Getting seasick. Thank you. Thank you. Ayo Koto Katashi Wa Emo Gen Bon Shi Jujisudu Koto Etari Nekawa Kua Naurai Jitsu Go Geshi Tate Matsuram and unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma.

[01:03]

It is really met with even an hundred thousand million Gathas. I can hear to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tadakana's words. Good morning, everyone. Kind of, sort of. Let me know if it's working. No, I think that's it, right? Okay. Well, first I wanted to start. Welcome to the second class of the Practice Spirits on the Mountains and Water Sutra. I wanted to just start with a little bit of housekeeping items. First is that you see the rooms is a different setup than last time. I wanted really something more that... for me, would work in terms of I can see you all better this way. I'm hoping you're more comfortable, you have a little bit more space, you're not lined up in sardine rows, and you have places to put your books and pens and et cetera.

[02:13]

So let me know if this works or doesn't work for you, and we can adjust accordingly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's see if it fits there. You put it here. Great. Thank you, Jessica. So that's the first thing. Secondly, I had this idea, and I want to see you pass it by and see what you make of it. And one idea was to have what I'm calling a sutra wall. So I suggested that some of the ways that we can engage with this particular sutra theme of the practice period in teaching is to rather than just reading the text itself and taking an analytical approach, maybe there's poems or poetry you might write or engage with, drawings or paintings or other expressive activities that you might want to take up.

[03:20]

So I thought if you're interested, one of the ways that you could share that is for us to have a place somewhere in this room to post... poems, drawings, things that you yourself have written or something from other people, other poets. Again, anything that you'd like to offer throughout the practice period that has inspired you in some way or helped you enter into this text a little bit more deeply. So I wasn't 100% sure where to post it. It may be that we could just find a location. over here, maybe on the doors, and put things up, but do it in a way that the sheikah won't freak out. So that might be something like blue masking tape, something that doesn't damage the walls, or something else we think about. So does that interest, is anyone here who's kind of open to doing that? A few people? Okay. So why don't we try that, and maybe Tezada can help.

[04:24]

in terms of finding tape or other things to help people put stuff up. And we'll just do this throughout the practice period as things get collected. So thank you for considering that as another offering. And then also the book order, I don't know the status. Was there the deadline? Okay. My thought is if we could have the books here by the end of Sashin, that would be great, particularly if people are ordering this particular book that we're working with. So maybe whatever we need to do to maybe clarify today's work circle when the end date exactly is. And then you can get those off and then we can have the books in time. So how's that sound? Does that work for everyone?

[05:25]

Yeah? Okay. And then finally, I suggested some homework, including some, if you have the book, reading, reading the first chapter, which is the introduction in Okamura's book. And if you wanted to start going into the second chapter, which actually focuses on the first section of Sansui Kyo. And there were a few people who volunteered to do recitations. for this class of the first section. And I believe that was Dustin, Catherine, and Sasha, correct? Any one of you want to offer that now? Shyly? Was that a hand? Okay. Go for it. Prior to the calva of emptiness, they are the life of the present.

[06:47]

Because they are the self, before the germination of any subtle sign, they are liberated in actual occurrence. Since the virtues of the mountain are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered by the mountains. And the marvelous ability to follow the wind is liberated from the mountains. Thank you. And Sasha or Dustin, would you like to go? Sasha? Okay. This answers prior to the palpa of emptiness, they are this life in the present.

[07:50]

Because they are the self before the germination of any subtle sign, they are liberated in the present occurrence, in the actual occurrence. Since the virtues of the mountains are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains. And the map is a village to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. Great. Thank you. And Dustin? The mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the old Buddhas. Each abiding in its own dharma state fulfills exhaustive virtues. Sends the circumstances that they because they are circumstances are this life

[09:06]

Yes. Liberated. It's all about liberation. Everything points to liberation. Okay, great. Thank you. So I'm wondering for the next class if any volunteers to memorize passages from sections or paragraphs 2 through 11 in the Beer Field Translation. So that's going to be the one that starts... Preceptor Kai of Mount Dayang to address the assembly by saying Blue Mountains are constantly walking.

[10:30]

Through any of the paragraphs, down through, we should not only study that birth is realized in the child becoming the parent, we should also study fully understand that the practice of eradication of birth is realized when the parent becomes the child. That's page seven of your three version. translation. So any volunteers want to memorize a section from that? Anything from section two or anything? You want to do the second one? Well, I'm going to put you down and you decide what you want to memorize and you'll share with us. So Burke, anyone else? Okay. And is there a third one? Alan? Okay.

[11:38]

Thank you all very much. So this might mean that there'll be different things being shared this next time. So thank you. And then there was homework. additional homework, and that homework was a writing assignment and reflection assignment. Did everyone have a chance to do their homework? Yeah? Okay. So the homework was this. You were asked to reflect on, write about, what are the mountains in your own life and experience? So that might be a person, a situation, a circumstance, or a condition. things that you think of as mountains in your life, meaning something since, because our usual idea of mountains is something that's solid, immovable, permanent, fixed. So were there things in your life that you experienced in that way that you thought would never change, that were obstacles, something you couldn't get around and you kept trying to enter into and it just somehow wouldn't move?

[12:39]

But in time, for whatever reason, there was a change. and suddenly you found yourself being able to relate to this mountain, whatever it was, in a different way, to actually see it perhaps as movable, as not as permanent or fixed as you initially thought it was, and therefore not insurmountable. So part of the exercise, too, was to look at some key points in the first paragraph and see are there ways to connect your experience of that mountain, whatever that was, with this idea that Dogen's bringing up, that mountains are the expression of ancient Buddhas, that they somehow fulfill exhaustive virtues, that they are the product of past circumstances. That's probably a more easier one to reflect on, right? How are they the life of the present? Meaning, how are those mountains still reverberating for you, still have impact in your life here and now? How are they liberated? in its actual occurrence and how through the mountains have you gained spiritual power to ride the clouds and follow the wind, right?

[13:48]

What has allowed you a new experience of flexibility and creativity and to manifest in a different way than you thought was possible before through this exercise? So what I'd like to do is have you get into groups of three And each of you take about five minutes to kind of share what you discovered in doing this exercise. And then, so each of you will have five minutes. And at the end, there'll be about eight to 10 minutes where you can have kind of an open conversation. So the instructions, does everyone have the handout I gave last week for your homework? There's a few faces. I have a few extra copies here if you need them. So, oh, there's someone. I want to make sure that each group of three has at least one of these. So if you don't have a copy, please take one of these for your group.

[14:52]

And I suggest that, again, five minutes each. Take a minute to just be silent between each of the... Maybe start off with a one-minute silence. Here it says two minutes, but I don't think we need two minutes. Just sit for about 60 seconds, and then you can decide who's going to go first. And then at the end of each of your sharings, there'll be extra time to just kind of open an open sharing. This is an exercise in deep listening. So you're listening to other mountains speaking about their experience of what it is to be a mountain and to encounter other mountains in their life. So... As you sit and be presencing with each other, just keep that in mind. How is it to meet the other person with this deep quality of listening? And I suggest that you can use the space in here. Maybe you can get a number of maybe four groups in here, four or five, four or five in the back. You're also welcome to sit out in the courtyard.

[15:55]

You can go to the library because it's warm, and if you need more space, maybe duck into the Zendo. If you're going outside of this room, please have a watch and self-time. Make sure that each person takes five minutes. And then we can return here. It's now 25 after. Let's return here. Let's aim for about 10 till or so, which I think is the time the kitchen has to go back. Is that correct? Okay. Okay, so, is that clear? Any questions? I'm going to ring a bell in here and I'll ring a bell outside that hopefully you'll also hear if you're in the Zendo and the library. Okay? Okay. Find your triads. Turn to each other now and just identify each other. We'll see how many we have. Who needs partners?

[16:56]

Who needs? Tyson and Antoine, you need another? Do you have three? Anyone need another person in your group? So we need one person here. Maybe you two want to split up and we have... Thank you, Kitchen. So thank you for engaging that activity.

[18:34]

Part of my wish is for us to find ways to make this text sutra personal and to kind of first frame it for ourselves in a personal way. And throughout, whenever Dogen is using any kind of metaphor or imagery, how does this relate to our own human experience? And what does it point to in our own human experience and what we can discover about our understanding of it? Is it the way that we perceive or is it something other? So I'm just kind of curious as you did this exercise, was there anything particularly noteworthy that came up for you or you'd like to kind of share for a moment? Either for yourself or as you were speaking with others, what you saw as commonalities or something unique? That's right.

[19:34]

So that was something that just came up to me. So what do I actually want from that mountain? What draws me there and what's going to happen? And that, to me, . Thank you. said that I was reflecting on something that maybe those of you who study with Paul Haller, he often kind of frames this question, what do I want of practice? What do I ask of practice? And what does practice ask of me? So the same idea, what do I want in the mountain? What is the mountain? And what does it ask of me in return? What's this reciprocal relationship that's occurring as we engage? Thank you. Anyone else? So I'm hearing two expressions of mountain.

[21:37]

One is the mountain of our own being, our beingness, and then there's the mountain of self, selfing. You know, one mountain you can maybe, you know, deconstruct, you know, do away with, and the other one you have to fully enter into and become, you know, in some way. So which mountain are you engaged in, engaged with at any moment? Can you see that particular mountain and how are you relating to it? Are they kind of overlapping in some way? Can you tease them apart? What are you discovering in that? Thank you. Anyone else? Desley. that we couldn't really get rid of and couldn't climb even, you know, that is something that we were stuck up against the face of and that because it's high and broad, we were stuck there on the face and then found out that actually we could, to some extent, we have found out

[23:14]

we could actually trust it. You can trust the mountain. Trust the mountain, even if it's still painful or scary. The fact that you couldn't turn away, that you were forced to actually meet it, there was no other, there was no space to do anything other than just be. Although we tried. Yeah, of course. Don't we always try? Isn't our first effort to turn away, to get away from it, to not engage it in some way? Exactly, exactly. And then oftentimes the real freedom is when we have no other option. There is no other option. There's no way out. And that can sometimes come at a disease or a tremendous loss that you can't do anything about. You just have to meet the reality of that particular mountain.

[24:17]

It's unmovable. So how will you engage it? And again, where's the freedom? Where's the point of liberation in that moment? And you can't turn away. Maybe one more. Anything else you discovered? Thank you, Leslie. Yes, Kaye. and connecting with it, and I found that, I actually feel better about this after the group work, I found that the mind of just following the schedule was really helpful. Like you just had this, spend 15 minutes, you had some prompts, I just spent 15 minutes, did the best I could, and I feel like that, it was really helpful to have the freedom to just engage And then self-engaging and whatever I get out of it is what I got out of it. I was glad that that mind was available to me when doing this because the metaphors didn't spark anything. And you found something to engage with in just doing what the request was and then dropping it afterwards and being able to move on.

[25:30]

Great, thank you. Yeah, good. Okay, well, thank you, everyone, for entering into that. I hope that was helpful in some way and fruitful in some way. So maybe I'll do a little bit of a presentation. and say a few further thoughts to kind of set the context. My thinking is the Sashin that's coming up that we would enter more deeply into the actual text. but right now to set the context in some way. And then when we enter Sashin, I'll do Dharma talks about the text and some other, about Zazen and some of our other practices and ways to relate to our experience during Sashin. And then once we have the books here, we can also go even more deeply into what it is that particularly Shohaka Umura is unpacking for us.

[26:32]

So... This idea of mountains and waters, they evoke a lot for us. We have a lot of different kind of images and feelings that come up for them. And one that I think that for many people is very common is this idea of mountains as secret places. places that you go to for pilgrimage or to do religious rites of some sorts. And in many cases, because mountains represent this idea of going up towards the closest thing to the heavens, to the gods, to this divine realm, it takes us out of the mundane and lifts us up to more of a transcendent sphere. And so oftentimes we do pilgrimages or we go to sacred sites. You know, there's a lot of so-called sacred mountains of different religions. There's Mount Ihei in Japan, which was Dogen's place, Mount Sinai in Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, Alura, did I say that right, in Australia?

[27:35]

What's that? Uluru, thank you. And then Mount Fuji in Japan, Mount Arhat in Turkey. Did I say that right? Ararat. There you go. You don't know. Okay. Turkey's a great place. You should visit it sometime. And Mount Kalish, I think, which is a very well-known one in Tibet. I think some people have done... Have you done pilgrimages around Mount Kalish? Nope. So... Anyhow, these are all sacred mountains that people actually do, in many cases, circumemulations in Tibetan culture. We've taught a kora to go around a number of times. And this going around the mountain is a way actually to, for many, burn off negative karma. You have to take the energy of that negative karma, that weight of it, and redistribute that energy and release that energy in the sacred activity of circling the mountain.

[28:40]

And in doing so, also at the same time, generating positive energy, positive karma, with the thought of bodhicitta, with the thought of serving the awakening of all beings. So letting go negative karma and producing beneficial karma by circling the sacred mountain. And actually coming back in contact with what is most essential to us and to our own nature. And this beautiful quote that Shisou shared, Milarepa has stayed with me in the last week, the mountain around which I walk is my own heart. So this idea of what we're most deeply trying to circle is that essence, that deep core of our own being. Can we come into contact? And we keep kind of doing this spiral, kind of trying to go deeper and deeper at the same time, deeper and deeper, also going higher and higher above our usual karmic afflictions in some way.

[29:44]

So, anyhow, Shuzhou, thank you for sharing that lovely quote. And long before Buddhism came to China, the power and depth... and profundity of mountains and waters were acknowledged and revered by the Chinese. And in Chinese perspective, mountains and waters go together. So you always see in mountains, there's always some form of water, right? Water condenses in the clouds and gathers into little streams or comes up to springs. There's waterfalls, and then those waterfalls eventually end up as lakes or rivers at the foot of the mountains. And the... Chinese word for landscape, shan shui, literally means mountains and water. And so nature in this sense is not an abstraction, but literally nature to the Chinese is mountains and waters. You know, that very real thing. And it's interesting, at the time that Buddhism arrived in China, there were two predominant...

[30:50]

and divergent philosophical religious strains, which continue to influence Chinese culture even today. There's first Confucianism, and based on the teachings of Confucius, which emphasize, some would describe them as rigid rituals and social order. And they viewed Confucianism, viewed ordinary activities in human life, especially human relationships, as a manifestation of the sacred. because they are expression of humanity's inherent moral nature. So this idea that social order was a way to manifest the sacred and the natural, if you will, divine aspect of human consciousness. And so human morality and sanity was seen as rooted within social constructs and relationships rather than in the wild, undisciplined nature of nature. So then there's Confucianism and then there's Taoism.

[31:54]

And Taoism is a spiritual practice that actually deeply influenced Zen and Buddhism when it first arrived. It influenced Buddhism and in some ways actually I've heard it said that Zen is probably 60% Taoism which is a very interesting thing to explore. I know there's a number of books on that kind of idea. but how much we owe the Zen that we're practicing now, and as we understand it now, to Taoism. And in Taoism, the geographical features of the natural world, such as rocks, streams, valleys, and peaks, were believed to be the material embodiments of yin and yang. And yin and yang are energy qualities. Often, yin, for example, is kind of characterized as feminine, and yang is characterized as masculine, so more the sense of receptive and active principles.

[32:56]

And I have to confess that sometimes I get stuck on that genderization of those energies, but they're kind of something that's out there, and I sometimes don't agree. But I wanted to note it because it's a very strong component. Greg. The north-facing slope is cool, dark, moist, wooded, shady. And over here at Yang, the south-facing slope, which gets more sun, is dry and sparse and more rugged and rocky and exposed. So that's what it's presented as, like, the origin of Dien and Yang. It's mountainous. Thank you, that's very helpful.

[34:05]

So the thing that Taoism celebrated was the wildness that is beyond the human. And it's a wildness in nature, in the wildness of nature itself that Taoism actually saw sanity and wholeness. So while it is in Confucianism, the idea of sanity and wholeness comes through our social engagements with other human beings, Taoism says, no, actually our real sanity is in nature itself. And the sense of wholeness that comes with nature, which can't be regulated, can't be controlled. It's not something you can kind of cordon off and restrict in some way. So the deeper sense of sacred... and morality, actually, is based in this wildness for Taoism. And so for the Chinese perspective, the Taoist view, nature is a tender, benevolent expression.

[35:12]

It's expressing a transcendent logic, something that's eternal, and this idea of the constant round of cycles of living and dying, the wholeness, in that is represented. I read earlier this summer that the Chinese, when they initially translated the Sanskrit and Pali words for meditation or meditation absorption, which is jhana in Sanskrit or jhana, jhana in Sanskrit and jhana in Pali, they used characters that expressed the homophonic or the sound of the word. rather than the direct meaning of the word. So they translated jana as chanya. And as I understand it, the characters in Chinese for chanya literally mean to bow before mountains and waters. So that tells us something about how the Chinese thought of meditation.

[36:16]

They didn't look at meditation as something that would be good for you, that would improve you and make you better, or a destination to get somewhere. They actually stood meditation as a religious practice, an expression of a spiritual truth. So the way they understood meditation was actually to sit down and bow before mountains and rivers, which means to return to our own nature. to return to the mountains and waters that we already are. So bowing to mountains and waters, and of course to unzazen, is a way to return to our true nature. And it's a way to also cultivate humility. The word humility, the root word, points to the earth, to the ground, to be of the earth, to be of the ground. So to recognize our oneness with the earth, to recognize our dependence on the earth, and literally bow down to reconnect to that which we fundamentally already are in some way.

[37:20]

Just every time we do prostrations to think about that, returning to that original source of being. And I think that there's something deep in us that resonates in all this, this idea that deep in our human heart there's something in us that is nature. that we need and that we can't be whole without. And so our wholeness depends on us coming in contact, becoming intimate again with this fundamental expression that the mountains and waters and the natural environment offer us. And Dogen focuses on the virtues and characteristics of mountains and waters in his fascicle. claiming them to be the very manifestation of the very body and speech of Buddha, as well as Dharma teachings themselves. So some of the characteristics of mountains are that they are viewed as eternal, always constant, permanent, while as water is always moving, flowing, permanent.

[38:30]

And mountains and waters are opposite, and yet they're complementary in that particular way. So you could view in some ways these characteristics. Mountains could be viewed as form and water as emptiness. So water doesn't have any particular shape or form. It actually takes on the shape or form of whatever it is that's in relationship with. The particular bowl, the creek bed, you know, the coasts. you know, whatever it's in relationship, it just blends itself, engages and expresses itself in relationship to actual form. And this, you could say, is like emptiness. There is no form to emptiness. It's boundary. There has no boundary. It's boundary-less in some way. So Dogen's view of mountains and waters means it's not mechanistic, vulnerable physical mountains and waters be actual the starkness and presence of the actual physical world not as an object but as a luminous boundless appearance that stands at the joining point of subject and object a perception and religious feeling so this is what Dogen's pointing to when he's talking about mountains and rivers so he's not talking about nature that's out there

[39:55]

a world that's out there just laying inert, awaiting for us to engage it in some way. He's talking about a living thing that's coming into existence every time we apprehend it. And we come into existence as we apprehend it simultaneously. So he's talking about this point where our perception in the world and our inner life meets. The so-called external and the internal, where are they meeting? Where is this point? And at that point is depth and is religion. That's where religion lies. Our spiritual process lies right there. And so we're looking at a real encounter here. Mountains and rivers for Dogen stands for the isness of being, the magic, the impossibility of being, which appears and disappears at the same moment. So however we explain this or comprehend it, we're always going to be off, even the moment of trying to explain it or comprehend it.

[41:01]

We can't reach it with words. It can't be explained. It can't actually be touched in that way. However, even in the midst of explaining it, we're still demonstrating this connecting point for our very own being. We are it already. So this is important, important. Dogen says, We're going to continue to visit throughout. Dogen's not saying get rid of words and phrases. He actually says that's a foolish thing to do. You can't do that. He actually says words and phrases are themselves an expression of being, are themselves an expression of thusness, right? So there's no problem with words and phrases. It's how we use them to express our relationship to the world and... deconstruct our own limited points of view that is actually the gift that engaging with words and phrases offers us. So we'll look at that more as we go on. So I mentioned at the beginning, for many of us, mountains particularly are sacred in some way.

[42:10]

But Dogen is is not saying that mountain worship and ascetic practices, he's not teaching that in this. He's not encouraging people in this fascicle to do that kind of spiritual practice. Gary Snyder writes in his collection of essays titled Practice of the Wild, he says, Dogen is not concerned with sacred mountains or pilgrimages or spirit allies or wilderness as some special quality. His mountains and streams are the processes of the earth. all of existence, process, essence, action, absence, they all roll being and non-being together. They are what we are. We are what they are. For those who could see directly into essential nature, the idea of the sacred is a delusion and an obstruction. It diverts us from seeing what is before our eyes, plain thusness.

[43:11]

Roots, stems, and branches are all equally scratchy. No hierarchy, no equality. No occult or exoteric. No gifted kids or slow achievers. No wild and tame. No bound or free. No natural and artificial. Each totally its own frail self. Even though connected all which ways. Even because connected all which ways. Thusness is the nature of the nature of nature, the wild in wild. So the Blue Mountains walk to the kitchen and back to the shop, to the desk, to the stove. We sit on the park bench and let the wind and rain drench us. The Blue Mountains walk out to put another coin in the parking meter or go down to the 7-Eleven. The Blue Mountains march out. of the sea, shoulder the sky for a while, and slip back into the waters.

[44:17]

Isn't that beautiful? He does a beautiful job of just speaking to that quality of thusness, to not create a sense of separation by saying something is sacred. Because when we say something is sacred, in many cases we create division, self and other, in the process. But what is it just to fully experience ourselves as Thusness walking to the shop, to the kitchen, cutting carrots, you know, mopping the floor. What is that experience? Not a sacred activity, but as a full expression of our own being. So there's a familiar quote or a quote that some of you might be familiar with by the Chan master Ching-Yan Weishin, in Japanese Sagan Isshin, which goes as follows.

[45:20]

Before I had studied Zen for 30 years, I saw mountains as mountains and water as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains. Waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance, I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters. So in other words, when we first begin practice, or at the very beginning of our practice, mountains are mountains, right? We see them in kind of a fixed particular way, as other in many ways. And then after we do practice for a while, we no longer see the mountains as fixed objects. We see them as something else. They have a different expression to us. And then in time, furthermore, as our practice matures, we once again see mountains as mountains.

[46:22]

So first there is no mountain. First there is a mountain, and then there is no mountain. And then there's another mountain again. But it's a new expression of a mountain. It's a new understanding relationship to the mountain. So in Buddhist practice, we're constantly invited to ask ourselves, is the mountain really there? What is it that we're perceiving before us? Is it what we're perceiving a misperception? An apparition, a mirage of some sorts? And... And what is it as we practice and engage with this apparition, how does it create suffering for us in some way? So three ways of seeing. The first way is to see the world, meaning mountains and Fominan and others, only through the lens of projections and limited views. So when we see the world in this way, we see the world in opposition. We see it as flat.

[47:23]

It's two-dimensional. It's a small way. And when we see the world in this way, life is going to be hard, right? So others are going to be a threat to us. You know, money, for example, is going to be tight. Love is going to be limited. Everything we experience is going to be scarce, and we're going to struggle to get by. So when that's our view of mountains and waters, our experience is limited and painful. And sometimes so painful and limited, in fact, that we seek out another way and we come to Zen practice. So that may be part of your way-seeking mind, you know, to find another way to live, to live, to turn to the Dharma in order to escape your suffering and to get a new view, a new way of seeing. So we come, we come to Zen Zen, we come to Tassajara, and we start practicing. And then we realize this radical thing that everything is changing. Nothing is fixed.

[48:25]

There's nothing you can hold on to. Things are changing so much that even when we are changing, we can't hold on to ourselves. Our breath, body, minds and lives, everything is impermanent. And we recognize that what we thought to be true no longer holds. There's nothing graspable and As such, everything is emptiness. There is nothing that is real in some way that we can grab onto it and pull it out. And this can be a very disorienting and unsettling experience. So in this case, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters. Things aren't as they appear. But in time, the longer we practice... a new view begins to take shape. A third view begins to take shape. And we settle into seeing that in some ways there's only life.

[49:27]

There's only the mountains and waters and their pristine beauty. They're already whole and complete. And the mountains and waters are our life. And to accept things as they are, to accept that there is no inherent self... and also that allows us great freedom and great liberation, that we can then have a creative response to the world. And it's through living wholeheartedly with the world, engaging wholeheartedly with the world, not as separate, that we actually experience the fullness of our life. Okay, I'll stop with that. Any questions about that? Anything I said there? Yes? that's one way you could see it.

[51:08]

You know, there is that... I think you could approach it that way. I think there's a number of ways you can approach it, and that is one way. Sometimes, you know, to have this idea that we are... In some ways, when we started mountainous mountains, there's actually the sense that we're not separate already in there, right? To start with that, our organic nature is there, But we're not perceiving the world in that particular way. We just perceive our world as one with the mountains. And at some point, we have this bifurcated point of view where we see there's something else going on here. You know, what is that? You know, and it's disorienting. And we relate to it in a different way. And then eventually, when we're able to come back to both points of view can be true. They're melded together in some way. And we come back to our own human nature in some way. So I think you could take that twist to it.

[52:09]

I think it's a little different than what the Chan master here was trying to say, though. He's really starting with, we have a wrong view. We have a view of separation. Everything is an object. We're the subject. Everything is object. And at some point, we realize that that dualistic point of view no longer holds. And then we get disoriented. And in time, we're able to meld form and emptiness. We're able to see, well, yeah, a mountain is a mountain. It has its relative qualities, its relative nature, but it also has its absolute qualities, its emptiness nature. So how do we hold both simultaneously? How do we navigate the world in such a way that it's no longer uncomfortable? to be with both the relative and the absolute at the same time. Do you think that's also what Dogen means when he says, form is form and emptiness is emptiness, and he says that, so it seems to be conflicting with what Heart Sutra says, but Dogen says that also, form is...

[53:25]

When we say form, the emptiness is already included within form. So we don't have to necessarily say that form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Because then they are not two separate things. Even that sense of separation is included within that concept of formness. So it's nothing lacking. Yeah, so you can say form is form. it already includes, when you say form and form in that particular way, it already includes the understanding that form is a manifestation of emptiness, and emptiness expresses form, right? And so I think it points to that, definitely. You know, the way that I think about it, and you'll hear me say this a few times, all phenomenon, all experience is a modulation of awareness or emptiness. So it's awareness... taking the shape, taking on the appearance, or emptiness, taking on the appearance of form, right?

[54:27]

So there's nothing fixed there. It abides, arises for a period of time, takes that shape, and then passes away. But while you're seeing it, like a hologram, while you're seeing it, there's nothing you can actually grab onto. It's a play. It's a dance of emptiness, right? Yeah, Arai. that her understanding of emptiness and form is that emptiness and form are actually the activity of the universe and they work together and that's what Dogen is saying here he's saying mountains and waters are the activity of the universe right they're the activity of emptiness and form just expressing itself it's reality manifesting it's the universe universal activity right So everything has its function, and it's expressing, fully expressing its function by being exactly what it is. So mountain is fully expressing its function of being a mountain, its dharma position, you know, in the matrix of reality as just this, right?

[55:37]

And we're all doing that. And she added saying, when we identify with that eternal activity, then this... as opposed to identifying with our sense of separation, you're finding our true home within that activity. Perfect. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So to go home, come home, that's why we talk about wholehearted activity. Fully embodying our activity in that way. Then we come home to ourselves. Thank you. Yes? Do you think that what the Chen master was saying about first being mountains, then non-medical mountains again is similar to what Dogen's interpretation at the very end of San Suito was saying? An old Buddha said that mountains are mountains. He was not saying that mountains are mountains.

[56:39]

He was saying that mountains are mountains. Do you think that Dogen was kind of referencing, he's not saying mountains are the first version of mountains, but rather mountains are that final version. Yeah, and that's why I think he's playing with this in this way, and he's referencing this particular Chan master in saying that. So mountains are not mountains. Again, mountains aren't the fixed ideas that we have of them. They're not the fixed, solid things as we perceive them. But they are mountains. They are emptiness manifesting as mountains. The absolute manifesting as relative form. So mountains are mountains. If you understand that what's manifesting is itself this dance. So we no longer have to do away with the mountains. We realize that they are the universe expressing itself completely.

[57:41]

Thank you. Maybe one last thing. before ending. So the first sentence of this fascicle begins, these mountains and waters of the present are the expression of old Buddhas. So Dogen has this tendency in each of his fascicles in the Shobu Genzo to begin with what he most wants to say. So basically he's offering a summary of his main points in the first sentence or the first paragraph of each fascicle. And then goes from there to unpack it. So if we understand that, if we study this first section with that understanding, it's going to make it a little bit easier to realize that everything he says afterwards is referring back to what's being said in the first section. So in some ways what Dogen's saying here is very simple. He's saying mountains and waters, what's deep and essential in our hearts as well as everything that appears in the world, is the expression of the most profound Dharma teaching.

[58:45]

That is, everything expresses the fundamental truth of existence. Everything that appears, the truest and highest truth. Nothing is left out. The truest thing Buddha was trying to teach is that mountains and waters are the truth. They are true reality. Do we relate? Do we see it that way? Do we see them that way and do we relate them that way? And Shohako goes so far as to say, to understand the first senses of... is actually to understand the entire Shobogenzo. So all of Dogen's 95 fascicles are the Shobogenzo. But in order to understand this first sentence, he also says you need to study the entire Shobogenzo. So that's quite a daunting task to take up for the rest of your life. He says, every word Dogen writes is connected to other words and expressions in his writing and his experiences in his life. It is like this with everything. each and every manifestation and experience is connected.

[59:47]

So this might, you know, we think about that way. We think about the deep interconnectedness of all existence. And as we study the fascicle of Dogen, we can also study the fascicle of our own life and how it is that every single moment or everything that we express has a connectedness to everything else that we've ever expressed and done in our life. You know, how is that? How do we understand that? And this is, again, this kind of idea of way-seeking mind. When we give our stories, are we seeing how all these particular points and descriptions of our life were deeply interconnected and make for the reality of who we are in this moment? But one of the things I want to encourage you for your homework is to, as you read this, look at some of the, try to figure out, you might even want to write your own version of your understanding of the first paragraph of this particular fascicle.

[60:52]

What is Dogen trying to say here? So not so much in Dogen's words, but in your own words. Reframe it, rewrite it in some way to figure out how would you say what Dogen is saying here. Okay, so I'm going to end there because I want us to have time for zazen. Let's see if there's anything else. Just one other thing to consider. As you are walking around outside in nature, ask yourself, what is the teaching that's happening? So every rock you encounter, every leaf you encounter, every tree you encounter, breeze, brush, every bird you hear, what is being communicated? And the teaching is thusness. Well, what does that mean in this particular instance? What is the thusness of a bird call?

[61:53]

What is the thusness of a butterfly? What is the thusness of the little fish? in the creek as they nibble on your toes when you are standing there. You know, what is that? So, okay. I think I want to . Okay. Yes, I was totally clear. Is there a homework assignment for your story? Yeah, the homework assignment is to, again, what is nature communicating to do? That's good. How do you understand, again, what's the dharma teach you? I'll teach it with you.

[62:40]

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