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. Good morning. It's not really the last day. from the Hindu koan to carry yourself forward and experience married things is delusion that married things come forth and experience themselves is awakening those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings further there are those who continue realizing beyond realization

[01:25]

who are in delusion, throughout delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on actualizing Buddhas. So, having now heard some of the teachings from the principal ancestors of the Soto Zen tradition, I'm going to leap ahead a little bit to another major branch of our family tree, the one that we are dangling from now, Ehei Dogen Dayosho, which brings us ever closer to Suzuki Roshi, Zen Center and home. So I'm going to start with some background of this great teacher's life. Hello. Hello. Dogen Zenji was born in the year 1200 in Kyoto, which was the capital of Japan and had been for over 400 years.

[02:33]

And yet at the time that he was born, there was a big change starting to happen in Japanese culture. Values were shifting away from the upper-class lifestyle and the courtly manners of the imperial city toward the virtues of the samurai. self-sacrifice, strength and discipline, alongside an idealized view of the simplicity of country life. Perhaps it's not so dissimilar from what's being revealed in our own culture these days, this seeming tension between rural and urban lifestyle and value. The Japanese people called that era the Age of Decline. And in no small part, that was due to a tremendous lack of faith in the Buddhist clergy, but also in the imperial government. A large number of monks in the capital, whose morality was already in question, were selling charms and magical potions to earn a living.

[03:35]

And a number of large monastic institutions housed armed monks who would sweep down from the mountains to engage in sectarian combat with one another. In fact, Dogen's community was thrown out of town by such sectarian rivalry. It was also a time in Japan when the so-called single-practice forms of Buddhism had arisen, such as recitation of the name of the Lotus Sutra, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the name of Amida Buddha, Namo Amida Buddha, Namo Amida Buddha, as well as our very own Zen sect with its singular focus on upright sitting. Each of these new sects drew many followers, particularly among the hard-working laity who didn't have time for much else. Dogen's father was very likely a high-ranking member of the imperial household, his mother the daughter of a regent, and when he was born, in much the same way as Shakyamuni Buddha, a soothsayer declared that the infant sage would become a sage, and most certainly a great man.

[04:43]

And yet, sadly, the wise men went on to say that when a sage is born, his mother is in grave danger. And yet, upon hearing this, Dogen's mother was neither disturbed or afraid. In fact, it's written that she loved and honored him all the more. When Dogen was three, his father died, and by the age of four, he had learned to read Chinese poetry at his maternal grandmother's knee. In one of his later writings, he recalls how important both she and that learning had become for him. Since my childhood, I was very much interested in and studied both poetry and literature. Even now, unconsciously, I tend to look for flowery words and expressions from non-Buddhist textual sources, and I cannot help myself grudgingly looking into the Chinese anthology of poetry and literature. To which he adds, being a good monk after all. I am thinking about abandoning this habit altogether.

[05:50]

So I really appreciate getting a glimpse at the personal lives of these great teachers, their personalities, kind of behind the stage, behind the set of the Met. What's going on back there? How do they really live? So I think having read the Shobo Genzo, there are a couple of those fascicles which I'm pretty sure were written when Dogen was in a very bad mood. You know, he basically denounces everybody. And as I said yesterday, I think it's very important for us in this much-loved and yet all-too-human endeavor of Buddhist practice to continue harmonizing the archetypes and humanizing the archetypes, you know, as we go along. That would be us, you know. History, at least the kind of history that I learned in school, left out a great deal of the grit in favor of a kind of romanticized and dehumanized storytelling. I think we have to be really careful as we pass on this tradition to future generations that hopefully will follow, but not too closely.

[07:03]

As Suzuki Roshi said, there is always room for improvement. Meanwhile, back in the 13th century, Dogen's beloved mother had become critically ill. And when he was called to her side, she told him of her final wish from the depth of her loving heart, that after her death, he would renounce the world, practice the Buddhist path, and become a light of the world. And furthermore, he would assist his deceased parents in realizing spiritual well-being in their lives to come, much as Dongshan had done for his deceased mother. So watching the incense curling up before her funeral pyre, the young boy experienced intense grief at the transient nature of life and at the age of eight declared his determination to seek enlightenment. No matter whether I meet the danger of the sword or whether I face tragic starvation from lack of food, I should never forget the word of my mother's will, he said, with all the passion of his youth.

[08:13]

In later years, Dogen would emphasize again and again the intimate relationship between the desire for enlightenment and the awareness of death. In one of his later writings, Sui Munki, he defines bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment, as the mind that intuits phenomenal arising and perishing in terms of impermanence. The thought of enlightenment is the thought of death. Giving rise to this thought of enlightenment should come from deep awareness of the impermanence of the world. This insight is not the kind to be specifically tested by a method of introspection as some hypothetical principle, nor is it an object of thought of imagining, as if it existed against what it really is not. Impermanence is the real nature of things, directly evident before our eyes. It is not the kind of principle one can obtain through the teaching of others or by reading scriptures or by waiting for its revelation after the realization of the path.

[09:19]

It is the principle that directly confronts our eyes or ears as we directly observe or hear. And yet my talk about the nature of things is still leisurely reasoning. In actuality, it is the matter of today and of now. Just do not expect tomorrow in each moment of thought, but concentrate on today and this moment alone. Because nothing is certain and it is difficult to know about future days, you should decisively follow the Buddhist path as long as you live today. By the spring of his ninth year, he had read the entirety of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosha in Chinese. And then five years after his mother's death, Dogen was confronted by yet another emotional crisis. Having been adopted by his mother's youngest brother, who at the age of 40 did not have a male heir, Dogen was being set up to inherit his uncle's estate, beginning with a coming-of-age ceremony to mark his initiation into aristocratic manhood, thereby forcing him to choose between a courtly life and his mother's dying wish.

[10:37]

keeping in mind that this is the 13-year-old boy being confronted by such a momentous decision, who by his own account was still filled with the grief of his mother's death. And somehow yet he managed to evade the fatalism of his age, and instead he found in himself a renewed vitality, virya paramita, in his search for the way. Having a transient life, you should not engage in anything other than the way. At each moment, do not rely upon tomorrow. Think of this day and this hour only, and of being faithful to the way and having been given a life just for today. The next moment uncertain and unknown. So he left his uncle's estate during the night, much as Shakyamuni Buddha had done, and he went to visit another of his mother's brothers who lived in a hermitage outside of Kyoto, who advised him, to enter into training at nearby Mount Hie with Bishop Cohen, who was head of the Tendai sect.

[11:45]

At the age of 14, his head was shaved, after which he began the rigorous training of a Tendai monk, training that began, as it had with our founder, Shakyamuni Buddha, in mastery of what were known as the stopping and seeing practices of the Tendai school, shamatha vipassana. calming the mind, discerning the real. By the time he was 18, he had read the entire Chinese Buddhist canon. So as I've said, you know, Zen didn't just kind of pop up suddenly out of nowhere, fully grown. At its base, there's a tremendous depth of study and personal effort. An entire root system that was established over centuries through the medium of written texts and commentaries alongside, as we personally know, a strenuous cultivation of the Buddha's posture, speech, and lifestyle. Shakyamuni Buddha was not only a person of great virtue and compassion, he was a learner, and he was deeply curious, out of which came the perfection of wisdom.

[13:00]

As the student was ready, the great teacher appeared. In many ways, Buddhism can be easily seen as a teaching lineage. Once you have it, even the tiniest bit of it, you pass it on, like the kamasya. You give it away, warm hand to warm hand, kind face to kind face. This is the primary practice of generosity, the first paramita, by which the bodhisattvas are to begin their training. So even now, you know, as students and as learners, we're charged not to stop until we find what it is that we're seeking. Sometimes when people ask me about priest ordination, I say to them, can you be stopped? I can remember during a practice period at Gringold many years ago, my Dharma brother Mio Leahy, who's now abbot at Hartford Street Zen Center, was invited to sit on the dragon seat by our teacher,

[14:07]

and publicly receive questions from us, one by one. Shosan. So I said to my brother, I am lost and I can't find my way. Please, can you help me? And he said, somewhat kindly, what are you looking for? That was such a good question. You know, if you don't know what you're looking for, how will you ever know if you found it? And to our credit, Dogen was a lot like that too, seeking, looking, striving, and yet not able to satisfy his hunger despite his years of sincere effort. What he encountered instead was a great mass of doubt in the form of what seemed to him to be an unsolvable question. As I study both the exoteric and esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Buddha nature at birth.

[15:09]

If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages, already in possession of enlightenment, find it necessary to seek enlightenment and to engage in spiritual practice? Fire boy comes seeking fire. So the question is concerned with two of the time-honored and conflicting Mahayana doctrines of Dogen's day. Original enlightenment, on the one hand, hongaku, the kind that we're born with, Buddha nature, and on the other hand, acquired enlightenment, shikaku, the kind that you have to work for, the sweating horses. This emphasis on original enlightenment within both the Tendai and Shingon traditions in particular had a great influence on the culture of Dogen's day, especially when accompanied by another famous doctrine that this body itself is Buddha. In practice terms, this led to a tendency, as Dogen saw it, to neglect study and effort in favor of an instantaneous liberation here and now through simple faith in original enlightenment.

[16:24]

thereby sanctifying worldly existence, including all of the behaviors therein. Kind of like the hippies. Whatever. Now, it wasn't that bad, actually. It does beg the question. So this is the question about a need to practice in the face of original enlightenment. And it was of such magnitude for Dogen that he remained restless in all of his endeavors until he finally found an answer in the year 1225 at the temple of the Chinese Soto Zen teacher Ru Jing. Apparently Dogen wasn't questioning the truth about original enlightenment, about Buddha nature, but rather he wanted to know what are and what are not appropriate human behaviors. as in, what would Buddha do, or how does Buddha act? Having been ordained by the Tendai bishop Cohen, Dogen went to him for an answer to his question.

[17:28]

The bishop, observing that the answers crafted by the Tendai tradition did not resolve the young man's doubts, advised him to ask Zen master Isai, who had recently returned from China, with the teaching of a Buddha mind school called Rinzai Zen. Cohen thereby, in my view, proved himself a truly great teacher by letting his bright young student go. And possibly because Cohen himself may have experienced this infamous hot iron ball that lodges in one's belly, you can't throw it up, you can't pass it out. It's rather unpleasant altogether. And yet for some, like Dogen and Shakyamuni, and perhaps the entire lineage of buddha ancestors it's a pretty good description of the profound longing at the deepest levels of existence to discover just what it is that we are and once discovered to ask then what are we supposed to do here on this improbability we call planet earth being told by someone else that what you're seeking is right here before your very eyes

[18:45]

is usually not an answer that a spiritual seeker is hoping to find or willing to accept. It just can't be right. There clearly is nothing special right here before our very eyes. Nothing special at all. I mean, just look around. Looks fine, but nothing special. This cannot be it. And so off on pilgrimage we go. And that's just what Dogen did. He descended Mount Hiei in 1214 and went to visit Isai, a Keninji temple in Kyoto, and then at the age of 17, joined the Zen community by changing into a Zen robe. Isai passed away in 1215, so when Dogen began his Rinzai studies, he was under the tutelage of Isai's Dharma heir, Myozen. As a result of the desire for enlightenment, which was first aroused in my mind through the awareness of the impermanence of existence, I traveled extensively to various places, and finally, having descended Mount Hie, to practice the way I settled at Keninji Temple.

[20:00]

Until then, I had met neither a right teacher nor a good friend, and consequently had gone astray and had erroneous thoughts. So for the next six years, Dogen studied Rinzai Zen, and yet could not erase the deep feeling of dissatisfaction, as he reminisced sometime later. Although my teachers were just as distinguished as any others in the world of Buddhist scholarship, they taught me to become famous in the nation and to bring honor to the whole country. Thus, in my study of Buddhism, I was encouraged above all to become equal to ancient wise ones of this country and to those who held the title of great teacher. And yet, as I read in this connection, the further biographies of eminent Buddhist monastics of the Tang dynasty, I thought I should be humbled by the ancient sages rather than elated by the praise of despicable contemporaries. I should wish to emulate the greatness of Indian and Chinese monastics, apocryphal as they may have been.

[21:09]

and aspire to be equal to the gods of heavens and the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, and therefore I realize that the holders of the title of great teacher in this country is worthless, like earthen tiles and my whole life was changed completely. 17. As a result of this frustration and his insight concerning the training program at Kininji, his original question remained unsolved. Neither could he find the right teacher, nor was the general environment of Japanese Buddhism at the time favorable to him. Among his major objections against the Japanese Buddhist ancestors of his day were that some of them directed people to seek enlightenment outside the conditions of their own mind, while others led them to desire rebirth in other lands where practice would be easy. And therefore, he said, if you want to study the best of Buddhism, you should consult the scholarship of China far away and reflect thoroughly on the living path that transcends the deluded mind.

[22:18]

When you don't meet a right teacher, it is better not to study Buddhism at all. Dogen brought the matter to his teacher, Myo Zen, and they both agreed to begin preparations for studying abroad. And in the second month of 1223, they set sail for China. They arrived early in the fourth month, but it wasn't until the seventh month that Dogen was allowed to leave the ship. And then he enrolled at Chen Tzu Temple, a leading center of Zen Buddhism in China, supported by the royal court and having never fewer than a thousand monks. While still waiting to enter the monastery, Dogen met an old monk. the Tenzo at the monastery, who had come to the ship to buy mushrooms. When asked to stay and to talk, the old monk said no. He would have to go back and do his cooking duties. The reason for my being the Tenzo at such an old age is that I regard this duty as the practice of the way for the rest of my life.

[23:22]

How can I leave my practice to other persons? Besides, I did not obtain permission for staying out. Dogen wondered aloud why the old monk wasn't doing zazen and studying the koans of the old masters. Is there any worthwhile thing in your hard physical work, Dogen said? A question that we often ask ourselves here, isn't it, especially in those summer months. The old monk laughed aloud and said, You, a good man from a foreign country, perhaps do not understand what the practice of the way is, nor what words and letters are. Upon hearing this, Dogen was all of a sudden shocked and profoundly ashamed. Soon after enrolling at the Rinzai temple, Dogen again encountered the old Tenzo, picking up on the conversation from their earlier meeting on the ship. Dogen said, What are words and letters? The old monk replied, One, two, three, four, five.

[24:26]

Dogen probes again. What then is the practice of the way? There is nothing throughout the entire universe that is hidden, came the reply. So this encounter led to Dogen's realization of the limits and the dangers of language, but more importantly, to the possibility of using language for spiritual liberation by coming to understand the reasoning of words and letters, you know, the right use of words and letters. For him, language and symbol were held the potential of opening rather than limiting our understanding of reality. And as a result, Dogen recognized the serious need to reinstate language in its legitimate place within the total context of our human spiritual endeavors. Sadly, however, for Dogen, having stayed in China at a Rinzai temple for two years, began to observe that the religious situation there was not so different than that back in his own country.

[25:32]

Despite the great number of monks who proclaim themselves to be the descendants of the Buddhas and ancestors, there are few who study the truth and even fewer who teach the truth. Dogenlak Dungshan was a very honest man. So following the death of the abbot of that temple, Dogen again went on a pilgrimage to see for himself what practices were being offered at what were called the Five Mountains of Zen. But still, he did not find the right teacher and considered going back home, thoroughly discontented in his heart. And then Dogen was advised by an old monk to visit Ru Jing, who had been appointed abbot at Mount Tiantong Monastery. So Dogen wrote to Ru Jing a letter asking for permission to enter his quarters for instruction. Great, compassionate teacher, even though I am only a humble person from a remote country, I am asking permission to be a room-entering student, able to come to ask questions freely and informally.

[26:38]

Permanent and swift birth and death is the issue of utmost urgency. Time does not wait for us. Once a moment is gone, it will never come back again, and we're bound to be full of regret. Great, compassionate, revered abbot, grant me permission to ask you about the way, about the Dharma. Please, I bow to you 100 times with my forehead humbly touching the floor. Ryu Jing wrote back, saying, Yes, you can come informally to ask questions any time, day or night, from now on. Do not worry about formality. We can be like father and son. Signed, Old Man at Mount Paibo. In the fifth month of 1225, Dogen met Rujing. And Rujing, pointing at Dogen, said, The direct transmission is accomplished in person between Buddhas and ancestors. This single utterance at their first meeting penetrated into Dogen's heart with the weight of 10,000 metal bars.

[27:45]

By that meeting, he experienced a great breakthrough. His self-conceit fell then, and his right faith arose all at once. After which Dogen said, I met my master Ru Jing face to face. Ru Jing, as it turned out, belonged to the tradition of the Zao Dong or Soto sect in China. And apparently it was Ru Jing's uncompromising rigor in the practice of Zazen combined with his utter sincerity and personal warmth that resulted in Dogen's high regard for his teacher and for his teacher's advocacy of Zazen only, Shikantaza, which later became the heart of Dogen's religion and philosophy. This very one we practice here. The central religious and philosophical idea of Ru Jing's Zazen only was Shin Jin Datsuraku, Shin Jin Datsuraku, body, mind, cast off, a phrase that Dogen repeats tirelessly throughout his later works.

[28:50]

And yet, one scholar points out, Dogen exalted and adored his teacher with tears of gratitude and joy, so much so that his rhetoric about him may have superseded any factual descriptions of Ru Jing. So, once again, touching back on this cautionary note about our failures to humanize the Zen archetypes, particularly our very own teachers. If they're not perfect, then what does that make us? Retroactive attributions often abound. And yet, to Dogen's credit, he did record their disagreements as well by including within his later teachings the positive regard that he called twining vines between a student and a teacher, wherein conflicts themselves are necessary conditions for both of them to continue to grow. After hearing Ryujin extolling the importance of Zazen, Dogen recounts his own renewed commitment to practice. Although other monks would give up temporarily out of some fear of falling ill during the seasons of extreme heat or cold, I practiced zazen day and night and no illness came.

[30:03]

In 1225, the decisive moment of Dogen's life took place at last during early morning zazen. In the course of meditation, a monk sitting next to Dogen had fallen asleep. Upon noticing the monk, Ru Jing thundered at him. In Zazen, it is imperative to cast off the body and mind. How could you indulge in sleeping? This remark shook Dogen's whole being to its very core, and an inexpressible, ecstatic joy engulfed his heart. He went to Ru Jing's private quarters, offered incense, and bowed to Buddha. Ru Jing said, What is the incense burning for? And Dogen replied, My body and mind are cast off, shinjin datsuraku. The body and mind are as off, rejoined the teacher, cast off are the body-mind, datsuraku shinjin. So these moments were the fruition of Dogen's long search and struggle.

[31:12]

As one scholar said, in being cast off, concrete human existence... was refashioned in the mode of some radical freedom, per Dogen. Purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. First principle, the ultimate truth. And Buddha nature therefore unfolded in the very midst of human activity and expression. Second principle, relative truth. Which for Dogen, and for us as his disciples, was an altogether new way of living in codependence with ultimate meaninglessness. that is, with no truth at all. Dogen's dropping off body and mind is letting go of attachment to body and attachment to mind. Dogen studied the pivotal activity of self and not-self until the mind and body simply dropped away, until no trace of his realization of selflessness remained.

[32:14]

It's this no trace that continues endlessly. In other words, there is no hanging on to the dropping off of mind and body. That grasping reflex has got to go. So when the time comes, do not let the fact that you just understood something get in the way of understanding itself. Realization is not yours, and it's not anyone else's either. It's just this person. In the ninth month of 1225, Rujin conferred upon Dogen the official certificate of the ancestral succession of the Soto Zen sect. With an ancestral robe, a kechimyaku, a portrait of Rujin, and other precious objects, Dogen returned to Japan in 1227, as he said, empty-handed. His sole souvenir presented to his countrymen was his own body, mind, and total existence. now completely liberated and transformed.

[33:18]

So, although I must say that if someone were to ask me whether Dogen would respond, as Dungshan did, to the question, are you happy, by saying yes, I'm not so sure he would say yes. In fact, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even smile. He's very hard to read in many more ways than one. It was within a few months of his return home that Dogen began to write, from within his deep conviction and experience of original wholeness as the fundamental reality of all things, each person, each plant, each cup, fully illuminated in this newly awakened vision. Just as the Buddha had said at the time of his awakening, I and all beings on earth together are awakened at the same time. It's only our ingrained patterns of dualistic thinking that prevent us from knowing our complete and original nature, our Buddha nature. And yet, as Zen itself makes clear, it is difficult, if not impossible, for words and letters to fully embrace the true nature of reality.

[34:30]

Our cognitive capacity provides only partial access, a finger pointing at the moon, to the full range of our human potential. And although Dogen was meticulous in using language for describing practice guidelines for the temple, for the kitchen and the zendo, for the administration and so on, when it came to expressing the Dharma, as one Dogen scholar says, he spun words and turned phrases constantly, often creating new meanings on the spot or using the same words and phrasing to make a point in the first moment and then to contradict the very same point in the next. Dogen's use of words to turn over words and to undermine conventional meaning included revaluing the use of words as a means of expressing enlightenment. Dogen's teachings leave us with a way of kind of hitting the body, impacting the body, while at the same time appealing to our intellect.

[35:31]

And in doing so, he turns the body, he turns the mind. In responding to Zen Master Ji Guang's statement that a painting of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger, which is usually interpreted to mean that studying words and letters, a painting of a rice cake, does not help one to realize ultimate truth, Dogen declares that words and letters cannot be separated from the ultimate truth. Thus, in Dogen's teaching, a painting of a rice cake becomes an expression of enlightenment itself. The pointing finger is the moment And although Dogen's teachings were offered to people at all levels of society, he expected that those teachings would be received within a devotion to the practice of zazen. Which takes us back to Dogen's original question that set him off on his quest for enlightenment in the first place. As he states in the introduction to his first written piece, the Fukanza Zengi, If the way is perfect and all-pervading,

[36:38]

how could it be contingent upon practice and realization? To which he gives his famous no-answer answer regarding both method and goal. Think not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. And then finally, in the great master's own words, and so we do not sit in order to become enlightened. We sit... as an expression of enlightenment. We sit because that is what Buddhas do. Thank you very much. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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