This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good afternoon. Does anyone... Does everyone know who Dogen is? It's okay if you don't know. Anybody... This is, for being here, I've only been here for like five days or something, it was the first time I'm hearing about Dogen. It's good for you. I haven't read much on him, so hearing something about him would be nice. Okay, Dogen is the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, and he lived in the 13th century. His dates are 1200 to, I think, 1252, 53, 52, I think 52, 53. Do I have 54? Dogen wrote several things of which his most famous part in the United States is the Shobogenza, the true Dharma I. He was a poet, a mystic.

[01:17]

He understood something about the nature of reality, the way he was able to express it that was really amazing. I don't know, you know. Have you read the Genja Koan? You probably read it during service, right? Dogen wrote the Genja Koan. So that's kind of who Dogen is. Very little snippet there. Let me ask you this question. Is there any other moment except right now? Can you experience any other moment except this moment right now? Through television. But when you experience TV, don't you experience it right now? But are you, like, you watch a whole movie, so aren't you also experiencing the moment that happened in the past? Well, that's a really good question. Are we experiencing a moment that happened in the past, or are we just experiencing our experience of that moment that's happening right now on the tape, but isn't actually happening right now for us? Right?

[02:19]

I'd say our experience now includes all of us. So it includes everything. Everything's included in our experience right now. Well, that's kind of interesting. Sort of mind-boggling, isn't it? Okay, so that's kind of an interesting way to talk. We're talking about we're experiencing the moment right now, and we're experiencing all moments right now, right? So this is the way Dogen talks about time. This is Dogen's understanding of being and time, which are not separate from him. Let's see. So we tend to think about time as being sequential, right? So it's a timeline. We have like past, we have whatever our present is right now, and then we have the future, right? So it's going along like this. And so we have these memories or whatever we have, or we have history or whatever, and it's going in the sequential timeline. So there's nothing wrong with this, but Dogen's not very interested in this.

[03:22]

This is not really what he's talking about. So from a practice point of view, from his understanding of practice, this is problematic, right? To think about practice as, well, I'm starting out here in delusion, and I'm going to be enlightened somewhere here, right? So for Dogen, it happens right now. Bang. Okay, so we're going to talk about this too. So we're not talking about sequential time here. We're talking about a different kind of time, his understanding of time. So, Dogen calls this, he can call it uji, which is being time, or also often it's talked about as, it's called the words hoi or juhoi, which means a dharma position, a dharma position, a position, the dharma's position. So, a dharma position, to talk about it, is kind of like talking about a faceted stone. So we're talking about, say, a diamond with all these different facets on it.

[04:24]

So we're talking, like, if you look at it this way, this is what you see. Like, if you look at it in the present moment, that's all there is, is the present moment. But then the present moment also has the past and the future, right? According to Dogen. And he calls that before and after. Okay, so we're looking at a faceted stone. Here's another way to think about it. The Buddha tells us this story about the blind men who are looking for the elephant. Do you guys know this story? All these blind men, right, they're looking at elephants. So one guy's standing there, and he's feeling the legs, and he says, oh, this is a tree. An elephant is like a tree. And the other guy's feeling the ears, and he says, oh, the elephant is like a basket. Why it's like a basket, I'm not sure of the ears, but anyway, that's the way it goes. Or the tusks are like the blade on a plow. So we can also talk about it kind of that way. Okay, so dormant position has three aspects.

[05:29]

It has the aspect of being independent. It has the aspect of being universal. And it has an aspect which is called kind of how it moves. the passage of time. Okay, so the first thing we'll talk about is about Dharma position as being independent. So one thing I thought of yesterday when I was listening to Jakku, when we talk about a Dharma position, Dharma positions can be things, events, anything that you can name. So a chair is a Dharma position. You are a dharma position, each one of you. An event in time is a dharma position. So dharma, the word for dharma means thing, or it can mean with a big D like the teachings, right?

[06:33]

So we're talking about little d dharma, which is also, of course, to know little d dharma is to know big d dharma. So we're talking about this moment, this being, this particular place, okay? Okay. So what do we know about a moment? Does a moment have a duration of time? Is there a duration of time of a moment? Like some schools say, oh yeah, it's 5,863 million nens. But for Dogen, there's no time is impermanence. A moment is impermanent. But don't each one of us have some sense about what a moment is? Like you say, well, I had this moment in my life. I had this moment of realization. So there's this way that we intuitively understand a moment, right? Where we say, yes, I can kind of quantify this. I can say instinctively, I understand that this moment happened.

[07:34]

But actually, the moment itself has no duration. We're the ones who are defining that moment as being this independent position, right? So yesterday, Jacque was talking about self. So we talk about no self, and we talk about self. So the self, in a positive way, is a Dharma position. It's this moment of who we are. In this moment, I'm a particular self. In this moment, you are a particular self. It's different self than me, right? Would everybody agree with that? So we're not talking about... We're not negating, we're not denying... what we were talking about yesterday about the self not having inherent existence, the self, this independent self is still connected with everything. So there is this moment of it being independent, this sense and moment of this independent nature. A moment is not a way station along this continuum.

[08:40]

So we're not talking about like some particular place along a continuum of time. So for Dogen, Often we say time is a river and we're like a boat, right, going down this river of time. But for Dogen, they're not two separate things. Time does not exist separately from being. So this independent moment is the beingness of that moment and the time of that moment happening simultaneously. Time cannot happen outside the simultaneity of being. So time is defined by this particularity of being. Both of these things happening simultaneously in this moment. So in the Gentra Poan, Dovan says, you should realize that all the firewood is at the Dharma stage of firewood. Okay? Firewood.

[09:41]

And that this possesses of a before and after. So we think of firewood, maybe the before firewood would be a tree, let's say, and the after would be ashes, right? So he says, he says, although firewood is at the Dharma stage, this moment of firewood, and that this is possessed of a before and after, the firewood is at the same time independent, completely independent. He says, It is completely cut off from before and completely cut off from after. So we have this way in which, if we talk about firewood, so we have this way in which in that moment that it's firewood, that's what it is, is firewood. There's a book on the Gencho Koan that's come out recently in the last few years, and it's three commentaries, including Suzuki Roshi, on that. And they say, well, if you asked firewood, are you a tree?

[10:44]

Firewoods would say, no, I'm firewood. And so if you ask firewood, am I ash? The firewood would say, no, I'm firewood. Like, what don't you get about this? You know, I'm firewood. So this moment of being firewood is completely this moment of being firewood. In this way of looking at, okay, so remember, this is a faceted diamond, so we're not talking about this as the only thing that's going on. But when we look at it from this position of being independent, What we see is firewood. We don't see a tree. We don't see ash. We're in this moment of firewood. So that's kind of like what it is to practice, right? Dogen talks about practice realization. We practice in this moment. He says, in Busho, he says, if the time arrives, is the time right now. Okay? So usually we think about practice as if the time arrives. If I said enough zazen, I'm going to be enlightened.

[11:45]

If I go to the Zendo enough, if I stay at Tassajara enough, I'm going to be enlightened, right? Maybe we think that way. I used to think that way. When I first came here for Tongario, I thought to myself, I got five years. I'm going to be enlightened in five years, right? So I figured, I figured if I could sit Tongario without like, my fantasy was before I did Tongario was that I wouldn't like to leave the Zendo. Well, let me assure you, as soon as the brakes came, I was out of there in a shot, right? So it's like, but I had this notion about, and I think this is a really common notion, is that we're gonna do this timeline. But Dogen's saying, no, it's right in this moment of firewood. So if I talk about, let's say I talk about Tassajara. So I lived at Tassajara for four years. I came back, I was Shisuo at Tassajara. And I did Dharma transmission here. So I have these moments, these times of being at Tassajara.

[12:46]

But when I come to Tassajara now, even though all those being times for me, those kind of independent moments for me, are still part of my before and my after, there's just this moment, right? It's just this moment of being with you right now. That's it. This is the independent position of being here with you. So some of you have been here for a month or two weeks, and some of you have been here for years. And so we have this accumulation, right, of these moments. And all of that is included in my experience of Tassajara and in Tassajara itself. So I come to Tassajara and I say, well, oh, there's new lanterns out here. Like the last time I was here, you guys were putting those things in, those little cone-shaped lanterns that replaced the railroad lanterns. So it's like I have that memory of Tassajara, but right now I'm just right here.

[13:51]

So the thing that's important about this independent moment is that in practice, this independent moment gives you free will. So let's say that you only see things, say, karmically. Because karma, right, is this kind of a timeline. You say, well, I just accumulate all these karmic residue, right? You guys heard that? You know, like I'm going along, I'm making karma, [...] new lifetimes, new lifetimes. And I can't be enlightened until I get done with all this sort of karmic residue. So he's saying, no, the time right now is right now. In this donor position, this is where you are right now. You don't have to wait for something to happen for you to completely occupy this moment, completely engage this moment. So let me give you an example. Let's say you're talking to somebody and maybe you don't like that person.

[14:55]

So you have this past history with them, which means that all these things have happened in the past. So this and this and this and this. Here's this independent position of talking to them right now in this moment. So you have a choice in this moment. If you occupy the moment as an independent dharma position in which everything is possible, which includes liking this person, which includes allowing the totality of this person to come forward, including everything, maybe not just in that relationship. Anything is possible. And you can actually listen to them and hear what they have to say. Because usually if we're caught sequentially, we're back here, right? We're thinking about this stuff. We're not actually engaging in the conversation with them. So we don't know, like maybe they're afraid. Maybe they're defensive and afraid. So that's why they do things that are unskillful. Maybe they're sad and they're unskillful.

[15:56]

Maybe they're just clueless and they're unskillful, right? But whatever it is, that constellation of things, So you come into the moment like right here, okay? You have a choice. You can exit out of that moment any of these places, right? You have a 360-degree exit out of that moment if you are completely engaged in that moment as it is. If you allow all the things that are happening in that moment to arise. So maybe you, you know, this would be like I still dislike them. So you're sitting there and you're sitting there thinking, you know, maybe I could have some generosity in this moment. Maybe this moment is not about me, right? Maybe this moment is more about just really listening and be present for that person. All of a sudden you have like 360 degree options of how you're going to exit that moment. You have a kind of free will in that moment that you might not have had if you were caught here.

[17:02]

Does that make sense? So, guess what? If you exit this moment and come out of this moment in a way that's skillful, that's realization. That's actualizing a moment. That's complete realization right there. Like, you probably do this all the time and you don't even think about it. Often when I teach this, I talk about driving a car and which is not really applicable in this situation, but some way in which you, you know, like maybe you open the door for somebody. You just do something. Jaco was talking about this yesterday. You just do something that's helpful. That's like actualizing this moment. That's completely being present in this moment. But you couldn't do that if there wasn't this sense of an independent moment. Do you get that? It's like there has to be this way in which a moment has this... independent aspect. So again, with Dogen, this is from Gencho Kahn, you should realize that although firewood is at the Dharma stage of firewood and that it is possessed of a before and after, the firewood is at the same time independent, completely cut off from before and completely cut off from after.

[18:25]

So applied to the self, you have an independent self. You have these independent moments. Now, you're constantly changing. You're constantly in flux. But at the same time, there is this moment of who you are at this moment and this moment and this moment and this moment. And the moments are like, you know, holistic moments. They're 360 degrees. They're not just like a square box here. Yeah. So it sounds like you're making the case for almost like... Finding realization within karma. Karma is never ending almost. We will always have these cells. We will always be firewood or ash at some point. And let's not try to get rid of that, but let's try to be as skillful as possible with it. So when we have firewood, we wouldn't hold the stove over it. And when we have fire, we would. Like a pan or something. But not to get rid of it at all, not to get rid of these karmic moments that are arising or try to escape from them.

[19:30]

Well, yeah, because they become... Actually, those karmic moments become our teachers, right? The mistakes that we make are teachers for us. So we're not trying to jettison this stuff. We're not trying to get to some perfect state where we're always going to figure out the right thing to do or where we're never going to get caught. Because... We are, right? That's the nature of our experience is we're going to get caught. So we keep trying to come back to this moment. I think one of the problems is we often think, well, if I could just do this thing, if this just weren't happening, then I could respond in the most skillful way. A student said to me once, well, I know the right thing to do, but I don't want to do it. It's not the right time. Well, the reason it wasn't the right time was because he didn't want to admit that he was wrong about something. OK, so isn't that our practice? Now, I'm not talking about denigrating ourselves or anything like that.

[20:33]

I'm just talking about this way in which we're willing to drop this attachment to like being defensive when it's more skillful. And we know that we can do it. We just don't feel like it. That's a kind of lazy side. I'm not talking about doing something that scares you so badly that you just can't cope with it. I'm talking about all those little moments when we know that we could actually engage in the practice in a way, but we kind of don't because we're feeling, well, I don't know, maybe I've got a bad day today. So I don't think I'll practice today because I'm grumpy. Those times when we kind of get ourselves in hand and say, yeah, I'm going to do the right thing here. Because I know what the right thing is to do. You know, I'm going to actually engage in compassionate action. I'm going to listen. I'm going to practice generosity. To allow someone to be unskillful is a great act of generosity. To not immediately come down on somebody because they were unskillful is a real act of generosity for each one of us.

[21:37]

And you know, it's hard to do sometimes. But that's that independent moment of free will. You're not caught by your past. You can decide at that moment, that moment that you're going to practice. Okay? And then also, some people misunderstand this to mean in a kind of nihilistic way, like whatever you do in that moment is okay. But Dogen says that, he talks about, he says... Dharma is not right or wrong. Reality itself is not right or wrong. But if reality is in balance, you will not engage in what is unskillful. Does that make sense? Yeah. So the reality itself is not right or wrong.

[22:40]

But if we engage in reality in a way that includes everything, then we are going to do what is most skillful. This is not exactly his language, but this is what he's saying. Does that make sense to you? So if you include everything, if you include the totality of the situation in this moment up here, that means that everything is important to what you're doing. Your whole action includes everything. So in that way, which is reality itself, in that way, what you're going to do is the most skillful because it includes everything. It's not a selfish act. Does that make sense? I'm talking to you guys back there. That sounds good. You gotta say something. This is my second language. Oh, okay. Okay, you're off the hook. I said something about unbalanced. I think she's... So, for an interaction between two people, for you to be present in the reality, you also have to consider the reactions of the other people.

[23:48]

so that you do the most vocal thing or reaction. Yeah. Usually, we're like this, right? I'm here in the center of the world, and the rest of the world, it's kind of like I'm in the middle of that, and so everything is about me. Jaco was talking about this yesterday when she was talking about the one, the monos, vizyana. Vizyana and the monos. Yeah. Anyway. So that's the one where it's like me, me, me. So often we're caught in the me thing. You know, what's in it for me? I don't feel good. I this, I that. Instead of saying, you know, well, maybe the other person is having a bad day too. You know, maybe they're not doing so well. And can I kind of drop my agenda here and actually presence myself for what's happening? Because often we don't want to drop our own agenda. So for example, when we say... just this or just this moment.

[24:53]

So that's like this independent Dharma position of just this moment. So like for example, let's say you have a sibling who's addicted to something, right? And you've decided that the best thing for them to be would be to go into rehab or something like that. So you go into the situation with this agenda already figured out about how they're going to change their lives based on your criteria of how they should change their lives. But actually, unless you actually meet them where they are in that moment, you're not going to be able to communicate with them. So if we're having a bad day and somebody wants to point that out to us and they don't give us some space to be who we are, how are we going to respond to that? Are we going to say, oh, thank you so much? We're usually going to say, man, I feel criticized and I feel defensive. I don't want to hear this. So in that way, we're not being met where we are. So to actually meet somebody where they are is to drop our own agenda or be willing to let the agenda change based on what's going on in the situation.

[25:59]

Does that make sense? Okay. So let's talk about universal. So we've done the independent here. So let's talk about this kind of non-dual universal aspect. Okay, so in this moment, this Dharma position that we've defined, this sort of amorphous, we don't know what this moment is, but we do know what this moment is, time. All time is included in that time. So, for example, right in this moment is also the moment of... Every blue jay in the valley, every squirrel in the valley, the moment of every tree in the valley, the moment of the stream, the moment of anything you can name is happening simultaneously. And there's absolutely nothing getting in the way of those simultaneous Dharma positions happening at the same time. Does that make sense to everybody?

[27:03]

We don't usually think about it that way, right? But all that's happening simultaneously. I mean, we can hear birds out here. So they're doing their thing. We don't get in their way and they don't get in our way. It's all happening simultaneously. People in San Francisco are living their lives right now. People in Hong Kong are living their lives right now. The whole world is making the world right now. The whole world is making the world, our world, right now. We are making their world and they are making our world simultaneously. And at the same time, everything that could be the future is also included in this moment, and everything that is the past is included in this moment. So when I come to Tassajara, or you come to Tassajara, or anybody comes to Tassajara, or no one comes to Tassajara, this particular moment and place and time also includes every bit of its past and every bit of its future.

[28:07]

Like, for example, if you see this wall back here, I think this was here right when it was originally some kind of summer resort, a hunting lodge, I think. This wall's been here since, say, the 1800s. Where did that stone come from? You know, the stone's been here for a time out of mind. Where did the wood come from? Everything, everything is included in this moment. So there's the time of the wood and the time of the stone and the time of the past of that. And the future of that is also included because you can't have a future unless you have a present. So Dogen's saying that the future is not potential. The future is right now. If the future weren't right now, there couldn't be something that happens in the future. What we define as something happening in the future. This is kind of hard to get your mind around. So... You know, he's saying that this moment includes all of this, all of this.

[29:11]

There's nothing left out. And that we can't leave anything out. Now, the thing is, is that, of course, we don't see everything, right? So when we're here, we're not thinking about probably the stones in this room, or we're not thinking about the birds, and we're not thinking about all that. But that doesn't mean that it isn't all happening. So in the Ganjo Cohen, he says, I don't know if this is still the San Francisco City Center translation. He says, to carry yourself forward is delusion, to allow myriad things to come forth is a realization. Is that still the translation? No. No, that's earlier in the text. To carry yourself forward, experience myriad things is delusion, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. Okay. No, go ahead. We have a moment of hot over here. And the dormant position of hot.

[30:14]

Okay. Thomas Cleary translates this as acting on and witnessing myriad things with the burden of oneself is delusion. So when we act solely from the position of the self. The small self wanted to control things and have them a certain way. This is acting on and witnessing myriad things with a burden. I like that. The burden of ourself. We don't often think of it as a burden, but it really is suffering. Trying to control a situation is suffering. So that's a kind of, that's a burden, right? He says that solution, acting on and witnessing oneself in the advent, which means in reference to, I had to look this up, Advert, excuse me, in the advert of myriad things is enlightenment. So advert means to reference to. In Britain, advert means like an advertisement, right, in England. But he's saying to reference ourselves and put ourselves in the context of the totality of the situation is enlightenment.

[31:25]

So this is important because often when we think about dropping the self, we think that what that means in everyday life is like... I don't count. I shouldn't take myself into the equation. But we are also part of the myriad things. We're not separate from the myriad things. And yet, we don't want to carry ourselves forward in a way that's inappropriate. And the way we learn that usually is through trial and error, right? We learn that by doing exactly that. So, in this way, it's this place of the simultaneity of including. Now, what we include is going to depend on the situation. It's going to depend on what's happening, right? So in that way, we say, well, some things are revealed and some things are hidden. So it's like it's all there simultaneously, but maybe there are only certain pieces of it that we're interested in at that moment that seem appropriate in that moment. Does this make sense, what I'm saying?

[32:28]

And that has to include ourself in an appropriate way. So, we can talk about practice realization, practice realization. Dogen says, we don't practice to become realized. If we practice to become realized, then we're doing this. We're saying, I start by practice here, I do this, do this, do this, and then I attain realization at some point in the future. So again, he says, if the time arrives, is the time right now. So we say, don't waste a moment. So he says, practice realization as one word. Practice realization means in this moment, your practice is an expression of realization. We're not practicing to get realized. Our practice expresses the realization that's already there. Right? So we are Buddha nature. We are...

[33:30]

Myriad things we are everything arising simultaneously We are the world making the world our practice along with the continuous practice of all beings is making the world This practice is an expression of our Buddha nature if our Buddha nature weren't already fully present We wouldn't have the thought to practice Who who thinks to practice who is it that had the thought to practice? Who is it that had the thought to come here? to Tassahara. Who is it that woke up one morning and said, oh I think I'll go Siddha Zen. Who was that person? That person is Buddha nature. That person is you. That person is Buddha. That person is practice realization. You're practicing because it's an expression of your realization which is already fully present. Because remember we said in this moment, everything is present. Not just the past of everything, but the future as well. Not as potential. Now he also says, is everybody with me so far?

[34:31]

Okay. He also talks about Buddhahood and Buddha nature. He says, as soon as you express Buddha nature, your Buddhahood arises. So this expression here is your practice, is your effort. So you're not going to express, actualize Buddhahood which is your Buddha-nature actualized unless Buddha-nature. Yet simultaneously, it's all there. But you still have to do the work of actualizing it. Yeah? Before this point, were you saying we have part of ourselves that's revealed and part that's not revealed? We have part of all of reality that's revealed and not revealed, right? Like when you're paying attention to one thing, you're paying attention to eating, you're not aware of everything else that's going on, right? So maybe the closer we get to actualizing is the closer we get to including everything that's appropriate to include in that moment.

[35:37]

Does that make sense? Maybe not. If you are having a conversation with somebody, what you're gonna be paying attention to in that moment is your conversation with that person, right? But what you're not paying attention to are the Blue Jays and the Stones and everything else. But let's say you're in a class, okay? So you're in a class and suddenly somebody keels over or has a heart attack. So immediately your focus is going to go from listening to me or listening to your thoughts, right? You could be doing that right now. And immediately take care of that. So before that happened, that was hidden. But then what happened, it became revealed. So he talks about continuous practice of all beings. The continuous practice of all beings is hidden to us a lot. In Uji he says, various beings and various events existing as existence time or existing as being time in the invisible universe

[36:46]

and visible worlds all realize themselves through their utmost efforts. They pass through themselves, through the Dharma position, through their effort. Unless it is a passage of its own, of their effort at this moment, nothing can actualize itself in this moment. So there's this way that everything Hidden and revealed is simultaneously arising in this moment, but through their effort of making this moment, and there's also our effort, but we only see part of that. And I think it's appropriate for us to see only part of that because our focus is over here. It's not a problem as long as as soon as it's... Because we're aware of this, like if we're aware of this totality, then when it arises, we pay attention to it.

[37:48]

So we're open to that. We're open to that because we kind of understand that that's what's happening, that it's not just this little piece that we're seeing. Does that make sense to you? So we have this kind of... Our body sense extends out, so it's more inclusive. The sense of self includes everything. Our practice includes everything. So it's not just this moment of what I'm doing. And at the same time, it is this independent moment. But there's this way in which we're always kind of like aware of the fact that it includes everything. You have to hold more than one thing at a time. Is everybody lost now? It totally makes no sense at all. Sounds like you're open for the person coming out. I think that's a kind of practical application of this. We can't walk around all the time going, oh, oh, you know, wow. I can't, I can't.

[38:53]

This is a thing we think about, a realization, right, that we think, oh, it's some kind of special state. So it doesn't include making dinner. It doesn't include driving our car. It doesn't include going to the bathroom. Because we don't like people live on wafers, right? They just, you know, don't go to the bathroom or anything like that. So that must not be us, because that's somebody else. But actually, it has to include, it actually includes everything. It includes your delusion. It includes your realization. It includes your wisdom. It includes your problems. It includes everybody else's wisdom, everybody else's problems. It includes the birds. It includes the stones. Everything's included in that. So the fact that we kind of carry this around means that we're open to the myriad things arising and meeting us, as it says in Go On 2. We have this openness that they talk about in the Gancha Koan, to actually meet our life where it is, not where we think it should be.

[39:58]

And this meeting our life will include everything that arises in our life in that moment. So it's that kind of openness to that. So it's not that we're walking around kind of doing a woo-woo thing all the time. It's that it expands our vision about the nature of what's going on in this life that we don't normally have. Yeah. I'm kind of getting this picture that in order to be able to cross the Grand Canyon on a pipe rope, You need to understand the vastness of all that exists so that you can allow what's rising to allow you across. Well, and you also need to understand your own mortality, and if you fall off the rope, you're in big doo-doo. I mean, there's that aspect to it, too. So it includes this reality of I am a human being, and I'm walking across a tightrope, and this is the Grand Canyon.

[41:00]

So in a way, you don't... You don't have the luxury of having a wow moment about the Grand Canyon while you're going across a tightrope, right? You're just going like, okay, ooh, let's see, one foot in front of the other. Unless, of course, you're like really good at it, which I assume you would be, so you probably wouldn't have to. But there's something about you're really there on the rope. That's where you are. That's your practice in this moment. It's not somewhere else. You're not paying attention to anything else. You're walking across the rope. So there's that aspect, right? And that's that independent aspect. Yet simultaneously, the Grand Canyon, right, is happening. It's still all there. Yeah. How do you plan for the future and account for future moments and all the myriad things while staying at the moment? Okay, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a goal. And there's, so he says, Remember he said that you do possess a before and after.

[42:04]

But the thing about goals is if you, we say, you know, well, it's not the, you know, we sometimes will say something like that the goal justifies the means, which is usually meant in a negative sense, right? Like I'm going to do all these bad things to get here. So maybe that's not as good as an example. Let's say you're in college and you've decided to major in, medicine because your parents want you to be a doctor. So your goal is to be a doctor. But actually, as you're doing this, you realize that this is not really what you want to do. You don't really want to be a doctor. You want to be a musician. So the goals are not bad, but the issue is, are you open to what's actually happening as you're going along so that the goal may stay the same or it may change? Does that part make sense? So the future is not you don't reify the future, you don't fix it in a way where it's completely unchanging, like you're just fixated on that.

[43:07]

And so you're not in the present moment. If you're in the present moment, maybe you find out that you end up getting there, or maybe you find out you don't. From a spiritual perspective, being in the moment is letting go of your ideas of what it means to be enlightened. So maybe your idea of enlightenment is to be, never be sad. Or your idea of enlightenment is that you will always do the right thing. But if you actually put your focus on practice realization in this moment, you don't have to worry about that goal in the future. What you're actually worried about is your practice right now. Right? Not some idea you have about what it's going to be. There's nothing wrong with goals. You just have to kind of roll with it. Does that make sense to you? Yep. That part does. The past... The past can't trap you. You don't want to be trapped by the past. You want to learn from the past. You want to use it as a tool to inform you about your present moment, but you don't want to be tracked by it.

[44:11]

So what do we do? We go to therapy. Isn't that what we're doing in therapy? Maybe part of that's part of what we're doing in spiritual practice is to learn how to not be trapped by our past. In the fox koan, you know, the guy says, well, you know, I told one of my students that I was like enlightened, like permanently enlightened. And I've had all these rebirths as a fox. So, you know, what can I do? Do you know why he became a fox? You know, it's like, first of all, he said that enlightenment is not about the moment. Enlightenment is not about being in the moment. It's more about him. It's like saying, I'm enlightened and no matter what I do is enlightened. But that's not true. Like Jacque said yesterday, there are no enlightened people, there are enlightened moments. So he was trapped by an idea he had about what it meant to be enlightened. And yet, as soon as he dropped that idea, he was fully open at that point to really being enlightened.

[45:18]

because he was including everything. He was able to encompass the totality of a situation and it no longer was an idea. It was just about not being trapped at that point of what his ideas were about the moment. Does that make sense? Does anybody else have any thoughts about this past present thing? Yes, please. The doctrines were original enlightenment. Yeah. It's very hard for me to understand how can you not be in the present, or how can you not practice, or how can you not... It's very... It's a kind of continuation for me. How is that even possible for somebody? To not be in that state? Yeah. So, we are always in that state, right? Because Buddha nature is... Buddha nature is reality itself.

[46:22]

Right? Yet, at the same time, we do stupid things. At the same time, we get caught in our attachments. So... Everything is still completely arising in that moment, just as it is. And we're being unskillful. And as soon as we kind of synchronize... As Dogen says, array the self back into reality itself. We allow mirrored things to come forward. As soon as that happens, then we're back in that kind of balance, if you will, with reality itself. Not that we can't ever get away from it. This is the kind of paradox of this. You can't get away from it, and yet you can certainly be unskillful. You know, this does not absolve us from responsibility. We still have to do the practice. Right? We can't, like, not do the practice. Like it says at the end of the Genjo Koan about fanning. It says, you know, you understand the nature of wind, but you don't understand fanning.

[47:26]

So fanning is that effort, that practice that we do. We can't take our place in the world. We can't array ourselves in the world. We can't engage in this continuous practice unless we actually do the work, put the effort in. And yet simultaneously... We are still reality itself, along with everything arising simultaneously. Yeah. You have to, it's like this kind of, you just have to hold all this stuff at the same time. Huh? Just, yeah, just. So, when it's appropriate... Hopefully you remember, oh, this independent moment that I'm in right now, I should listen. I need to pay attention to the rope, right? That's what's happening here. But that's still including what's germane in that. That still includes everything in that moment. That's happening whether you're thinking about it or not.

[48:29]

Are you guys completely, like, stupefied? So what do you think about this? Yes, Leslie. So when it's germane, remember, there's this independent one that still includes everything. Right. It's kind of like a really short way of saying independent, universal. Yeah. Could you add to that now the really short way of saying it? Okay, passage is how things actually get from one point to another. And we think of passage as being, again, as being a straight line. Causes and conditions, right? Cause things to move along like this. Again, Dogen's not denying causes and conditions, but he is saying that passage doesn't actually happen that way. Things don't actually, everything's impermanent. Everything's arising simultaneously and everything's having an effect on everything else.

[49:39]

So I was thinking about the Tazahara guest season, right? So there's a day of the year where the guest season starts. Is this true? Isn't there a day? Right. There's that independent aspect of that day that we say is the beginning of guest season. And yet, everything that pertains to the guest season has its own Dharma positions that are playing out. Like maybe in December, there's somebody thinking about the guest season, right? So that's not actually that day. There's also the time of the birds and the time of the creek and the time of the mosquitoes and then the time of whatever else you can think of. the guest cooks who may not even be here, right? All of those things, they're all happening in this three-dimensional way in their own independent dormer positions, which are completely interconnected and interpenetrating with each other.

[50:51]

And somehow, in the midst of all of that, there comes this point where everything coalesces that we say, that day is the opening guest season. But that's not really the beginning of guest season. nor is the day that it ends the end of guest season, right? They have these independent moments of beginning and end that we designate, and there are particular things that happen around those moments that make them why we designate them those moments. Like people come in on the stage, right, and they start hanging out in those cabins, and you have to start making meals for them. But that's not the totality of how that got there, because actually the whole universe has to come together in order for that moment to happen. So it really isn't sequential. It's more holistic. It's more like a hologram. It's more like all of, you know, the sun and the moon, everything has, so you can't say, you could say, you know, it happens here and [...] here.

[51:57]

But Dogen's saying, yes, while this may conventionally be true, it's actually happening more like, something more like this. And each one of these things is impermanent, right? And interconnected and then they're penetrating with each other. And somehow there's this moment called the beginning of guest season. And at the same time, there's still all this going on, right? 360 degrees, like bubbles all hooked together. And out of that comes this moment. And then the moments, even that moment itself has got all of these various things going on, all these other dormant positions happening. So he says in Uji, he says, don't think of this like a squall of a rainstorm moving from east to west, because that's not really what's happening here. It's all these interconnected events.

[52:58]

And this is the continuous practice of the world. The continuous practice of every blue jay, every rock and stone, every moment, every person, everything, the continuous practice of all those things is what makes up this moment called somewhere in here, opening of guest season. This is taking the doctrine of non-duality, what we usually call the doctrine of emptiness, taking non-duality and applying it to Everything and this is how our practice works too. We like it again. We like to think of practice as being kind of like cutting through all of this. That actually our practice is, you know, I don't know here and [...] we can't do our practice if it weren't for the Blue Jays and the everything else that you can name. If it weren't for the chairs and the Zafus and the boards down in the Zendo and the Dorma teachers and your fellow students and the Everything, anything you can name, all of those things are making up your practice.

[54:02]

All of those things are telling you something about the nature of who you are that allows you to get from this place over here, this dharma position that really the only way you designate it is that you designate this dharma position, right? You define this moment. You live this moment. Nobody else lives it. Does that help, Leslie? So it's kind of like we're just in this huge tumbling washing machine of reality, you know. And that's really a wonderful thing in a way because, you know, we say no birth, no death. It's like, when were you born? When do you die? You know, what are those? Those are Dharma positions that we designate because you stop breathing, your brain stops working, or you're born, or, you know, you come out your mother's womb.

[55:08]

But actually, we're like all of this. We're never apart from all of this. It's really quite a wonderful, sweet thing. Because if we can just give ourselves up to this, if we can figure out how to do this in our everyday lives, we are never alone. We're always... connected to this continuous practice of all beings that want nothing more than to help you, as your practice wants nothing more than to help them. This is the Bodhisattva practice, right? To save all beings, this continuous practice that you engage in that you don't even know about. Maybe you don't even know what that is. But you do it because you're alive, you're doing this thing, you're in this interconnected relationship. Maybe you don't know what the practice of the Blue Jays are, but they're doing it. You know, they're making the world. It's a really wonderful thing. This deep generosity of the whole world giving to us as we give to it.

[56:12]

This moment right now, this moment of practice, as soon as we engage that moment, we're expressing our enlightened nature. We don't have to wait for anything else. Dogen says... Your aspiration to practice, your practice, your realization and nirvana are all there simultaneously. It's not sequential. His understanding of nirvana is this life, birth and death, right now. It's not some place outside ourselves, outside this life, not some state of mind that we don't already have concurrently functioning. rest my case. 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.

[57:18]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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