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. I was a graduate student, pretty sporty. I had a Triumph sports car, you know, teaching calculus. I sold that, bought a VW van, and drove out to the West Coast to figure out... what was going on I took the entire summer exploring climbing in the mountains and anyway by the time I got to Big Sur I thought well I think I'll drive in and see what this Tassar thing is about so I just found out somewhere how to do it and I drove down took the nobody told me it was a 15 mile dirt road up over the mountains down to Tassar I got there I thought well maybe I'll just you know maybe just take a hot bath and check it out because I'd heard that you could go there for a day for a hot bath so I I walked up to the front office, and there were two young kids in front of me.

[01:02]

I was 25, they were 21, so they were young, yeah. And they signed up, paid their $3 to go to the hot baths, and I walked up. But for some reason, instead of saying, you know, like I want to take a hot bath, I said, you know, I read this book on Zen, I'm kind of interested in Zen. And the guy behind the desk, a famous Zen student at that time, said... oh, well, we have a program here. You could stay as a guest student, and in a week you'll learn more about Zen than if you read all the books written about Zen in English. Do you want to do that? And out of my mouth, I said, yes. And there I was. They had a place where you could, do you have a sleeping bag? Yes, they had a place for me to sleep. And two hours later, Reb Anderson was giving me Zazen instruction, and that evening I was had dinner, eating, we ate oreochi, we ate with chopsticks, weird Japanese food, soy things, who knew?

[02:03]

And I was waiting around for zazen. I was starting to get pretty nervous, you know, because this was like two 40-minute periods. I'd never sat zazen formally with anybody before. And this person, Issan Dorsey, was watering in front of the office of the plants. And I went up to Issan and I said... because he seemed like one of those people you actually could talk to. A lot of the monks were kind of intimidating, but he just was sort of an easygoing guy. And I said, you know, like, I'm new here. It's never sad zazen and zendo before. I'm a little nervous about what's going on. And he says, oh, what do you think? Do you think you're going to die? Probably not. So anyway. That relaxed me enough, and I went in and sat Sazen with Suzuki Hiroshi, and I didn't die, but something happened, for me anyway.

[03:05]

Something happened, and I came out of that, and I thought, you know, there's something going on with this Sazen. I think I'm going to stick around a little longer, which I did. That's how things go sometimes. Anyway, I don't think you newcomers are going to die. But you might end up sticking around longer than you thought. That's possible. Anyway, even if you are a little nervous, some of the old-timers are probably wondering a little bit what's going to happen to them this week, too. So you're not alone. In fact, I think this is my 11th seven-day sachine I've led as abbot here at City Center. I mean, I have no idea what's going to happen to me this week, so we're going to all just sort of do this together. And so I was thinking as I walked down here how much I appreciate all the help you get from the kitchen, the Tenzo, the Enos, the Don Rio, all the people making this possible.

[04:20]

And And, you know, people from the past, like the person who designed this building, Georgia O'Keeffe. Not Georgia O'Keeffe, she's a famous painter. What? Why do I... Well, Georgia O'Keeffe inspired me when I was a young man hiking the mountains of New Mexico. Same thing. Mountains of New Mexico, Julia Morgan's building. And Suzuki Roshi and... Then I was thinking, well, the sun that came up this morning, nice, you know, created this beautiful planet located in just the right place that life could live, you know. So, you know, appreciating our life is something that we don't do enough. It's kind of one of those things. We're so busy with our life, solving all our problems that we forget. But maybe during this seven-day sashim, at some point in time, you'll actually appreciate your life and your...

[05:22]

the body that you have. Feel grateful for this bothersome body that is going to feel creaky and not always exactly the way you want it to feel during the next seven days. Anyway, one of the things that's important about the way we do sashins and the way we practice here at Zen Center is we practice in a group. Suzuki Hiroshi used to say, group practice is the shortcut to awakening. And of course, that sounds wonderful. And then you think, well, it's pretty hard to get along with all these people. So I thought I would just remind you of a couple of the admonitions we have here, which is during Sashin, we're quiet. And when we pass another student in the hallway, we bow, a standing bow to them. And that's all you need to do. You might not feel like bowing. You might feel like

[06:22]

I actually don't like that person because they've been moving too much in the zendo and irritating me, but whatever, you bow anyway. And I remember Lou Richmond, the person who ordained me when he was practicing with Suzuki Roshi. Yeah, Suzuki Roshi, one time I passed somebody in a pathway at Tassara and I bowed to them and I realized I was extremely angry at them. What do you think about that? And Suzuki Roshi said, Perfect. So even if you're angry, still you bow. You honor that bodhisattva, that person's Buddha nature that is practicing hard with you. And if you are angry at them, you don't deny your feeling of being angry. You own that, because that's what you're feeling at that moment. Perfect. So it's kind of nice, actually, bowing is... What if every time we passed the hallway we had to shake somebody's hand?

[07:26]

A little too intimate, don't you think? I mean, the bowing gives you some room to both express your appreciation and noticing them and at the same time leave you some space to be yourself. Kind of an enactment that expresses our connection and our individuality. Part of what's going on during the seven-day sashin is like a big ceremony. Everything has a sort of ceremonial ritual aspect. I thought I'd mention, I will, during the course of these seven days, bring up some of these practices that we do during the sashin, just sort of as a reminder. But the other one is the practice of not looking or engaging another person. It allows you to have some space to yourself here. because we're kind of crowded in this building. You know, because once you, you know, like you might see somebody and you might smile at them because you like them.

[08:31]

But if they don't smile back, then you wonder, well, maybe they're unhappy with me for some reason or something. You get this whole level of involvement that can go on because you don't have, you're not going to get to have a conversation with them to straighten out these mists. So I would just suggest mostly following that admonition as best you can. Now, of course, some... of us will be looking at people. And David and the Eno and I are looking around because we're paying attention to what's going on in the building. We're paying attention to what's going on during our yoke. We're noticing things and we should be. That's part of our job. And also because of my personality, you know, sometimes I'll look at you and I'll smile. You know, I cannot help myself. So you'll have to forgive me for that. And In any event, we'll do the best we can with that. I do remember this story, and I didn't have time to look it up exactly. It's in one of those books about Suzuki Roshi where they were in a one-day sitting or something, and Suzuki Roshi is walking down the steps from the Zendo somewhere and saw a student doing something, and somehow there's something about it, and he asked her how she was doing, and she didn't answer him.

[09:47]

He was like, well, I wonder what's going on. And so then she pointed to the sign on the stairway that says, Silence. During Sashin. So this is a girl she turned around and went, Anyway, we do our best. We'll say one other thing about all these people we're practicing with. You know, quite possibly somewhere along the line you'll be irritated with somebody because you're just, you know, whatever your idea about how they're supposed to be following the forms and rubs up against their idea for some reason or another. And our practice in a sashin is to turn our view inward. Not so much like, what's wrong with them and maybe I should straighten them out and all that, but no, why am I so irritated about this?

[10:53]

It's the backward look. It's the look into yourself. You may be right, probably are right, maybe they did do something, but mostly you're going to look into your own self and use all of these opportunities, these rubbing up against other people as a chance to explore your own mind. in your own emotional life. I mean, of course, if there's something going on that's really bothering you, the person sitting next to you, you can go talk to the Eno and say, you know, something. If there's something in your situation that is just not workable for you, of course, please, talk to the Eno, talk to the Tanto, talk to somebody, and we will make our best effort or we will to do something. So I want to also, again, I mentioned it last night, thank you for all rearranging your busy lives to spend some time here together doing this.

[12:03]

I know it's not an easy thing to do. In fact, I sometimes think the hardest thing for those who work in the outside world in doing a Sashina is to get here. The rest is actually pretty easy. You're here. We feed you. You just follow the schedule. and you've got no problems. But to get here, to set down all of your life activities, that takes something. But anyway, the effort now is to let that discriminating mind that was so useful and necessary for running your life relax a little and begin to embrace or experience your life without the running dialogue, without all the metaphors. as beautiful and distressing as they may be. So we live in difficult times. The world has a lot of suffering in it. And because of the nature of the world we live in, in terms of communication, we are daily aware of the vast amount of suffering in the world.

[13:12]

And also our personal lives are very busy and filled with complex issues real-world problems. And they need to be addressed. But maybe for this week, or and maybe for this week, we can set those problems aside for a little bit. It's not like, I mean, those problems will probably go away eventually, but you'll have other problems. We always have problems. And the effort that you make in a Sashin is to have a deeper relationship with your life. It won't necessarily solve your problems, but it'll put them in a proper perspective. This chance to explore sitting in a deeper way, take care of yourself and challenge yourself, you'll find that your life can put problems in the place they need to be.

[14:16]

I'm hoping that we all can pay attention to our life in that way and settle into it and let the background of our problems fall a little bit into the background. This sasheen commemorates the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha. It's wonderful. We always set up the sasheen so it ends on Saturday. And miraculously, this Saturday is December 8th, which is the day that Shakyamuni Buddha's Enlightenment is generally celebrated in Japan and many other places in the world. So we'll be having our Buddha's Enlightenment ceremony on the day when many other people are. So that's nice, and we'll have that ceremony Saturday morning, and then Saturday afternoon we'll have the Shuso ceremony. Anyway, as Buddha sat under the bow tree and he woke up, he said, it is wonderful to see Buddha nature in everything and each individual.

[15:28]

This is a primary statement. It's not exactly the way they do it. It's the way Zen interprets that statement, and I think it's the beautiful way to state it. Buddha nature in everything and in each individual. And this will come up as we go through our week together, because we're going to be studying the Genjo Koan, which has been the koan for the practice period. And the fact that you have Buddha nature is the central feature of that essay. I was going to say something about seshins, but I think I'll skip that, save that for tomorrow. So in the class, this practice period, we studied the Genjo Koan, which was an important essay by Dogen. I translated it as the Koan of Everyday Life. My subtitle was, We Will Explore the Depth and Poignancy of Ordinary Human Life.

[16:37]

The Depth and Poignancy of Ordinary Human Life. I think this is, of course, very encouraging because that's mostly what we all are living, is ordinary human lives. And according to Dogen, every moment in our ordinary human lives is a moment of awakening and has great depth. So it's very applicable to... the ordinary life we live out there, our busy lives, or our busy lives even in here. We live pretty busy lives in the temple. We have many demanding responsibilities. But for a week, we're going to be practicing like monks. And I think we'll see to what extent the Genjo Koan can be an inspiring essay on what it's like to live as a monk in a temple for a week. So just for those of you who are not as familiar with Dogen, and just to sort of remind you a little bit about his life, he was born in 1200 in Kyoto, which was then the capital of Japan.

[17:47]

He was born into high society. Heejin Kim, in his essay on Dogen, wrote, Perhaps no society in human history emphasized aesthetic refinement and sensibility more than the Japanese court and ability in those days. So his father was a powerful member of court nobility. Apparently, it's not clear exactly when his father died, but it was clear that his mother died when he was eight. And so at that point, he, while watching the incense burn at his mother's funeral, was inspired to become a monk. And he was ordained at 13 in the Tendai tradition, which was at that time probably... the major school of Buddhism. It was located on Mount Hiei, which is just outside Kyoto, and a huge mountain and magnificent, large campus, basically.

[18:50]

At the age of 17, he left the Tendai Monastery because it didn't quite fit with him, and joined a recently founded Zen monastery. And that was in the Rinzai tradition, which had just sort of been imported from China. But he was still not satisfied, and he set off for China at age 23 to find a true teacher. So Dogen came from a very complex religion. Tendai was kind of like high church Catholic in the Western world. And I think he felt that it kind of had lost its heart. And so he looked for... something which was what inspired him to go to China. And I just thought I would read a little bit about this. We have seven days together, so we're just going to meander along here and see where we end up. We'll get eventually to something, I'm sure. Page 202. Just wanted to give you a little bit of the background of Japan and the Kamakura Japan 1200.

[19:58]

So he's explaining, this is a Heejin Kim again, he's explaining the way to look at this period is in terms of the nobility of the warrior power struggle, the corrupt state of Buddhism and the traditional folk movements of the masses. So the nobility had been ruling Japan for centuries and was in decline and the warrior classes were kind of starting to... fight them for power, and Buddhism was extremely corrupt. All the major religious traditions had armies. Mount Hiei had huge armies, and they fought battles. Kind of reminds you of Western religion during a certain period of time. There were two opposing social forces in Japan in those days, the court nobility in Kyoto and the military class in Kamakura. He talked about how corrupt the nobility was, mostly just following exclusively political pursuits, amorous adventures and poetic and artistic indulgences, a very sort of corrupt nobility, a warrior class fighting for control of the power.

[21:24]

Anyway, there's a beautiful 30-page article about all of this, and the only reason I bring it forward is it kind of reminds me of our world now. huge power struggles, military conflicts, fighting over things and ignoring the crucial central issues of the survivability of the planet and the suffering of so many human beings. And it was that corruption in society and that corruption in Buddhism that led Dogen to leave Japan and go to China to find what he thought would be hopefully a simpler and more... close-to-the-heart way of practice. And that's what he brought back from Japan. He studied there for five years, and for the last two years under Tatang Rujing, who became his teacher and gave him Dharma transmission, and he returned to Japan in 2012-2027.

[22:25]

He was only 27 years old. The first essay he wrote was Fukanza Zengi, The Universal Recommendation for Zazen, a beautiful essay which probably many of you have studied, where he basically taught how to do zazen. He emphasized the vital importance of zazen. The second text was bendawa, wholehearted practice of the way. He described zazen practice as ji-ju-yu-zan-mai, self-receiving and self-employing samadhi. When we sit in the upright posture, the entire universe becomes enlightenment. So for Dogen, zazen is the pivotal point of practice. He then moved to an hermitage in 1233 when he founded his own monastery, Koshoji's first summer practice period. Dogen composed Makahanya Haramita, which was his commentary on the Heart Sutra, and that he wrote the Genjo Kohan for a lay practitioner.

[23:29]

Those were the first four essays that Dogen wrote. And any one of those, Benda Wa, Fukanza Zengi, the Heart Sutra, you could lead an entire practice period on them. In fact, I think I did lead a practice period on the Heart Sutra. I should do one on the Fukanza Zengi sometime. But anyway, I chose the Genjo Koan to lead this practice period because, for some reasons which I'll state, Just also another comment on Dogen, he was an unusual Zen master in that he wrote extensively. Most Zen teachers' teaching consists... In fact, what characterizes Zen masters in China is they wrote nothing. The little, all you ever have is the stories of their interactions with their students, and some lectures maybe have been preserved. And even Suzuki Roshi, whose book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is probably the most... well-read and well-known book on Zen Buddhism in America was basically a collection of lectures that he gave that was edited by his students.

[24:38]

But Dogen was unusual and he wrote brilliant essays, 95 of them assembled in the Shobo Genzo, and they are studied by philosophers, Western philosophers, sociologists, all kinds of people. He's probably one of the leading minds of Buddhist religion. and more than just Buddhist religion, of studies of Eastern thought. We studied a book, which I didn't bring here, called Three Commentaries on the Dogen, on the Genjo Koan, and Nishiari Bokasan was one of the people that did Zen masters that had commentaries there, and he said in his introduction to the Genjo Koan, quote, This fascicle is the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of Dogen.

[25:44]

The fundamental teaching of Dogen's lifetime is expounded in this fascicle, the 95 fascicles, the essays. of the Shobo Genzo are the offshoot of this fascicle. So the Genjo Koen is considered a key to the entire Shobo Genzo. And the main reason, of course, we study Dogen so much here in Zen Center is Suzuki Roshi had studied Dogen extensively when he was young. And as Kaz says about Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it's pure Dogen. And it is. You read those essays and it's just, oh, this is Dogen, it's understandable. And I will probably bring in some quotes from Suzuki Hiroshi as we move along through the Genjo Koan, because he has a nice way of summarizing things. So, Dogen brought back a simplified concept.

[26:46]

sort of a core teaching of Buddhism. And it wasn't that it was Buddhism, and it was Mahayana Buddhism, and it was Zen Buddhism, and it was consistent with Chinese Zen Buddhism. Sort of his sense was it was the core. So it wasn't any different than all of what we think of Zen Buddhism or Buddhism or Mahayana Buddhism. But his approach was sort of unique. His focus was not on getting enlightenment, which is so often sort of seen when you read the Chinese koan stories. His focus was entirely on honoring, as I used in my subtitle for this practice period, the depth and poignancy of ordinary human life. That is the point of practice, that depth and poignancy is enlightenment. he felt liberation was actually in the midst of every moment of practice.

[27:51]

Not a means to liberation, but the expression of liberation. Zazen brings up the whole of reality in each moment. So if one thinks of religious practice as a necessary expression of the human heart, then the essence of Dogen's thought was that liberation and enlightenment couldn't possibly be a future event. that we would someday encounter. The only way that liberation could possibly make any sense, Dogen felt, was that if it were in the midst of every moment of practice. So practice is not the means towards liberation. Practice is the expression, the manifestation of liberation. So while the Buddhist path had traditionally been a step-by-step affair with many practices accumulating to a final stage, Dogen saw the whole Buddhist path as collapsing entirely into each moment.

[28:52]

On every moment of our practice, we are literally a beginning practitioner and also a Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree at the moment of attaining awakening. So that's kind of a little, very quick, comment or two on Dogen's approach and now on to the Genjo Koan with an entire seven minutes remaining. So just Reminder on the definition of Genjo Koan. Gen means something appearing, something which appears, and not just something that appears, but something that appears just as it is. It kind of reminds you of when you were young and you used to lie on a field or a lawn and looking at clouds, just the way they are.

[30:03]

It's enough passing. You could spend an hour doing that. things just as it is and I was I like to snorkel and so whenever I my wife and I travel to a place where we can snorkel some place on a island or someplace with a beach and usually get very excited about getting out to snorkel and quite often maybe the first day I get there there's high winds and surf and you can't get in but you know eventually I get to get in the water and Usually you interact with somebody on the beach and you say, how is it? And they say, oh man, there's some green turtles out there, sea turtles, fabulous, really great. So I get all my gear on, I swim out to where the reef is and I'm looking around for green turtles. I'm not seeing any green turtles. I'm not seeing anything. There's no fish, it's just like... And you know, when you've got a mask on,

[31:06]

I don't know how many of you snorkel, but you're looking through this thing. You don't have a very panoramic view of what's going on. And I get kind of very sort of frustrated. So I finally just, you know, stop. Take a breath or two, and then all of a sudden, fish everywhere. I mean, schools of fish. Not just a few tropical fish, but schools of them. Turtles swimming around. Where did they all come from? Was it that I was so busy thrashing around trying to satisfy my desire to see a fish that I scared them all away? Or was it that I was just thrashing around so that I couldn't see anything? So anyway, this is a kind of metaphor for how we are a lot in life. We're looking for something deep to happen, something we want, and we're so busy looking for it. when it's right in front of our face that we can't see it.

[32:08]

And you've all had those experiences walking in the woods or just anywhere where all of a sudden you wake up to the whole world that's manifesting itself, just as it is in front of you. Not like you wanted it to be, not like you're planning for it to be, but as it actually is, which is so much bigger, so much more, than anything you could possibly imagine. So Gen basically means things just as they are, without our projections and preconceptions, this mysterious, ineffable nature of being itself. The character Zhou means complete, all-inclusive. So Gen Zhou then is the total manifestation of things on every moment as they are. And koan, we know what a koan is because it's part of the English language by now.

[33:13]

You know, those paradoxical antidotes or riddles used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment. And we have these ways of breaking the characters down. So ko... One way of breaking koan down is ko is oneness, and an is uniqueness. So ko is the oneness, the interconnection of us, and an is the absolute unique nature of every dharma, you as an absolutely, totally unique person. So a koan is connecting your uniqueness and your connection in one thing. So the genjo koan is the koan, the paradox, of the manifestation of things as it is, it's the koan of that paradox of the manifestation of things as it is. That is, things are both totally connected in one and totally unique.

[34:14]

And there's a kind of paradox in that. That's one way of thinking of the koan aspect. The other way of thinking of the koan aspect is in each moment you are confronted by reality with a question. What do I do? What is my responsibility as a human being in this moment? How do I respond? This is a fundamental question that every one of us has faced at various times in our life. Is that the kitchen crew departing to take care of lunch? Thank you all very much. It's both a reminder that it's time for us to bring this lecture to a close, but I have a couple of three more minutes, I think, at least according to my watch, so I'll just carry on a little bit more about the Genjo Koan.

[35:20]

So that's a question. It's a question that possibly you'll have a little time to reflect on while you're here this week. What is my life about? How do I take care of my life? What is life asking of me in this moment, with this breath? I might also just sort of say that I've talked a little bit about how Genjo Kohan is translated, but Dogen is so complex in the use of language. He was so innovative. and the way you use language, that there's many different translations of just the title itself, much less the text. And I'll just share a few of them. Actualizing the fundamental point. That's kind of like a version of what should I do at this moment. Actualizing, how do I actualize the fundamental point of this moment? Another translation, manifesting suchness. How do I manifest the suchness of manifesting absolute reality?

[36:23]

Thomas Cleary's rendition is The Issue at Hand. I kind of like that. That's kind of, what is the issue at hand right here? Someone else's translation, The Actualization of Enlightenment. Shohakos was more sort of descriptive. To answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity. That's another translation of the Genjo Koan. or a short version, the koan of the present moment. The koan of every moment of our human life, the koan of everyday life. What I was going to go on to next today was the following paragraph. To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[37:24]

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. This is probably one of the most famous, often quoted paragraphs from the Genjo Koan. And it's actually like the seventh paragraph, depending on how you break the paragraphs up in it. So it's kind of near, almost halfway through, or maybe a third of the way through. And Kosho Uchiyama, who was one of the Zen masters who had comments on the Genjo Koan that we studied, said, this paragraph is a summary of the previous sections. And the rest of the Genjo Koan is particular examples of actualizing the Genjo Koan. So in some way, even though I'm starting a third of the way through the Genjo Koan, this paragraph sort of summarizes the first six paragraphs.

[38:27]

So I think it's a good place to start, and then we can fill out with the rest of the Genjo Koan as we move along. I'm very pleased to be able to spend this time with you, studying this beautiful text, and in the midst of all of us sitting together, what this all is about, as I've mentioned several times this morning, zazen. So I wish you a good sitting today, and I will see you tomorrow morning, same time, same place. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[39:30]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:33]

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