So, this is the second of five classes in text, selections from a text, the extensive record of A. A. Dogen. So, I'll do a little bit of review. I know there's a lot of new people in the class. How many of you are going to be taking this class after tonight? Okay. So, maybe after the class, those of you who are, could sign the sign-up sheet. So, there'll be three more classes and they'll be on Tuesday night. We switched this week, just once for one time. So, a little bit of review of the background. This is a text by Zen Master Dogen, who was a Japanese Zen Master, lived in the 13th century and brought Soto Zen from China to Japan, he traveled to China. And many of you know some of his earlier works, the Shobo Genzo or True Dharma, I, Treasury, there are many translations of those works.

[01:02]

Those are generally longer essays, more philosophical or thematic. These are the teachings from his later years, teaching his monks in Eheji, the monastery he founded. So, he moved from the capital, from Kyoto, he came back from Japan, from China in 1227 and around 1243 moved, 1242, 1243, moved up to the north coast, way up in the mountains and founded Eheji Temple. So, these are, the form that he used in Shobo Genzo was more talks that were then written out later and more kind of discursive talks, although they're very poetic and philosophical in places, as some of you know from reading them in Munirindu Drop and other places. These talks were more formal and this is the formal form that most of the Chinese chant

[02:09]

masters used in teaching. So they're called Jodo in Japanese, it means literally ascending the hall and the teacher would sit up on the mountain seat, many of you have seen abbot installations, it's that kind of seat up in the Dharma Hall and the monks would be standing, so they're much shorter than the, most of them in the talks in Shobo Genzo. Some of them are commentaries on koans, we'll see some of those. Some of them are for ceremonies and celebrations, so Buddha's Birthday, Enlightenment Day, New Year's Day, Winter Solstice, so there are a number of them that are like that. A lot of them are just encouragements to his monks and so, anyway, we've been going through some of them and it's a challenge for me, I'm in the middle of a three and a half year translation project working on this, it's quite a long work. So I have selections here and it's, I'm torn between wanting to spend the whole class on

[03:15]

just one and wanting to share a lot of them with you, so, Sarah? You asked me to remind you to say that we're on zero and five, Dean. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so we're not sure if Dogen actually followed that, but in the traditional form in China, thank you, so those of you who have lived at Tassajara, you know that there's a five day week, so every day ending in four or nine is kind of modified schedule and there's no meetings with a teacher on those days. And then, I think we had, I think it used to be at Tassajara that there was Shosan on zero and five days, I'm not sure if they do that now. But on days ending with zero or days ending with five, they would have these, in traditional they would have these Jodo, these talks by the abbot. It's pretty clear that Dogen didn't follow that exactly when he was at AHE, but it's that kind of rhythm. Sometimes there seem to be, there's some of them that are specifically dated by various

[04:17]

holidays and so forth. One section I was looking at, there were two that were dated were four months apart and it was average of two a week of a seven day week. So anyway, he didn't follow that pattern exactly, it seems. But he basically stopped writing Shobogenzo around 1244. There were a few more after that. So this is what we have from his training to his monks, and one of the issues, so this is all still pretty much review of things I said last time, I'll just finish that up. There's an issue in Dogen's studies of whether he changed towards the end, and some scholars think that he emphasized more that only monks could be enlightened and emphasized more monastic practice. I would say that the actual content of the teaching isn't so different, but his emphasis was different based on that he was talking specifically to this group of monks he was training, and whereas in the earlier talks in Kyoto they were kind of more for a general

[05:20]

audience, but there's still the emphasis on Zazen, the emphasis on everyday activity in the monastery. And he did have lay students coming in, women who were students of his too, even up at Eheiji. So there is somewhat more of an emphasis later on on kind of precepts and the importance of paying attention to karma and cause and effect. But I don't think there's such a difference in terms of his overall position, it's not like he's talking, he's presenting some philosophy, he's talking to specific students and trying to encourage them in their practice. So we ended last time with the first one, and thought we would go over that again. Are there any questions though of anything I've said now or left over from the last time? Would you give your definition of dharma? Dharma is the teaching, so dharma has several technical meanings, it means the teaching,

[06:26]

it also means reality or truth. So it's the teaching of reality and it's also kind of the teaching towards reality, the direction towards reality. So also it's a technical term, dharmas means phenomenal elements of reality, which is from the early Abhidharma psychological teachings, and so there's a technical meaning that has to do with just the elements of reality, most of which are mental or psychological. Any other questions? Who would like to read this first discourse? Rick, could you read it? Okay. The teacher's compassion and disciple's determination. The dharma discourse here meant the request of Pajalant Ekran in memorial for his late

[07:31]

teacher, Vaikara Karkala. After offering incense, Bhogan took his seat, held up his whisk, and said, Who can equal Ekran in their conduct of life's responsibility? Today's memorial dedication will be clearly examined by the heart and sacred spirit. The deep determination of the disciple yearning for his late teacher is known only by the late teacher. The late teacher's compassion while sympathizing with the disciple is known only by the disciple. How can someone else know it? People without such a relationship cannot match it. So it is said, it cannot be known but with mind. It cannot be attained without mind. It cannot be reached by practice and lightness. And it cannot be measured with spiritual power. Having reached this ground, how can it be calculated? Bhogan pounded his staff and said, Only this staff always knows it distinctly.

[08:33]

Why does the staff always knows it distinctly? Because this is the case. All Buddhas in the past are thus. All Buddhas in the present are thus. And all Buddhas in the future are thus. Although this is so, this is exactly what cares of the Buddha ancestor's realm. How is this the true principle of knowing and retaining our direct kindness? After a pause, Bhogan said, Alas for the days of the past. As the teacher becomes a single piece of emptiness. Confused by flowers in the eyes, the great earth is red. Blood and tears filling my chest, to whom can I speak? I only wish that the teaching of this staff would spread widely. These are the very sayings that know and retain our direct kindness. What is this matter of going beyond the Buddha ancestors?

[09:34]

Bhogan threw his staff down before the platform and descended from his seat. Thank you. So we talked about this a bit last time. An important point here is this kind of... Well, one obvious theme is the importance of the teacher-disciple relationship. But it's also about the context of this whole work. Because the situation... I talked about this last time. Ekhan was a disciple of Dogen. And he had been head monk. And his teacher who had passed away is named Kakuan. Kakuan... So this is a kind of historical footnote. But it's really important in terms of who Dogen's audience was here. Kakuan's teacher, Kakusan... No, Kakuan's teacher was Dainichi Nonin, who had founded this sect of Zen earlier than anybody had really gone to China, called the Darumashu, Daruma is Japanese for Bodhidharma,

[10:38]

the founder of Zen in China. And many of Dogen's prominent disciples came from this sect and were also students of Kakuan. So Kakuan brought many students with him. And then he had passed away. And these were amongst Dogen's most prominent disciples. So part of his teaching was directed particularly at this group. And this doesn't come out so much in this particular Jodo, but that they had a particular slant in the teaching they followed that if you just know... Well, we know it more from Dogen's teaching than we do from any text from Dainichi Nonin. But it seemed like the slant of that teaching was that if you just know that all beings are Buddha nature, that that's really enough. And there seemed to be some lack of vigor in their practice. They had a feeling that just to know, to understand the philosophy of it was sufficient.

[11:40]

So that seems to be part of the context of Dogen emphasizing the practice and encouraging them to practice strongly in his teaching at Eiheiji. And yet here he's talking about the... You know, it's an obvious feeling, talking about Kakuan, who had become one of Dogen's students. And then also Kakuan's students became one of Dogen's leading students. So this relationship between... He's talking about the relationship between Ekan and Kakuan, but really he's talking about his relationship with his own students as well, and the closeness of that. Some of the things in here are kind of formats or formulas that happen in some of these talks. Like when he says, after a pause, happens fairly often. Some of the scholars now think there may have been some discussion. We don't really know. They usually didn't record that. They recorded what Dogen said. The thing about throwing down his staff,

[12:42]

we talked about last time. The staff is a symbol of the teaching authority, and sometimes also he has a whisk. Anyway, there's a lot of issues in here. He's also talking about the departed spirit and how there's still this relationship between the departed spirit of the teacher, Kakuan, and his student, Ekan. So at this point, maybe I'll just ask if there are questions or comments about anything in this. Well, I can't know for sure, but it just feels to me like there's an emotional level going on here, which is very touching. After the pause, you almost imagine that Dogen is kind of choking up, because he talks about blood and tears filling my chest, and flowers in the eyes, and you almost feel like there's this emotion. The great earth is red. The ground is bleeding. Yeah, yeah. To whom can I speak? To whom can I speak?

[13:43]

One of the things about this text more than Shobogenzu is that you really get a feeling for Dogen as a person much more. You see him talking to his students. We don't know how many there were there. There might have been 20. There might have been 40. There wasn't a huge number. Sometimes he's... This is one of the more emotional ones, but this is his sense of commitment, and also a sense of humor at times. So I'll share some other ones that aren't in this to exhibit that. But yeah, there's a lot of feeling there. And it's really a different angle on Dogen from the more kind of longer philosophical things in Shobogenzu, which are also wonderful, but this is more like his actual teaching to his close disciples. Other points? Yes, can you say something about the reason for the sadness? Well, he's feeling the sadness of Epcon for Kakuan,

[14:47]

but also I think, you know, I'm not sure when Epcon died. No, let's see. We don't know when Kakuan died, but I think it was a few years before this. This was a memorial service. I'm not sure if this was... I'm not sure how many years, but anyway, I imagine that Dogen had some feeling for Kakuan and all of Dogen's students who had been students of Kakuan. So he must have felt... I mean, we can just speculate and imagine, but he must have felt some closeness to Kakuan who had brought all these students to him. And one of the things I was going to say at the beginning that Dogen's writings, which are now famous all over the world, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, he's looked at as a great... He's talked about as the greatest philosopher in Japanese history, and many people read him who are interested in religious literature who aren't necessarily Buddhists. There are many translations in many languages.

[15:49]

In terms of his historical mission, Dogen's writings weren't so important. Dogen's writings were basically unknown until the 1920s in Japan. There were, for the generation or two, his students must have, you know, been studying them, but they basically, only a few Soto Zen monks and scholars looked at them. There were little periods of revival when other things were published. There were some in the 1700s, 1600s. But basically, he was not known for his writing. What he was known for is that he founded this great order of Soto Zen, which was the second largest Buddhist sect in Japan after Jodo Shinshu. Much stronger in terms of numbers of temples and parishioners than Rinzai Zen. And that really happened a few generations later. Keizan, who was three generations after Dogen, and his disciples spread Soto Zen very widely in the countryside. But really, it comes back to

[16:51]

what he was doing in Eheiji. So he, amongst the students of this guy, Kakuan, there was Ekan, but there was also Kowan Ejo who became Dogen's direct disciple. And Tetsugikai, who was his disciple and teacher of Keizan. And Kangan Gien, who founded a long branch of Soto Zen in Kyushu that lasted until the late 1600s. Gien, who became the fifth abbot of Eheiji, the fourth abbot of Eheiji. So he had a fairly significant number of really good disciples who were training there when he was giving this talk at Eheiji. And really, his training of this cadre of monks we could say helped establish this order that has survived. It was much more important historically than his writings. Now we can appreciate how great his writings were. The other thing I would say that was important is the precepts

[17:51]

and his emphasis on the precepts, which is also during this period more. But in terms of how Soto Zen survived and thrived historically, it was more from Bodhisattva precepts, ordination. So people in the countryside who maybe didn't have time to go to the monastery and sit a lot of zazen, probably sat some zazen, but they also took lay ordination, which is something we do here at this temple. And thanks to that, a lot of people felt very connected to the lineage and to Dogen and Bodhidharma and Shakyamuni Buddha. So I would say that those were more important than his writings in terms of Dogen's impact up until America or up until the 20th century. But that's all something that kind of was developing here when he was doing these Dharma discourses. And I think there's also something of a feeling of appreciating

[18:53]

the commitment of the monks and his own... So he's talking about the relationship of the teacher between Ekon and Kakuan, but I think he's also feeling his own relationship with the students. Yes? I was really struck when you got to the sentence so it is said it cannot be known with mind, it cannot be attained without mind, it cannot be reached by practice and enlightenment, and it cannot be measured in spiritual power. It seems to be placing this at the apex of a series of approaches. And I wonder if you could comment on that. Well, Dogen talks often about going beyond. At the end he says, what is this matter of going beyond Buddhas and ancestors? So there are a lot of Zen koans that are about how we know things, or how we experience things.

[19:54]

And part of what I think happens in Zazen is by sitting upright and being in the middle of our life and doing that together with others, in an astic or semi-anastic setting, we have this great intimacy or familiarity with ourselves and each other. And yet, it's not something that you can know in our usual way of knowing. It's not that it's irrational, or illogical, or I don't know, I don't like the word mystic so much. It depends on the context, but it's not something that we can get at in any of the usual ways. It's this deep connection that's deeper than that. It's even deeper than practice enlightenment. There's actually one later on that talks about that, so maybe we'll do that one next. But other questions first? We talked about this a while last time,

[20:55]

otherwise I'd go through it line by line, but one point is just that it's framed in terms of filial responsibility, so this is a part of Chinese and Japanese culture that very much inherited this sense of ancestry, so in India the lineage back to the Buddha wasn't very important. People didn't think in terms of history, but in China and Japan it became very important. And Dogen starts to emphasize that more in this period. Mark? I think that's a good thing to look at where his sadness comes from. Just reflecting on that, it's about how is this he's thinking about repaying the debt of kindness and somehow I can relate to why that would bring sadness although I would want to I would like to think that there would be some kind of joy like I'm so grateful for practice

[21:56]

and I'm just filled with joy and that's repaying it, but actually there can be he's feeling it here as this kind of sadness, like I can't repay this. Yeah, this feeling of overwhelming gratitude. I think that's part of the practice and part of the experience really of his gratitude for his teacher and for the tradition and for the practice and for them doing it together. So it's, I think that's part of it and there's this overflowing of, you know there's joy there too maybe, but in this case he's remembering and he's feeling you know this teacher who's gone so there's of course sadness. And then there's, just at the end of this kind of sad paragraph there's, these are the very things that now I'm repaying. There's a feeling like how do I repay and something comes up

[22:57]

and then this so this is my repaying. Good, yeah, you know there's a thing about koan language and this one isn't directly about koans but a lot of these are about these old teaching stories and there's a way that the language functions there where it's not talking about something else. There's a way in which the language is what's happening and this is a really good example of that. And Dogen does this a lot he talks about he says I'm now giving a dharma discourse then he says the dharma discourse I've just given he does that some places it's not that he's he doesn't say what the teaching is about it's just here's the teaching how do you like it? Or here's the teaching take care of it here's the teaching I offer it to all beings

[23:58]

and all the buddhas and bodhisattvas so this is good point Mark these are the very sayings so his talking is invoking that spirit of being thoroughly in presence with not just speech but it's seen in speech in activities in the monastery so he's teaching that to his monks through his talking through his not talking about anything but just talking that is the dharma it's not about something else so it's kind of subtle the way he does it he's very slippery he plays with language a lot there were a few hands I think Eleanor was first I was just noticing also that filial piety I don't know in Japan but I know in China it involves a lot of ceremony for years and years and years

[24:59]

repaying your debt of gratitude to your parents after they died and your ancestors before that so that comes from it's just Chinese and it was totally imported into Japan and still is there seems like he's not going that route though he's not advocating that kind of ceremony he's doing a ceremony here I mean this is part of the ceremony I think but the ceremony is also what he's saying but it's all been translated from the parental lineage to the lineage of Buddha ancestors and teachers and awakened ones although there's one I don't know if I have it with me where he actually talks about his father and there's some scholarly question about who his father was but he talks about the person who was either his father or his stepbrother who became his stepfather scholars don't know historians don't know exactly but basically

[25:59]

that kind of attitude is mapped on to gratitude towards the teaching and towards the teachers and the ancestors I guess it's pretty much already been covered I just want to highlight the fact at least I think that the emotion Dogen is feeling here is more complex than just sadness there's gratitude mixed in and it's just a very profound emotion that's probably not taggable and I thought Suzuki Roshi I have a hard time not getting emotional when I think of Suzuki Roshi and at one point I'm like saying he died before I ever got to meet him there's a sadness there and I also feel like he's my guiding light so there's a lot of gratitude so it's a real complex thing yeah and we just had a teacher in our lineage die this last week, Mary Scott up in Arcata and it's you know she died way too young and yet she had a very full life

[27:01]

so I know another writer in Dogen speaks a lot about the decline of Dharma, do you think that's coming through here too? No I don't think that's it you know that was part of the rhetoric of the times there was a feeling so okay a little bit of historical context 13th century Japan there was this belief the various it's complicated but the various Buddhist theories of time and history and one of them is the idea of Mapo that this is the final age and that the Buddha's teaching is kind of running out and everything is pretty terrible and I feel that way a lot looking at the state of our country but anyway it's easy to feel that Dogen maybe felt that that was part of the context of the times specifically that theory Dogen really ridiculed he said everybody can be Buddha right now the Dharma's fine but he used it

[28:03]

sometimes to to kind of encourage his monks so sometimes he would use that kind of rhetoric of the degenerate age and so forth I think he used it a lot or what I've seen these days people well that's something else that's more like criticizing like the teachers he saw in China yeah so that's he talks that way in different contexts and often he's making a particular point and so he'll use that's the kind of rhetoric that maybe goes back to like the blue cliff records and the kind of koan Dharma combat language so there's a mix of things there I wanted to we could talk about this the rest of the evening but we're not going to laughter I wanted to just read one that's not here so this is just a selection but just to give a sense of one of the things that's going on in a lot of these is that Dogen's emphasizing

[29:05]

just the everyday practice here and now, taking care of things in the monastery and how that's really where this there's also this whole thing about the departed spirit and the spirits going around and that's part of the context all this kind of stuff that's mysterious to us and maybe I read this to you already, I've been talking about this in various places so did I read you the one about dropping off body and mind last time I don't think so this is very short later than these but I'll just read this, it's not so long dropping off body and mind is good practice make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils karmic consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on including not others, not self, not sentient beings and not causes or conditions although this is so, eating breakfast comes first that's the whole thing so there's some references in there but dropping off body and mind is good practice, I mean this whole thing is kind of funny

[30:08]

dropping off body and mind was a phrase that he used to express the essence of Zazen and it's also a phrase that he heard from his teacher that was the immediate occasion of his own great awakening in China so dropping off body and mind does not mean suicide or getting rid of all thoughts it doesn't mean not taking care of your body there's a really prevalent tendency in American Zazen the school of lobotomy Zazen if you just get rid of all your thoughts that'll be enlightened but that's not what he's talking about dropping off body and mind means letting go of attachment, letting go of clinging to body and mind, it also means studying body and mind so he says in Gajakhan to study the way is to study the self to study the self is to forget the self and then he talks about dropping off body and mind of self and others here he just says dropping off body and mind is good practice so

[31:09]

this is the way you should practice just drop off body and mind even though it's his synonym for complete perfect enlightenment it's just he says that's good practice do that, drop off body and mind make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils so I'm doing this translation with Shobha Gomora and we discovered when we came to this that we had a different understanding of this phrase of piercing your nostrils which is actually part of the Zen rhetoric and I thought of it and some of the places clearly does connect with this it has to do with kind of breathing fully you know and opening your breathing in your inhale and exhale but it also has to do with the image of the ox hurting and so piercing your nostrils means to put a ring in your nose so that you can be trained and led so this was the piercing before it was fashionable nowadays moving back to anyway so just make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils means allow yourself to be trained

[32:09]

let yourself be an ox and be led by the schedule, be led by Zazen, be led by your teacher Karmic Consciousness then he goes on Karmic Consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on so there's a case in the book of Serenity that talks about that but Karmic Consciousness is the world we live in you know, enlightenment doesn't happen somewhere else dropping off body and mind doesn't happen somewhere else it happens right in the middle of phenomenal world right in the middle of Karmic Consciousness right in the context of this body and mind with these problems so Karmic Consciousness is endless there's no end to it there's nothing fundamental to rely on not others, not self, not sentient beings and not causes or conditions so here we are in the middle of this Karmic Consciousness although this is so, eating breakfast comes first so this is his encouragement to his monks an example of his kind of playing with the Dharma at the same time that he's being very forceful in a certain way

[33:10]

there's this kind of human quality any comments or questions on that? the next one I wanted to do has to do with this idea of how we know and it's in the it wasn't one of the ones I was going to do next but because you asked that question it's number 217 page 8, at the bottom of page 8 did we do this last time? I can't remember exactly which one we did last time do you remember Eleanor? I don't think we did either so Yunmen is one of the great classic Chinese Zen masters who was famous for very short sayings if I start talking about Yunmen it'll take all night and then the other person so he's quoting a koan first of all there's Yunmen and Saoshan and Saoshan was the disciple of Dongshan

[34:13]

who founded the Soto lineage in China and actually Saoshan in Japanese is Sozan, so some people think the so of Soto comes from him it might or also might come from his six ancestors but anyway so there's a dialogue that Dogen starts with between Yunmen and Saoshan I can remember, Yunmen asks Saoshan, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy Saoshan said just because it is greatly intimate we do not know it is there so I think this is a wonderful dialogue I think of it as kind of trying to see your own eyeballs it's so close then the thing that happens and Dogen's not the first to do this this is a standard pattern in China too that the teacher will read a koan and then say, if I was there I would have said such and such

[35:13]

so Dogen does this here suppose this were Ehe he calls himself Ehe because that's the name of the temple so that's his name and someone asked me, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy I would just hit his face with my whisk and ask him, is this knowing or not knowing if he tried to answer I would hit him again with a whisk so that's the entire thing this is about the place of great intimacy and this is about how so this relates to the question of how that you were asking about in the first one he says how can someone else know it people without such a relationship cannot match it it cannot be known with mind it cannot be attained without mind it cannot be reached by practice of enlightenment but here he's talking about this place of great intimacy that we actually maybe we don't know but we experience, we get a glimpse of, we taste zazen in our practice so Yunmin asked Sarshan, why don't we know

[36:17]

that there is a place of great intimacy Sarshan said, just because it is greatly intimate we do not know it is there any comments this whole thing about knowing and not knowing there are a number of koans about this about about how we experience how we realize beyond knowing and not knowing so there is one story about a teacher who later became one of the founders of

[37:17]

one of the five houses of Chan in China he was leaving, as a monk he was leaving his teacher to go wander around and study with other teachers and he said, he came to his teacher and said I'm going off on pilgrimage and the teacher said, what is the purpose of your pilgrimage and he said, I don't know and his teacher said, not knowing is most intimate so one side of this is kind of corrective to the ways that we think that we do know but then there are other stories where it makes clear it is not a matter of not knowing either so probably some of you have heard the story about ordinary mind and a great teacher when he was a monk

[38:21]

asked his teacher what is the way and his teacher said, ordinary mind is the way or everyday mind is the way and the teacher said how can I approach it which is a kind of reasonable question for a good student to ask and the teacher said the more you try and approach it the further away you get from it and the teacher said, well then how do I know if it's the way or not so this is sort of the same question as young man asking why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy the teacher asks how can I know if it's the way or not and his teacher said it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing knowing is a delusion not knowing is just you know, vacancy when you reach the true way beyond doubt it's vast and open as the sky so that's another way of talking about greatly intimate so I think in the first story when he's talking about

[39:26]

his teacher and his students who are now Dogen students there's this kind of great intimacy there but then we see Dogen's teaching style suppose this were Ehe and someone asked me why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy so the whisk is some of you may have seen them around Zen Center things that are actually given to teachers there used to be fly whisks to brush away the flies during meditation I guess they come from India where there are lots of flies or Tassajara in the summer but anyway they were used as symbols of teaching authority so there are a lot of places where Dogen holds up his staff or holds up his whisk and talks about things happening on the tip of his staff or the tip of his whisk it's a kind of image or symbol of the authority

[40:28]

of the Dharma anyway here he just says I would just hit his face with my whisk and ask him is this knowing or not knowing what would you say Eleanor? Ah! Ouch! I would say I don't like your answer she started to say something what Dogen would have done is hit her again with a whisk it doesn't hurt no the staff would hurt but if I was asking that question why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy and he's just going to flash his whisk at me no! I don't like that answer it would feel like ouch I kind of don't get Saoshan either just because it is greatly intimate like you said trying to look at your own eyeball but you're still there's still this feeling of missing something yes so Dogen says in Genjo Koan when Dharma fills your body and mind

[41:28]

you realize that something is missing yes ok yes are you saying the place of great intimacy is not knowing or do you say it's beyond knowing I don't know what do you think I thought not knowing was pretty good but I thought it was something beyond that well some of them say not knowing is intimate some of them say it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing I'm not sure if there's a difference I mean not a matter of knowing or not knowing for me anyway it doesn't give me I feel like I can land in not knowing like now this is not knowing and it's easy by practicing not knowing so it's not that

[42:30]

no in fact the case in the book of serenity in the commentary says you have to exhaust knowing as far as you possibly can and then at the limits of what's possible in our perception in our cognition we kind of get a feeling for that but not to say oh not knowing, I don't have to worry about it I don't have to try get into every nook and cranny you possibly can yeah lobotomies end doesn't work I just said lobotomies end doesn't work is this sort of like active doubt it depends on what's yeah that's good it's active questioning this word doubt is tricky faith includes doubt faith includes questioning there's a technical term in the Abhidharma psychology for skeptical doubt

[43:31]

which is debilitating doubt it's more active than that it's questioning, it's inquiry it's the spirit of investigation and existential questioning so that's part of the place of great intimacy I guess is there some element of transmission that goes through these as well he talks about that sometimes sometimes he talks there's some where he talks about his teacher his own teacher so actually I'm jumping around here based on what people are saying not going in the order I expected it to but the one on the bottom of page 220 speaks to that but I don't want to leave this place of great intimacy

[44:32]

too quickly thank you is he referring to intimacy between student and teacher um yeah you know it's intimacy, familiarity sometimes I've used this word in translation intimacy in our culture we think of you know relationships and sexual intimacy but he means there's partly there's partly between teacher and student but I think it's more familiarity and intimacy with yourself being really you know the result of practice and a lot of meditation is that you become very familiar with your own trips and your own tapes and your own karmic consciousness and that's probably the hardest part of Zen practice it's not sitting in some funny position or your knees hurting but actually just being willing to sit up right in the middle of seeing yourself very clearly

[45:32]

but he's not just talking about that he's talking about something that's beneath that that's deeper than that so it's this deep you know we talk about Buddha nature but that's just a word so there's this I think it comes across in the first one we read about you know Dogen's feelings about this other teacher that's gone and about his students that kind of we can feel that place of great intimacy and with his own tenderness about that but it's a place of great intimacy I want to point to that word place there's a kind of situation, a realm where one can settle and really be oneself and do that together with others I think it also is referring to

[46:35]

in part to the teacher-student relationship it's interesting there's Yunmen and Xiaoshan I guess they were contemporaries but they were in different lineages so they were not teacher and student Yunmen would have had to have been younger than Xiaoshan I think but you know also you see here Dogen's not afraid to exert his authority and hold up his whisk and brush his students with it and if Eleanor had been there she would have made him give a better answer but it seems a little bit like with his response like that he's kind of emphasizing that he's not afraid in an inexpressible aspect of that intimacy that as soon as you try to place it in words or as soon as you try to in an

[47:35]

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