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, everybody, or good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world. Greetings. It's just really my pleasure to be spending these weeks thinking about this wonderful teaching of dogens together with people from all over, and just lifting up this teaching together, looking at it this way, looking at it that way, talking it through, thinking it through, practicing it. It's just, you know, at my age, it's my idea of a good time. Studying Dogen.

[01:00]

It's good for all ages. So, and I want to thank Zen Center, the abbots, and whoever is responsible for making this possible for me and for Norman. It's been really fun for us to work together in this way and on a matter that we all share heart to heart. So, excuse me. In Dogen's Zwi Mon King, we find the themes of Dogen's life's work sketched out in clear and direct language. And this sets Zui Mon Ki apart from most of Dogen's famous works, which are written in a style philosophical, poetic, and often difficult to understand.

[02:11]

Zui Mon Ki was written when Dogen was a young man. And, you know, it's just so clear, so direct, and so informal. Zui Monki is divided into six books, each one having 14 to 26 talks, some of them very short, some of them a little longer. One theme that Dogen returns to again and again, and one that we have been considering this week in the Zui Monki intensive, is focus your attention on one thing. And I'm going to read a couple of excerpts from three different talks that mention this teaching. Excuse me. All three of these excerpts are from book one. The first one is talk number five in book one.

[03:20]

It is not possible to study extensively and obtain wide knowledge. Make up your mind and just give up trying to do so. Focus your attention on one thing. That's an excerpt from that talk, but the talk is very short. In another talk, also book one, talk number 11, in which after saying, since literature and poetry are useless, you should give them up. This always makes Norman and I giggle because, of course, Norman has no intention of giving up poetry. But after saying that, and neither did Dogen for that matter. He wrote beautiful poetry for his whole life. He says this, since literature and poetry are useless, you should give them up.

[04:28]

Doga goes on with, do not be fond of learning on a large scale. Even the sayings of the Buddhas and ancestors. It is difficult for us untalented and inferior people to concentrate on and complete even one thing. It is no good at all to do many things at the same time and lose steadiness of mind. And in the third excerpt that I want to read, it's from, again, book one, talk number 14. After saying that even people in the secular world must concentrate on one thing to gain competence, Dogen goes on to say, this holds all the more true for the Buddha Dharma, which transcends the secular world and has never been learned or practiced from the beginningless beginning. we are still unfamiliar with it.

[05:33]

Also, our capacity is poor. If we try to learn many things about this lofty and boundless Buddha Dharma, we will not attain even one thing. Even if we devote ourselves to only one thing, because of our inferior capacity and nature, it will be difficult to clarify Buddha Dharma thoroughly in one lifetime. Students, Concentrate on one thing. Then Ejo, who is Buddha's, I mean, excuse me, Dogen's disciple, and practiced companion through his life. And of course, he outlived Dogen by several decades and carried on his teaching. Ejo asked the question of Dogen. What one thing should we choose to devote ourselves to among all the choices?

[06:39]

Dogen says, well, it depends on the person and all, but zazen is good. It is suitable for all people and can be practiced by those of superior, mediocre, or inferior capabilities. You know, that Dogen is repeatedly mentioning our untalented and inferior capacity gives me a giggle. I remember when I was assistant to the Green Gulch tea ceremony teacher Nakamura Sensei. She told me that a Japanese mother never compliments her child to others. Rather, it would be more likely to admonish your own child and compliment the other mother's children. And I don't know if this is still true.

[07:44]

I don't know if it ever was true. But I imagine I'm hearing Nakamura sensei's voice in these passages of dogens, which is pretty much opposite to how we are with our family members in front of others. It does make clear that Zen practice is not just for the gifted and talented. In fact, the very skills of the gifted and talented may be a hindrance in Zen practice. But that doesn't matter, because there are enough hindrances to go around for everyone. For me, these passages Focus on one thing. Steadiness of mind. Concentrate on one thing. These seem strikingly pertinent to where we find ourselves in this moment of human history.

[08:56]

That is, a setting in which our to-do lists are out of control. The requirement for success in our work and our personal lives is uncompromising, along with the requirement that we be able to function most effectively in a competitive environment. And the pace seems to keep accelerating. Then, in the midst of this, we have a pandemic. in which the demands on some are beyond what is remotely reasonable for a human being to handle and accomplish, while others, such as Norman and I, are doing fine. Through this, so many issues in our country and world have become more visible in high relief, adding to the urgency, the challenge, and the pressure

[10:05]

we're living with. Dogen's suggestion to concentrate on one thing may sound like a great idea for somebody else, someplace else, sometime later, but impossible for us in our current predicament. Does teaching speak to us? How can it help us to practice as our hearts aspire to do in these times? A lifetime of believing in and acting on self and other. Believing in and acting on past, present and future. believing in and acting on personal pride through accomplishment, for example, have colored all aspects of our lives, including aspects in which these things make no sense, like love and relationship, like grief, illness, and death, like Buddhist practice.

[11:31]

And it looks very much like, from reading these old, old Buddhist teachings, that humans have experienced this predicament and have lived brokenhearted and separate from ourselves all along. It looks like we are inclined to default to this as a species. When we hear the practice focus on one thing, It may sound restrictive, joyless, really difficult, too difficult. Like it's time to go to the grocery store, but you can only buy one thing. Or like taking a child into a candy store with wall-to-wall candy from floor to ceiling with candy hanging from the ceiling and telling the child,

[12:35]

You can choose one small piece of candy. Who would want to take up such a practice? Who would want to do this? So let's examine Dogen's instructions to focus on one thing in a different light. Let's think of it in a different way. Maybe we've had the experience. I think all people have, at least as babies, of doing one thing so deeply and with so much commitment that all things are included. That all things disappear or merge in this one thing. Or doing one thing so deeply and with so much commitment that we don't know or care. Whether we are doing it right or wrong, whether we are doing it at all, it is that complete.

[13:42]

So these are my words, and I'm sure they don't exactly express what you would have to say about this. Each of us is completely unique. Each of us needs to express ourselves in this practice. Yet this uniqueness confuses us into thinking that we are unique, that since we are unique, we are alone. But actually, our uniqueness is what we share and what we delight in. Think of all the unique human moments occurring right now throughout the world. no two exactly alike. This endless energy and variation is life itself, and we are all as if hosting our own unique note in an orchestra of life on Earth, of being on Earth.

[14:54]

Most of the time, we're involved in our own particular note. not even noticing the orchestra, thinking kind of like we're alone singing in the shower. But it is through our own particularity, our own incessant uniqueness that we see each other find ourselves playing in an orchestra together, Even though we might think it is by escaping our own particularity, dismissing our uniqueness that we find the Buddha way, I think it is otherwise. I have a passage, a short passage I'd like to read from a talk given by Sojin Mal Weitzman. He gave this talk in 2008 in Chapel Hill.

[16:02]

This is just a short. passage he said wherever you are wherever you stand is the center of the universe but it doesn't mean that you alone are the center of the universe wherever anybody stands is also the center of the universe so everyone is standing in the center of the universe together even though we are all in different places. So in our practice, we are lifting the veil of our isolation. We are finding each other in this practice of focus on one thing. We do this by bringing awareness to our attachments. We can dismantle them bit by bit, but not by slashing and burning or disrespecting our attachments.

[17:10]

Bringing awareness and clarifying our attachments is more characteristic of Zen practice, I think. For example, take my attachment to chocolate. When I bring awareness to my attachment to chocolate, the first thing I'm likely to do is blame the chocolate. Then eliminate chocolate from my house. And then comment to others when I see them eating chocolate. Give them some feedback about that. Find my allies and avoid my enemies with regard to this chocolate attachment matter. And so on. Next thing we know, I've started a war. This is how we think sometimes. And when I try to capture the pattern in a sentence about chocolate, we can see the folly.

[18:21]

It's not the chocolate's fault. It's not our enjoyment of the chocolate's fault. It is, I don't know, something about our longing for chocolate, which exceeds that which chocolate is able to do for us. Looking for a place to park our infinite, endless longing. rather than freeing our longing to be as it is. Well, this is my revised definition of attachment for today. That we are creatures full of longing, that our hearts are open, that our hearts are breaking all the time, and that we think that by throwing our longing out to an object, we can make it go away.

[19:26]

This brings us a problem. I don't think longing goes away. I'm not sure we even want longing to go away. To allow longing to visit our hearts and minds requires steadiness of mind, which means strong mind, soft mind, big mind. So focus on one thing. so as not to lose steadiness of mind. Let's talk about one thing. We don't actually so much see things as we see light from the sun interacting with surfaces interpreted by our mind sense, which creates continuity.

[20:42]

because it seems we are a continuity-loving, an order-loving, a story-based loving creature. We have evolved to be this way. So we don't so much see things as we see what the gift of evolution allows us to see with these eyes. which, by the way, is really different from how other beings see things. We don't see the same world as other creatures. There is really no such thing for us as focusing on one thing. So the sentence, focus on one thing, is not an order.

[21:43]

It's not an instruction. It's more like a song or a rhythm. Its meaning is not in the words. It is mysterious and there to be explored and discovered uniquely by each one of us. We know that Dogen instructs us to study the self. For example, our means of perception, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, the interactions and consciousness of those, this is quite a cacophony, which brings to mind, for me, my days as a schoolteacher. I calculated that I spent about

[22:47]

25,000 hours in a room with children. 16,000 of those in a room with 13-year-olds. So this is myself. They're all still here. And it is quite a cacophony. So for me, Focusing on one thing means rounding them all up, leaving no one out, and together doing one thing that resonates and benefits each one as it is. One thing. Seeing. When we see, see one thing.

[23:50]

Eyes seeing light. Lots of shapes, textures, and colors appear to our eyes seeing light. So refrain from throwing our attention out to objects, even when our integrating sense, our mind, and our habit, Repeat it over time. Compel us to favor this over that. Rate the quality of this over that. Long to have more of this rather than that. Just eyes seeing light. When we breathe, breathe one thing. Body breathing the Earth's atmosphere. coming and going through this one. Refrain from controlling breath even when it's agitated or tense.

[24:58]

Allow breath to come and go as it does. It doesn't belong to us. It comes and goes freely. It intermingles with the breath. of all beings in the Earth's atmosphere. One thing, one itsy bitsy thing. So for me, one is huge. One thing is enough. Even when we turn our attention to answering emails, washing dishes, working out difficulties with others, we can stay located here. A really huge here. Just one thing. Zen practice, I think, is difficult.

[26:08]

just because there is no boundary. The universe has no boundary. Of course, we have forms and we have customs and revered teachers and ancestors, in the midst of which we find our own unique way. Because we have no boundary, it is so important. that we have each other, Dharma friends and teachers, the ones who are all around us all the time, sometimes hiding in plain sight. We can't really find out from others if we are doing this right or wrong, but we can stand together, sit together, breathing Earth's atmosphere in and out, seeing our eyes, seeing light from the sun.

[27:23]

Over time and repetition, the question of right or wrong steps back. It doesn't have to disappear. It can have a jaw, like guardian of the gate, where it can have its own dignity. without taking control of heaven and earth. Nothing need be excluded or left out of focus on one thing. Nothing is extra. Everything is essential. In this place, we practice focusing on one thing and can truly steady our minds. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[28:41]

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