we're not walled off because we place them in an ideological box. Nor do we place ourselves in the prison of karmic shackles, We are not trapped in a karmic cycle of self-identity. Refusing to internalize self-labeling, such as I am stupid, or I'm the smartest person in the room, frees us to redefine our experience. If a Dharma position did not have an independent aspect, this would not be possible. Think about it. If we didn't have this moment as an independent moment, there would be no ability... for us to do something different because we'd be trapped in past and future.

[31:15]

Because of a being time's particularity, we can cut ourselves loose from habitual reification of the self and create a path of transformation and freedom from suffering. Furthermore, it is only in the present that we can become liberated through expressing realized action. We must be aware of our delusion and confidence in our ability to do something different. A being's present manifestation, or a person's experience of self, does not negate the past or future of that self or dharma, nor does it deny causally created karmic response and effect. Rather, it contextualizes them as factors or influences that do not necessarily dictate our response at this time. In each moment, we are free to respond to what is arising. This happens, according to Buddhist teachings, by fully realizing the impermanence of oneself and thereby freeing oneself from karmically conditioned, unworkable, and unskillful actions.

[32:28]

So that's the commentary I have on that section. I'm going to read one more of these things, and then that will be it. I want to read the whole book to you. Okay, so this last part is about Dogen's teaching about listening, how we listen and experience the nature of our life through this intimate listening. And the more we listen to our world, the more we will realize what he calls... inexhaustible virtues of the myriad dharmas of our world. Yeah, I might say something a little more about that. Since we're living in a time right now where I think we're kind of skeptical about the notion that the world itself is a kind of inexhaustible, virtuous activity of...

[33:41]

of altruistic action. So, but here's the section here that I'll read to you. So, this is the quote from Genzo Koan. He wrote, when we listen to the reality of myriad things, we must know that there are inexhaustible virtues in both oceans and mountains. And by the way, the word virtues can be, Shohaku Okumura translated this as characteristics, But this word in Japanese also means virtues, which is probably closer to what Dogen meant. So when we listen, this is the quote, when we listen to reality of myriad things, we must know that there are inexhaustible virtues in both ocean and mountains. And there are many other worlds in the four directions. This is true not only of the external world, but also right under our feet within a single drop of water. So that's the quote from Genja. Come on. So my commentary is, when we listen to the reality of myriad things, we can intuit the unfathomable complexity and completeness of our world.

[34:52]

We can intuit the unfathomable complexity and completeness of our world. A realized response begins with listening. If our minds are occupied with ideas about what each thing, person, or situation is... regardless of the actual experience, we will never find the point of pure response that goes beyond this or that. We must listen to enact true practice. In Mujo Seppo, okay, and that's a fast school in Shobogenzo, and it means in sentient beings speak the Dharma, Dogen teaches that hearing the voices of this myriad world is paramount to our understanding. So this is the quote from Mujo Seppo. Hearing Dharma is not limited to ear sense or ear consciousness. You hear Dharma with complete power, complete mind, complete body. That's very invocative, don't you think?

[35:56]

It's like we hear the Dharma with complete power, complete mind, complete body. You hear Dharma with body first and mind last. So that's interesting because we usually think, oh, I hear first. Then it goes kind of into my body saying, no, you hear it first with your body and the mind last. Such ways of hearing the Dharma are all effective. Don't think that you are not benefiting by hearing the Dharma if it does not reach your mind consciousness. Effecting mind, dropping body, you hear the Dharma and see the result. With no mind and no body, you should hear dharma and benefit from it. Experiencing such moments is how all Buddhas and ancestors become Buddhas and attain ancestorhood. Okay? Experiencing such moments is how all Buddhas and ancestors become Buddhas and attain ancestorhood.

[36:56]

So he's saying this kind of listening that he's talking about is like super important for our... awakening mind. Okay, this is what I would say we now call the stopping and actively listening to our life. So here's what I wrote about that. Each is a Dharma position fully endowed with the words of the eternal Buddhists. Can we hear their teaching being vigorously taught in the presencing moment? Can we perceive the virtue of their presencing? A drop of water is so ephemeral that it appears and disappears in a matter of seconds or minutes. Yet each completely holds the totality of the moon's reflection or the Dharma's continuous practice.

[37:58]

We know from modern microbiology that there really are worlds in a drop of water. If we deeply listen with our body, heart, and mind, not just with our ears, we begin to hear the myriad teachings of our life's companions. We hear the voices of the ocean and the small drop of water. Zen teacher Nishiari Bokasan brings us back to our immediate practice when he writes, Vastness without limitation is immediately underfoot. You may think a great ocean is vast and distant, but it is no other than the cup of tea you're drinking right now. One of Dogen's primary teachings is that we live in a world, now this is what I'm saying, one of Dogen's primary teachings is that we live in a world of vast interconnected networks all functioning together to manifest what we experience as solid form.

[39:02]

Furthermore, this network, our working of reality, is essentially an altruistic endeavor. Virtue is the essential goodness of total function. Seeing this, we relate to such vastness in the immediacy of each moment's arising in our present circumstance, time or dharma position. Vital to this mandala of activity is our own particular participation as practitioners of the bodhisattva ideal. The logic of how bodhisattva manifests Buddha in nature is Dogen's teachings throughout all of his writing. Nishiari reminds us that following the Dharma as far as our eye of study and practice can see is dependent upon knowing that vastness within limitation is immediately underfoot. excuse me, vastness without limitation is immediately underfoot.

[40:03]

That means like our whole life, everything is speaking the Dharma to us. The problems we have, the joys that we have, the sidewalk we walk on, pretty mind-boggling and at the same time forget it, right? Just forget it. Recalling this teaching opens our eyes to looking, listening more closely than we have before with more curiosity and generosity. This looking, listening, and seeing is the cup of tea you are drinking right now. It is a drop of dew on the grass outside your front door. It is bubbles in your sink and the troubles that greet you. Each instant is a sutra written as mountains and oceans, teacups, and problems. These are our immediate experience of the many other worlds in the four directions. It is also the song of our life. It is right under our feet or within the smallest drop of water.

[41:04]

A single drop of water, mountains, oceans, a teacup, washing your clothes, eating dinner, arguing over abortion, everything, every situation and activity of daily life should be approached as the Buddha Dharma. When we can hear the inexhaustible great virtue of our life, then our practice will come forth as realized practice. Dogen teaches that each moment of our life is a sutra. It is sacred, mundane, absolute, relative, practice realization, nothing special, the whole ball of wax. It's all happening right now, right here, under our noses. So I think... As we read Dogen, we can see that he has this really poetic way, also sometimes really difficult to understand, way of presenting the Dharma.

[42:16]

But it is so heartfelt... And this inexhaustible virtues, this is, think about it, if you get kind of below the level of politics and below the level of all the things that scare us or those kinds of things that are happening right now in our lives, and if you think about how the earth functions, the continuous practice of trees and and everything that has to be functioning and working together to sustain our life. And we're actually sustaining that life as well, even though we may not know what we're doing. It's like somebody says, well, what do you do? Well, I'm a doctor, or I collect trash, or whatever it is that I do. But that's not who we are. And even if we say, I do the Bodhisattva practice, that's not even who we are, too.

[43:18]

There's some... deeper level as human beings in which we are contributing to this virtuous practice, even in the midst of all the delusion that's happening. And Dogen has this very positive understanding. And believe me, this is a guy who is living in a time of famine. He was living in a time of wars. He was living in a time of earthquakes and all sorts of environmental disasters. So it's not like he was living the perfect life And he wandered around in a daze and said, oh, things are so virtuous. This is somebody who really had a tough time in his life and was surrounded by all those things, the same kind of stuff we're dealing with now. Crazy, petty, big, difficult, polarized times. And yet he said, oh, come back to this basic... aspect of our life, which is everything is practicing with us and as and through us as we practice with and as and through it.

[44:26]

So that includes the totality of reality itself. That's suchness. So I find this to be a very good thing to remember, right, about our lives. And this practice, I hope, exemplifies that. As all religions or non-religions or atheists or agnostics or whatever, just people out there in the world trying to figure out a way to help each other to end suffering and to find the way. So anyway, it's my hope in this book to encourage our practice through the commentary and also to contribute to an ongoing conversation about what is the Dharma, an ongoing conversation about what is it that Dogen was trying to teach us. So I hope that we can understand and awaken through the Bodhisattva way and through Dogen's teachings.

[45:28]

Thank you. Yes, I do, but hang on a second. I want to put my stuff back together again so that Gigi doesn't have to throttle around and try to figure out what to do. Cut that part down with a lot. Okay. Our intention is to be able to accept the same thing that we need to be in our place.

[46:30]

We need to be able to accept the same thing that we need to be in our place. We need to be able to accept the same thing.

[46:36]

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