Penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. 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.

[01:03]

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 to be studying Dogen. It's good for all ages. So, and I want to thank the, 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 Monki, we find the themes of Dogen's life's work sketched out in clear and direct language.

[02:15]

And this sets Zwi Monki apart from most of Dogen's famous works, which are written in a style philosophical, poetic, and often difficult to understand. Zui Meng Ki was written when Dogen was a young man. And, you know, it's just so clear, so direct, and so informal. Zui Meng Ki 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 Meng Ki 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.

[03:28]

Excuse me. All three of these excerpts are from book one. The first one is talk number five in book one. 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.

[04:35]

He wrote beautiful poetry for his whole life. He says this, since literature and poetry are useless, you should give them up. Dogen 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.

[05:48]

We are still unfamiliar with it. 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 a Joe. 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?

[06:56]

among all the choices. 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, would be more likely to admonish her own child. and complement the other mother's children.

[07:59]

And I don't know if this is still true. 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.

[09:15]

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

[10:25]

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. So how can 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.

[11:51]

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

[12:54]

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.

[14:02]

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.

[15:13]

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.

[16:21]

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.

[17:30]

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 you 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.

[18:40]

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.

[19:46]

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.

[21:01]

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.

[22:03]

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

[23:06]

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 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

[24:33]

and our habit repeated 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. 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.

[25:36]

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. just because there is no boundary.

[26:38]

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.

[27:43]

Over time and repetition, the question of right or wrong steps back. It doesn't have to disappear. It can have a job, 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. So that concludes my talk for this morning. And I believe we have plenty of time for discussion, but do we chant first?

[28:48]

Yes, we will. We will chant the bodhisattva vows together. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[29:51]

Thank you very much. So as it was just mentioned, we do have plenty of time for questions, comments, responses. If you would like to participate in the conversation in that way, please feel free to raise your hand, either through the participants window or through the reactions button. I want to remind everyone that we do have a practice of move forward and move back. So if you tend to step forward and speak often, consider moving back and vice versa. And then Sokaku, a question. as it was with Norman the other day. It seems he had a preference to call on folks, and I'm more than happy for you to do that if you prefer, and then I can unmute people. So I'll just call on the person that appears in my upper left, right? So that would be Mark. So nice to have you and Norman with us.

[31:05]

Thank you so much for participating. So I have a half-baked question, which I'm going to have you chew on. And I hope you can make it fully baked. So this idea of one thing, I've been meaning to look back at Darlene Cullen's book, The One Who Is Not Busy. Are you familiar with that? And, okay, well, it comes from the cohen, and the cohen, I can't really remember, the sweeping cohen, I think. I don't know if you know that well enough to talk about it, but I'm wondering if this idea of do one thing is related to that cohen. That, um, uh, I hadn't thought of that, but that sounds right. The one thing that I love, I mean, I love that koan myself, but the one thing that always strikes me as kind of like the important, I don't know, to me, what really strikes me about that koan is that there's, you know, what are you doing, sweeping the path, where...

[32:27]

Something like, where is the one who's not busy? And he holds up his broom. And now I'm not recalling the whole conversation. But he says, are there two moons? Or something like that. In other words, is there one who is busy and one who isn't busy? Is that what we're talking about here? Like... You always have, like, access to, you can step over to the one that isn't busy from the one that is busy. Is that what our understanding is? And, of course, no, there's only one moon. Whatever we're doing at this moment, whether you can define it as busy or not busy, but it is the entire moment of our life. You know, you can call it right, you can call it wrong, you can call it wasted, you can call it whatever you want, but it is. the one and only moment of our life. And, you know, this practice, I think, just helps us so much to, oh, right, yeah, okay, I'm alive.

[33:37]

Okay, I'm alive in this moment. That's the moon, you know, that's the one moon. And the one who is not busy... I think in the conversation, the intention is to bring to mind that one who has steadiness of mind even in the midst of activity. We all get frantic, busy in the sense of frantic, running around doing three things at once. But we also all know the busyness in which we are centered and steady and moving through work. So anyway, that's what comes to mind when you ask that question. So just as a quick follow-up, if I'm doing three things, if I'm talking on the telephone to somebody at work and then I hang up the phone and then I'm busy doing something writing-oriented and then somebody at work comes up from behind me and asks me a question and then I turn to that person and speak to them,

[34:48]

Am I doing just one thing if I'm putting all my energy into the one thing that I'm doing? Well, I think, I mean, that's up to you. But, you know, we can move fast. I mean, we humans can move fast. Our minds can move fast. Our bodies, not as fast as some animals, but we can move pretty fast. And to have, not to hold on to steadiness of mind, that doesn't work. but to, as much as possible, be located wherever we are in this moment of life. Frantic moment of life, busy moment of life, three things at once moment of life, located in this moment of life. Thank you, Kathy. You're welcome. Richard? Looks like Richard Silverman.

[35:57]

Hello. Hello. Yeah, I was recently did the 21 day with rib and there was a lot of talk about the one Buddha vehicle as opposed to expedient means. And I'm wondering if this instruction to just do one thing is referring to the teaching that the Buddhas are only teaching the one Buddha vehicle and that the expedients are something to help us get there, to the just doing one thing. So I don't know, I'm a little confused, but I just see that this idea of just do one thing is somehow related to the one Buddha vehicle and the idea that the Buddha is trying to give us gold and we're playing around with yellow paper.

[37:11]

Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with yellow paper. The concept that you need training wheels for a while before you can really learn to ride the bicycle, that plan has a truth in our lives. I mean, if you're going to teach a child to ride a bicycle, you don't give a small child a big bicycle and have them ride down a steep hill. So... In our life, we have all kinds of cases in which there are what we call expedient means. But we're working here with language. You know, expedient means are one thing, are the great Buddha vehicle. Everything is the great Buddha vehicle. There's nothing outside of it. So where each of us... know is in our lives in our this moment of our life on earth this precious moment is completely unique and individual and completely appropriate to us but um the you know we do have a kind of habit of dividing up reality into you know those who need the training wheels and those who can now ride the bike

[38:42]

Something like that. And when we find ourselves thinking like that, you know, we can find a way back to, oh, right, this is my only moment of life. Training wheels or not, who cares? I am here in this moment of life. Yellow, paper, gold, who cares? You know, I'm alive in this moment. So... Anyway, that's what comes up for me. I wasn't part of the conversation in the January intensive, but... Thank you. You're welcome. Kathy, I don't know if this is happening for you, but the person who's located in the top left keeps changing for me. So some folks who've been in the queue a little longer are getting scooted over. I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that. I'm not aware of that. Why don't you call on people because I'm not going to be able to track that.

[39:43]

Sure. Sure. Sounds good. Well, Grace, please. Hello, dear Grace. You're muted, Grace. We can't hear you. Great. Thank you. I love listening to you. And I've got to say that I'm remembering this one thing. Do you remember the year that you were Shusho? What year was that? It was 1987. Yeah, I think it was 87. Anyway, I remembered this wonderful question that I think Erin asked. It could have been Noah, but I think it was Aaron asked you.

[40:46]

And he came to you and said, Mom, what's your batting average? And you said, whatever. Mom, that's my batting average. And I thought that answer completely joins Richard's question with your one thing. That was skillful means of Noah or Aaron must have. been about eight at that time. You completely met him on his level. And I just got that. But I can't, I have not, I never remember Dharma questions from Shusau ceremonies. But that was 25 years ago. Whatever. So I thank you very much. I remember his batting average was... Like he had a good batting average. It wasn't early in the season. So it was like the concluding batting average.

[41:47]

But he had a really good batting average. And so I happened to know it. I think it was 374. That's what I remember. And I think that you just, I had no idea why you said that at that time. And only now do I get it. Because having been to so, that's one of the few times. where we're doing one thing at a time and having a relationship just with one person at a time. And it just occurs to me now that that's a perfect integration of appropriate means and just doing one thing. Thank you. You're welcome. Next. Let me say, I think that, you know, Grace said about Chusot ceremony, and probably many of you have been to one, the Chusot ceremony is actually a wonderful kind of, it's like a piece of theater, but it is not theater, especially if you're Chusot.

[42:55]

It is like, you know, it's very deep, let's just say that. And meeting each person, each person's question, bam, [...] like right after another is, you know, it's like a busy day. But, you know, meeting each person completely as much as possible is, it's such a worthy task. And that's the last thing I did in Zen before I became a school teacher. Wow. And that really kind of sent me into a sense of, wow, this is my responsibility. I mean, and of course we fail all the time at our responsibility, but I always felt like, okay, that's what I'm here for. Fully present for each child. Thank you.

[43:57]

Thank you for remembering that. Next in the Q, I see Leslie. Leslie, you are muted. In fact, is Leslie frozen? How about we give that a moment and move to the next person in the queue, which is David. You're muted. Okay, better now. Hello, Kathy, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm very pleased to have been associated with Darlene Cohen for many years.

[44:58]

And a long time ago in our starting Crystal Spring Sangha in Burlingame, she brought forth for our study, One Bright Pearl. and I was searching for that document when Kodo called on me. I think that was, I remember that as the most intractable piece of work that she'd ever brought to this group. I don't think we ever solved that one. Is that related to what you think Dogen is talking about one thing at a time? focus on one thing is that the same kind of uh i know we don't want to talk about concepts but is it similar yes i'd say it's similar and um when we say one bright pearl it's um just be careful that you know sometimes we can pick up a practice and start using it as a weapon on ourselves you know like

[46:11]

how come it doesn't look like one bright pearl? Where's my one bright pearl? How come I don't get a bright pearl? You know, you start up on that sort of thing. So when we have a beautiful image which does express truth, it's a deep expression of human life, but be careful that it doesn't bite you, you know, that it doesn't set up an expectation. that then the expectation is the problem, you know. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Next in the queue, Miguel. Good morning. Thank you very much for your talk, Kathy. It's very profound. I think... my thing is it's like focusing on just one thing has ironically been something kind of hard to focus on um usually because it's easy to get hung up on one thing and i appreciate your comment about using a practice as a weapon and that's i think that happens a lot to me in my practice is that i will get hung up either on a very positive feeling or a very negative feeling like uh profound sadness

[47:36]

or an enthusiastic joy that almost translates into like a mania. What I'm saying is that there's this feeling of like I can do anything versus there's not much I can do. And I think it's hard to focus on one thing when you're getting stuck in these polarities. And I was just wondering, what have you encountered in your practice that helps you deal with this? Yeah, I understand. I'm a person who was blessed or not with a very active mind and imagination. And what I discovered over the years, it took me a long time, I discovered that it's all about the body and the breath. The stability of one thing, for me, comes from the breath. And the breath, for me, is located low in my body.

[48:38]

So, you know, the conundrum of figuring out, like Ejo said, okay, one thing, but like which one? There's so many of them, you know. That's a, you know, a conundrum that our mental faculty engages in readily. So, What we can do is just leave that alone, just kind of like step back and come back to our body and breathe. And as I was trying to say, when we breathe, we allow breathing. We can remind ourselves, this breathing doesn't belong to me. This is the Earth's atmosphere. This is the whole Earth's atmosphere that is breathing here. And it doesn't matter if I'm aware of that or not. It's still the case. So we can come back to breathing. So wherever you are, you can just stop and take a breath.

[49:42]

It's very helpful. So I was just also wondering on like matters of like urgency, because there are times where I cultivate this peaceful mind, but there are, I hesitate to say things outside of me, but, or at least things that I feel urgently. they need to be taken care of right now with extreme attention. Sometimes I feel that like coming back to my breath, coming back to me, focusing on that one thing almost seems selfish. And it seems like I'm avoiding the work or trying to hide in, you know, perform spiritual bypass. So how do you, how do you deal with that? Well, for me, breath, supports my ability to handle urgency. I mean, as I mentioned, being in a class full of 13-year-olds all day every day, there's a lot of crazy urgency going on.

[50:50]

And to be able to handle it, to be able to stay and stand steady for myself and for them, taking a breath is... is really helpful. And it doesn't mean, okay, everybody, give me five minutes. I need to sit in my chair and breathe. Could you all keep it down? It's not that. It's taking a breath right in the middle of the busyness and the urgency, taking that breath, a busy breath, an urgent breath, taking that breath, and just trusting the breath itself will help you to handle the urgency. I mean, we're human beings. We can handle a lot. And we handle things a lot better when we're not conflicted. When we're all in on handling the urgency, on sitting, on sleeping, when we're all in on our activity.

[51:56]

I mean, it doesn't always go well, but... It's not that breathing solves all our problems, but we can move through this, those kinds of times more intact, is my experience, and more helpful. Sorry, I'm writing this down. So, just from what I gather, it's not necessarily an issue of resolving the crisis or the urgency, but just being able to be in a position where you can handle it better. In other words, it's not, you know, silencing the storm. It's just being able to endure getting wet. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can think of it as, you know, we're like the practices. This is a flawed metaphor, but we can say our practice is like a boat.

[52:57]

And we're sitting in our boat. And we have to make sure our boat is sound. The ocean is, you know, a storm can come up. It can be calm. It can be this. It can be that. We cannot control the ocean. But we can, you know, make a good keel for our boat. And we can make sure our boat is in good repair so that we have the best chance of staying in the ocean in our boat. Like I said, that's a flawed metaphor, but it came up for me in response to what you said. Thank you. I appreciate that. Hi, Cathy.

[54:03]

Hi. So nice to see you. And thank you. Thank you so much for your talk. I really enjoyed it. The one thing that I was thinking when you were talking is really your precious ability to speak about the Buddha Dharma and the meanings of the Buddha Dharma, which really... speaks about the existence of things. And if I understand Dogen, I think he's trying to tell us that we have the benefit of choosing, of doing one thing by sitting Zazen. And and really concentrate on our breath and being receptive and really embracing even the myriad things is so like, you know, like the analogy of the boat that you were giving us.

[55:17]

And to find out in ourself this calm sea, this enjoying of this moment of every breath. So it doesn't matter if you think for an hour or 40 minutes or even one minute, as long as you can gather yourself to this really joyful calm. And the one thing that I really appreciate, and I have the same experience as being... For 33 years, a teacher of high school kids. But being present, I think it's like having a docusan. Like you're present and the teacher is present for you. And this is how I feel when I'm going to a docusan with you or with Norman or with Wayne or with other teachers.

[56:23]

Thank you so much for bringing it up to me this time. Thank you. I can't tell you, I'm sure that you experienced this too, that same kind of, I don't know, authentic conversation like Dokusan with my students, with the kids. Kids, I mean, not all the time, of course, but kids can go straight there. Barbara, please. Wasn't there somebody in front of me? Ken? Anyway, I will go. Hi, Kathy. Hi, Barbara. I wanted to first finally say it's so nice to meet you and thank you so much, you and Norman, for being here and teaching

[57:33]

us at Zen Center, it's such a, I'm just feeling so thankful and grateful to both of you and to be studying these teachings together. So thank you so much. And it's kind of, I keep on thinking why I've been at Zen Center as a resident since 2000 and I'm just learning about you and I'm learning, you know, And I didn't really hear a lot about you because you were probably teaching in school. So I'm really so happy to be hearing your voice and your teachings and and to put you together with Norman. So. Great. So that's mainly what I wanted to say, but I feel like I need to say something else. So I will try. You know, one thought I had was where did you know, so this is a teaching that. Dogen gave early on in his, to this group of people to Ajo.

[58:36]

And where did he take this concept in his later thought and teachings? And I was thinking, I was wondering if it might be the idea of wholehearted practice. That's where this went to or developed into, or if it's maybe a separate kind of teaching. Yeah, the Zui Monkey, These were writings when Dogen was young, but so is Genjo Koan and Fukan Zazengi. He was really a writer, and he wrote a lot of really important seminal works when he was young. I mean, fairly young, in his 30s, which for me is really young. And so the Zwi-mon-ki is not writing. It's actually spoken and recorded by Eijo. But you can find all kinds of little, you know, passages and teachings that then echo, you know, you can, oh, wait, I remember that from Genja Kohan or from, you know, one fascicle, only a Buddha and a Buddha and all kinds of things.

[59:47]

Because, you know, this was his life's work. So, and... And the other thing is, I want to say again, it was simultaneous. It wasn't like he did Zui Monkey and then later on he turned into a fabulous writer. No, it was simultaneous somewhat. I'm not quite sure the dates of which. But, you know, this was his life's work. His verbal teaching in a kind of informal – not informal. I don't think anything in Japan was informal in a Zen monastery at that time. But it was – a combination of new monks and experienced monks and also visitors to the temple. So it was, you know, it was the kind of instructions that would help anyone, not just not just, you know, people who had an established practice. So anyway. OK, well, I'll leave it at that for now. I have I'm sure I'll have other questions for you. For me, it's very.

[60:51]

I mean, it's really fun, I have to say, to kind of, if you have the time, to read something in Zui Monkey and then kind of look through the Shobo Genzo and see where you can find something about that, and you will be able to. And then to find koans, some of the old koans, which speak to the same thing, you know. The koans very much... you know, reiterate the point of just one thing, just this, just this moment, nothing, nothing fancy, you know, this, this, this one, you know? Yeah. I like, I resonate more with that kind of feeling just this or just this is it. So I'm trying to find ways to take just one thing into a teaching that can wake me up. And I wish you well in that endeavor. Next in the queue, Ken, and then Brenda.

[61:59]

There we go. I believe I'm unmuted now, yes? Yes, you are. We hear you. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really love the way you speak. I'm relatively new to Buddhist practice. It's been less than a year, I think, or it'll be a year in a few weeks. And the idea of thinking of one thing at a time has... I would argue has been a lifelong challenge for me. Although the time when it is the absolute easiest, which is I am using to inform my practice and my life, I've been an actor and a musician my whole life. And pretty much that's all I've ever done. And as I learned very early on, when you're standing on stage in the middle of a play in front of anywhere from 50 to 5,000 people, if you're not thinking of one thing at a time, you're in very serious trouble. And it's not just like, oh, gosh, my mind is wandering. It's, oh, gosh, I'm ceasing to exist. I mean, there is that feeling where somebody goes up on a line in the middle of a play and you realize, oh, gosh, we're lost.

[63:04]

Somebody has to get us back. And the entire world feels like it's closing in on you. And then when you get back into the moment, into the text, into your body, if you will, and you start to move forward, that's it. That's all you are. You are simply like a point source. You're just doing this thing. 100% committed to that moment. And you continue until it's over, and you take your bow, and then the rest of the world rushes in to fill in the void. And it's a glorious feeling of two hours, or however long the play is, or the musical performance of being 100% focused. And I remember my acting teacher in college, who definitely, I can assure you, was not a practicing Buddhist, in a rather unkind way, told me that, look, you are going to dissolve. You will disappear if you don't stay with the moment, stay exactly where you are doing what you're doing. That is the only way that you can function in this world. And when you don't, you'll feel it. It will feel terrifying. And it would be wonderful to be able to apply that same discipline to every aspect of my life.

[64:07]

But at least I have that to fall back. And when I know I'm dissembling, it's like, OK, just imagine you're on stage. It's 50,000 people watching you. Where are you now? I'm like, well, I'm right here. And that really does help. So anyway, thank you very much. It was really wonderful to have it put into such clear terms. Well, that's a very helpful thing to know about. And I'm not an actor or a musician, but I always imagined that that is one of our sons is an artist. And I think that the arts in general, that residing in this moment and this moment being so vivid I think is the draw to art. Very much so. Sports too, you know, especially high achieving sports. And so in our practice, the, you know, there's an ordinary mind thing going on in Zen, you know, like just regular old ordinary, nothing fancy.

[65:15]

So the, So the question is, how can we bring that sense of completely right here, completely present into, you know, when you're sitting around the table in the morning reading the paper or whatever it is you do or drinking your coffee and kind of like just whatever, you know, how can you bring, how can we bring that? Not the hyper-focus necessarily, but that sense of fully present. It is. It's like a calm focus. I mean, I know being on stage, you can't have this kind of urgent attachment to every single moment. It's weird. It's like your body, you allow yourself to trust the fact that you know the blocking, you know the words, you know all of the peripheral things. It's all been burned into you just through rehearsal or whatever, like life. and you're just moving through space there's just a kind of an inevitability to your actions and the next step and everything is just totally contained in that wonderful world that you've created for that period of time and it's I remember how liberate you know that feeling I think it's why I love acting so much because there is that period where you could do that and nothing else interferes you know it's like a luxury of that particular moment relative to the rest of life where everything interferes

[66:31]

Well, thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful morning. I needed this. This really helped. Thank you. Brenda, please. Thank you, Kathy. I was intrigued by one statement that you said, and I was going to ask you to say a little bit more about it. It doesn't matter because there are enough hindrances to go around for everybody. So in this wide view that you have described for the one thing, what counts as a hindrance and how should one relate to it? So I said that because, you know, we often hear that, you know, sometimes the gifted and talented types... um kind of run aground with zen practice because you kind of have there's a lot of i mean the fact of it is there's a lot of you know toughing it out and drudgery and patience in our experience of zen practice you know that's just that's just the deal um so it takes a kind of long view patience and a kind of um you know you know kind of like a diminished importance in the outcome

[67:55]

just a commitment, just a commitment to doing this. And so the hindrance. The hindrances are, you know, to speak in a general way, our mind setting up our whole lifetime. I mentioned, you know, self and other, the belief in self and other. this is an unsubstantiated belief that we have been acting on our entire lives. And at this moment in human civilization, when I was young, the idea that we were all connected was like, that's what you learned on LSD, right? But now it's completely apparent. We know that global climate change, we know... Pollution, we know all the things that each one of us does has a very specific and certain impact on others.

[69:03]

We know that now. We know we're connected. So what would be a hindrance is that which keeps us kind of locked up in this mental habit of I'm competing against you. I am going to win this thing, and I am going to do anything to win this thing. Now, I am kind of all-inclusive here, so for me, it's not competition that is at fault. It is our holding on to the idea that I am me, and I must win against you, and you are not me. That idea, which is a... an unsubstantiated mental habit. And we bump up against them all the time. But think about how many thousands of times in our life have we lived and talked to others in a world that's based on that idea, self and other, past, present, and future.

[70:16]

How many hours have we invested in bringing that reality into our life. And so Buddhist practice has to do with repetition to, you know, repetition of Buddhist practice, which just means breathing, staying with your body, staying with your breath. What happens if we trust the practice that some of those mental constructs just kind of start to fray a little bit around the edges. We don't have to, destroy them, but things start to fall apart around our mental constructs and we start to see them differently. Thank you. You're welcome. We are nearing the end of our time. We aim to end by 1130, but I think we have time for one more exchange if there is a wish for that.

[71:17]

I can say thank you so much for the opportunity to have this conversation together. And I really appreciate, you know, I really appreciate a conversation in the Dharma. I think it helps all of us. It helps every question that you ask or you think that you bring up helps me and hopefully helps you and helps each other. That's how this thing works. So I appreciate having the opportunity and I look forward to more opportunities in the next several weeks. So thank you so much. And thank you so much Kodo for managing us today and guiding us. Happy to help. Everyone, please take care. You should be able to unmute now if you'd like. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you, Kathy.

[72:34]

Thank you, Kathy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. My name is Mireille. Hi. Hi. Muchas gracias, Kathy. Good to see you. That's so neat. Bye, Kathy. It's Heidi. You have rays of sun. It's beautiful. Rainbow rays of sun across your face. And you are a ray of sun. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. we can...

[73:39]

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