Good morning, everyone. The true mind of faith, the true body of faith. I had faith that something was going to happen in terms of leading the chants. Already day two, and some of us have sushin mind. So, welcome to day two sushin. And welcome again to our guests, John and Shogun. Lovely to have you here. Thank you for joining us. very seasoned practitioners, to join us in our walk through the mountains and waters. I want to continue our journey through this particular fascicle and finish it in three days. So we have four more days of talks, including this one. And then also we're going to have two silent days, yay. And so today and tomorrow I'll do part of the San Suikyo and then on day six I'll wrap it up.

[01:11]

And day seven I'd like to say a little bit about Buddha's enlightenment since that is what we are celebrating by sitting here together during Rahatsu, that momentous occasion. His very simple act is literally why we are here. now. So pretty powerful to think about 2,500 years. Someone once ago sat under a tree with great determination and here we are sitting together in this way. I'm going to move a little bit more quickly. We only have, we've got through two-thirds of Sansui Kyo in two and a half months. So obviously, if we only have three days left, it's going to be a quicker clip. And so I may not do a line-by-line exploration or study, and I may skip even a few of the paragraphs.

[02:16]

So just so you know. I've been in a tendency recently to start my talks with a poem, but... Today I thought I would do something a little bit different in order to encourage us both in our study of San Suikyo as well as Sashin practice. I thought I'd share several passages from Suzuki Roshi in which he actually spoke about San Suikyo. I recently just stumbled across these recently and so I... was happy to see that he mentions this fascicle. And here's one from July 24th, 1971, which is about six months before he died. And this was here at Tal Sahara, as far as I understand. So he's referring to the lines, blue mountains are constantly walking, and east mountain moves over water. And I've added a little bit of editing and added a few articles just to make it a little bit more...

[03:19]

easy to follow. And here we go. Dogen says that usually people think a mountain is solid, does not move, and is permanent, but river flows. That is our usual understanding of mountains and rivers. You know, we have one-sided views, like mountain does not flow, but river flows. You say mountain does not move, but mountain is actually moving. The river goes, but actually, if the river goes, the mountain is also going. And if the river stays, actually, the mountain will stay. It is our thinking mind who thinks the mountain is moving and the river is moving. That is our thinking mind. And when we talk about things, we forget our subjective view and talk about things from an objective view. as an objective world.

[04:20]

But the objective world is projected objects and projected ideas, which we have in our mind. So when Dogen says, so when we say mountains are moving, you know, we ourselves are also moving. When we say river does not move, it means that in our practice, we do not move. Move or not move is the virtue of our practice. And our practice can stop everything from moving because our practice includes everything. So Suzuki Roshi here is reiterating what we've been emphasizing as one of the key points that Dogen might be making in Sanskrit Kyo, which is when we stick to our conceptual and limited karmically conditioned views, including the views that mountains don't walk and water is overflowing, as well as that we're somehow separate from the mountains and the waters, then we don't really see the true nature of the mountains and the waters.

[05:32]

The virtue of our Zen practice is just like the virtue of mountains and waters. When we stop creating dualities with our minds and thinking, then everything becomes Here's another section from the same talk I find encouraging. The way I exist here is the way everything exists with me. So actually how you feel, if you feel quite naturally free from idea of self, for instance, if you feel your breathing, If you feel the beating of your heart, then it means that you will feel the whole world. It is a part of, you know, not even a part of. Your breathing is the breathing of the whole universe, which includes you yourself. When you do not feel you are counting breathing, you are still following breathing.

[06:38]

Just follow breathing. That is the breathing of the whole universe. You know, your breathing includes everything. There is nothing but the whole activity of the world, of the universe, which is nothing but your inhaling and exhaling. This is again being explained, and then he laughs, I mean explained by him, but actually when you practice Zazen, you have it in that way. When you have this kind of Zazen, there is nothing anymore. You are outside the world. Or there's no Buddha or you, no teacher or disciple. That is complete freedom. That is the proper sort of zazen practice. So our zazen practice should include these points. When you practice zazen, you are actually in the utter darkness of the room.

[07:39]

So this darkness again, if you remember, refers back to the absolute, when a stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. So the night being the absolute realm where nothing is discriminated. You don't see anything. It may look like you see something, but you know, your thinking includes everything. That is another side of the reality. When we practice, our practice covers everything. So there is no need to say zazen practice or everyday activity. Zazen practice should be everyday activity. And everyday activity could be zazen practice. And you will feel the same way, but only less, only when your practice matures. Knowing this point, you will... When you practice, when you continuously practice Zazen, then you will have more and more perfect, well-matured practice.

[08:41]

This is our task, a whole life task as a Buddhist. After all, it is the source of our true nature. So when our Zen practice matures, we have a practice that doesn't see a difference between zazen and everyday activity. It doesn't see a difference between our breathing and the universe breathing. And there's nothing that's left out in this activity of breathing and being breathed. So this means you can relax into your breathing and allow your life to inhale and exhale you. Nothing is left out of the vast spaciousness of this universal breath. So in the last two sushins, I offered some practice pointers and tips, including there was the focus on the hara, on the center, the breathing point within, allowing your mind to settle there.

[09:59]

And also Reginald Ray's Seven Points of Pure Awareness Practice. So I don't know if you've had a chance to kind of refresh those for yourselves, keeping those in mind. I'm not going to reiterate them, but I just want to make sure that you are kind of tuned into those as resources for yourselves. And also the practice of RAIN. So if you find yourself feeling... particularly overwhelmed or caught by emotion states, emotion mind states, use that as a helpful tool for you to be able to navigate those particular experiences in some way. Okay, so now on to Dogen. I'm having this feeling recently, it's like, I remember trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal, doing the part of the Annapurna circuits.

[11:04]

And when you know like you're two-thirds of the way through, and you're in the last third, last fourth, there's something, you start finding yourself kind of like... picking up a little bit, clipping a little faster, thinking about, oh, it'd be really nice to get to the end in order to kind of just rest and stop all this activity and have a nice cup of hot chocolate or tea or something like that and so on. So I have this kind of sense of, oh, we're coming around to the last part of our trek through these mountains and waters. And... And we're almost there, just a few more days. So we, in our last class, completed the last section of the Mountains and Waters. We completed the water section of the Mountains and Waters Sutra. And in many ways, we kind of really just skimmed the surface of that particular section because we could have spent a lot more time and dove in a lot more deeper.

[12:11]

as you probably can get a sense of it, the study of Dogen warrants repeated visits. We're kind of like circling around again and again. It's kind of like during a quora or circumambulation around a particular holy site. Each time around, we keep kind of... deepening our relationship and deepening our perspective and discovering something new each time. And this is what I find with the study of Dogen. You know, the first initially, it just seems in some cases impenetrable. But over time, there's these little kind of openings that appear that invite us in a little bit more deeply. in some way, but we really need to make the effort to keep kind of circling around and trying to find our way in, little by little. And so it warrants this kind of, this type of effort. And this morning we're going to move into the final section of San Sui Kyo, which Okamura has divided.

[13:20]

following his division. And he titled this section, Mountains and Waters are Dwelling Places for Sages. So in the last section, it's fascicle, which if you're following along, is with the chant books today. It's paragraphs 35 through 47. And here he talks more explicitly about being intimate with the mountains and waters. And Intimacy is the basis of our practice. And it's also the basis of our lives. If we want to understand the mountains, we have to become the mountains. We have to let the mountains fill our whole body and mind. And that is, we have to actually experience the non-dual aspect of our relationship to the mountains. So to be intimate with the mountains requires that we become intimate with ourselves, to know our own walking and sitting, not as me, as a separate self that's walking and sitting, but as all of reality, the whole universe, walking and sitting right here and now, through us, as us.

[14:45]

So here is paragraph 35. in which Dogen will talk about sages in the mountains and then sages in the water and how they both realize and express their intimacy with their respective environments. And I want to note here, I realized when we were chanting yesterday the noon service chant, this section, that I forgot that I had wanted to change the gender in the text because it says wise men and sages. And I really want to intentionally encourage us to say wise ones and sages to make it more gender neutral. So if you could make that attempt as we're chanting today to switch that from men to ones, I would greatly appreciate it. From the distant past to the distant present, mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages. Wise men and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind.

[15:49]

And through these wise ones and sages the mountains have appeared. However many great sages and wise ones we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. So as we've touched on before, this tradition in China and Japan of great sages and wise ones going up to the mountains and taking up living there. And then people would travel far distances in order to visit them and seek counsel. And in many cases, these sages were fleeing from fleeing religious and political persecution. And so they disappeared into the mountains for the sake of safety. And perhaps in time they would build temples and monasteries as a way to support the practice of others.

[16:57]

And Dogen himself was one of these folks who... retreated further into the mountains and eventually established a Heiji in order to get some distance from society and some of the opposing factions that were trying to undermine him, some of his hostile opponents. And some of these sages would eventually take on the name on the mountain on which they live. So we know ancestors such as Guishan and Dongshan. And the Shan, part of their name in Chinese, means mountain, and in Japanese, San means mountain. And so the idea is that the person, Dongshan, for instance, becomes the voice of the mountain, and the mountain becomes the soul of the person. So the person awakens the soul of the mountain, and the mountain awakens the soul of the person.

[18:00]

So when a sage enters the mountain, this mountain is very instrumental in the awakening of the person. And the sage enters the mountain and the mountain comes alive with the presence of the sage. But once the sage enters the mountain, the sage disappears. And there is now just the mountain with no trace of the sage. According to Dogen, sages making mountains their dwelling place has been the case for limitless past to the limitless present. And in San Sui Kyo and other Dogen fascicles are at times kind of like operas. They have a tendency to have reoccurring leitmotifs or themes. And here again we see the theme that was introduced in the very first sentence of the fascicle, the mountains and waters of the present. are the expression of the old Buddhas.

[19:02]

So Dogen is once more talking about transcending the distinction between this present moment and eternity, between this present moment Buddha and the eternal Buddha. So in other words, this intersection or nexus of the present moment and eternity where all the Buddhas and ancestors appear and dwell. Dogen even goes so far as to say that through these wise ones and sages the mountains have appeared. Now the word appear here means genjo as in genjo koan. And the gen of genjo means to appear, to show up, or to be in the present moment. And while jo means to become, to complete, or to accomplish. So the combined word, genjo, therefore means to manifest, to actualize, to appear or become.

[20:10]

So Dogen is suggesting that it is through these wise ones and sages that the mountains and waters have appeared and been actualized. So how is this possible, we might ask? Well, through the way in which these wise ones and sages have manifested their life. It is through their words and actions in their everyday life that they have given rise in the mountains. In other words, through their wholehearted practice, wise ones and sages have given rise to the reality of all existence. It is this activity which Dogen calls Ganjo Koan. And Okamura in his book, Realizing Ganjo Koan, It says that Genjo Korn means to answer the question that true reality asks of us through the practice of our everyday activity. Again, to answer the question that true reality asks of us through the practice of our everyday activity.

[21:21]

So this is the practice of the wise ones and sages. And furthermore, it is through their practice, that they have then made it possible for other people like us to see the mountains. Of course, it's also the case that it is through the practice of the mountains that wise ones and sages have appeared and been actualized. Their practice, their mutual practice together gives rise to true reality. So, our practice makes the mountains. And the practice of the mountains makes us. How do you feel that? How do you know that? How do you understand that in your own being, in your own heart and mind? Do you believe that? Do you believe the mountains are making you in this very moment through their practice? Are you allowing that to happen?

[22:24]

So then Dogen goes on to say, However many great sages and wise ones we have supposed have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. So when Dogen speaks of entering the mountains, he's speaking of entering the non-dual Dharma realm. And there's no separation in this realm between the sage, and the mountain. And when we have made the mountain our own body and mind, our own dwelling place and personal chambers, then there is no meeting. Since the mountains and sages are just one reality. And that the sages have entered the mountains means that there is no one to meet and nothing to be met. There is only the mountain itself. I wanted to say before I started this talk that often day two and three we can be really tired and we're finding our energy kind of settling in and we're still working energetically and the usual boost that we get from Sushin hasn't quite kicked in yet and it may be a challenge to kind of stay present and awake and

[24:01]

for kind of any activity, not only a Dharma talk, but also or Yoki or Zazen or service and so on. So just acknowledging that. And also, I think there's a way in which if you allow the sound of the words to be like the Tassajar or Khabarga Creek and just kind of wash over you, allow it to kind of kind of enter in and filter in in its own way. So try to stay present with the flowing, but it's not that you have to kind of grab each and every word and take it in. It may not be possible. So simply allow it to wash over you, relaxing into the experience as best you can and seeing what gets absorbed in its own time and place. So we know that by now Dogen is constantly referring to other Buddhist teachings and teachers and koans in his writing.

[25:08]

And here's one story from the recorded sayings of Dongshan. Dongshan asks the monk, where have you come from? And the monk replies, from wandering in the mountains. Dongshan asks, did you reach the peak? And the monk responds, Yes. Dangshan then asks if there was anyone on the peak. And the monk says, no, there wasn't. Dangshan replies, if so, then you did not reach the peak. Here, Dangshan indicates that if no one was there, if nobody was there, then neither was the monk. If this peak experience was true emptiness, in which not a thing exists, then neither did the monk exist. But the indomitable monk replies, if I did not reach the peak, how could I have known there was no one there? Touche.

[26:10]

Dangshan said, well, why didn't you stay there? And the monk said, I would stay there, but there's someone in India who would disapprove. And Dangshan said, formally, I doubted this fellow. So this someone in India who would have disapproved had this monk stayed on the peak or stayed in the mind of emptiness or in his enlightened state is none other than Shakyamuni Buddha. So this kind of koan serves as an admonishment to us not to stick to our insights, to any perceived attainments, to let go of them. to go beyond them. So the monk said he would have stayed, but realized there would have been a problem with staying or sticking to his particular insight or awakening. And so although the monk took the backward step, he stepped back in the form of going up the mountain in order to practice with great intensity, he also knew that he couldn't stay there.

[27:25]

that he needed to then take the forward step and ascend down the mountain. So we talked about this before. So the monk understood that the Buddhas required him to take the responsibility to return from the peak, to return from his awakening, if you will, to share the awareness from experience and help others. I just want to briefly say again, there's this tendency at times to get stuck in our insights. We may even have a taste of emptiness or clear mind, awareness. And then we make a thing out of it. We make it a badge. And we think it's It's we've got it, we understand it, and no one else really gets it. And we use our limited understanding of that particular insight to measure everything else that people say and do. And we kind of maybe even have a little sense of I'm better than other words, than other people in some way, because I get it, right?

[28:32]

And I'm even above all these forms and ceremonies and all this other stuff we're doing here. I'm just going to hang out here and do my own thing because I know what emptiness really is, right? And that can be a downfall. It can really be a point where people get stuck for years, in some cases decades, and it corrodes inside of them. And it actually begins to cut them off from other people and their relationships to Sangha and community because they somehow see themselves above other people. So in order to be able to really... proceed on the path, we have to let go. We have to let go of even our insights. You can't hold on to anything. Any holding on, any sense of grasping is ego. It's based selfing that's happening. The self can be very tricky. It will even, what's the word, appropriate our insights to reinforce itself in some way.

[29:36]

So just be aware of that. If you find yourself at any point sticking or thinking, I've got it, And I've got it more than that person over there or that one over there, and particularly more than the teacher, which is probably the case. But be aware of that, because that is the point where we can trip up. So a number of you are going to be leaving the practice period at the end of this time together. and you will have ascended Tassajara Mountain and practiced faithfully together, and most likely having some kind of insights, although it's immeasurable. You can't measure your insights, or don't even try. You know, I had this much insight, this much insight, this much insight. It doesn't work that way, right? So now, with whatever insight you have, whatever opening basic, I think opening is even a better... kind of expression of it, right? You will now descend the mountain and return to your everyday lives.

[30:40]

And while it's not going to be easy to make that transition, it's an important step in practice. So it's a time not only to test and express the manifestation of our understanding, but also to take a time to take up the bodhisattva practice of serving all beings with whatever glint of wisdom and compassion that we might have cultivated. Thank you, Kitchen, very much. And even if you're going to be staying for the next practice period, and hopefully on into the summer, there's still this way in which you are asked, really, required of your practice to serve, to demonstrate in some way the manifestation of your insight and understanding. And this is one of the things I found when I lived here at Tassajara. I really didn't understand what I had kind of experienced and open to in my practice periods until the summer came along.

[31:53]

And it was during the summer when I saw the way in which I engaged with others and with my work practice. And as problems came up, I could see that I was relating to these situations and people in a new way. And so I was always curious at the end of doing two practice periods, what now? is the flavor and the expression of my practice. It was only in those periods of time of coming down from the mountain that I really could get a sense of it. And at the same time, I had a sense of, here's some place where I need to do more work. This is the place that I need to continue to deepen because I still find myself somehow caught in these particular areas. So that was also very helpful for me to discover. So don't think guest season is something to get through. It's actually a practice period. It's probably as important a practice period as a traditional Ango in many ways.

[32:59]

So once the wise ones and sages enter the mountain, they disappear and there's no trace of them. Here's another story on the same point that also involves Dongshan. A student asked Dongshan, you always instruct us to follow the way of the birds. What is the way of the birds? Dongshan replied, it doesn't leave a trace. And another translation of this, it doesn't leave a trace, is you don't meet anyone. So the way of birds is to leave no trace in the sky as they travel. They are one with the sky and find their way during their yearly migration, as you know, without necessarily leaving some graffiti or marker or objects behind signaling that they've been there. Unlike most of us humans, when we go somewhere, we try to leave some mark.

[34:01]

This is not leaving a trace. This not leaving a trace is not polluting the environment with a self that intentionally or absentmindedly leaves objects. in order to somehow confirm it's been there, to signal to others its presence or to verify its existence or somehow that it's made progress of some sort. So in this process, you don't meet anyone. This form of no trace points to the Buddhist understanding that due to the nature of emptiness, which is another way to express our profound interconnectedness, there is no one, no inherently separate self to meet. It affirms that the true self is the entire invisible universe. As Dogen says in the Genjo Koan, when we don't stick to our insights, then no trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly.

[35:09]

Another translation of the word trace is footsteps. Sages and wise men don't leave a trace or any footprints because they are the ones, they are one with the mountains. They are the mountains walking. The mountains walking are sages. And they're not looking outward for some kind of verification or fame or acknowledgement of their accomplishment or their presence. So though you enter the mountain, And though you enter and leave no trace, you're still able to follow the way. Just like birds and whales, right? They're able to find their way each year in their migrational pattern without any maps or GPS. This reminds me of another Dogen poem. The comings and goings of the waterfowl leave no trace, yet the paths it follows are never forgotten. Apparently, the name of this poem is, you must awaken the non-abiding mind and enter the way of the mountain life.

[36:17]

So the comings and goings of the waterfowl leave no trace. Yet the paths it follows are never forgotten. Also, I think of the phrase in Taoism that the way that can be followed is not the true way. So this is entering into the mountain way of life and disappearing with no trace. And it's actually a wonderful thing to be able to disappear in your place, in your activity, to become absorbed into them and not to be a part or separate because you no longer, when you're able to do that, you no longer have the burden of being a self. And isn't it pretty burdensome to be someone, dragging yourself around all the time? like a giant heavy suitcase. So we can interpret this as saying, just disappear into your work and your community and the vast intimacy of your life.

[37:21]

This is what it means to have the way or spirit of the mountain. It reminds me of the Suzuki Roshi quote about any activity that you do to just burn yourself up completely, leaving even no ashes behind. So the last line of this paragraph says that our concept of not flowing and our understanding of not flowing should not be the same as the dragon's understanding. Humans and gods reside in their own worlds and other beings may have their doubts about this and then again they may not. So here again this is this leitmotif of the two virtues of mountains and waters that are flowing and non-flowing. So Dogen is again reiterating hear that human concepts of understanding and understanding of flowing and non-flowing are not going to be the same as that of dragons and gods.

[38:25]

And this echoes back to the four views of water in paragraph number 19 that we studied, in which gods saw water as jeweled necklaces and dragons saw water as palaces. And while some of us may... doubt our views and the views of others and even wonder whether it's okay to have different views. For others it's not a problem that we each have different views or have the views that we have. In the interest of time I'm going to skip over Passover paragraphs 36 and 37 as basically Dogen in these two paragraphs repeats the leitmotif of non-flowing and flowing, and then he reminds us once again that we should study this. So the point is, sometimes the mountain flows, and sometimes they don't. And this is how we have duality within non-duality.

[39:29]

We have to be careful not to get stuck on either side, right? You'll see this sometimes in Zen koans where a student says one thing in response to a teacher's question and the teacher hits them. And then the student says, aha, I got it. I'll say the opposite thing. And so they say it and the teacher hits them anyhow. This idea is you can't get stuck on either side. So both sides have to be regarded simultaneously. Not one, not two. So we should study the way of Buddhas and ancestors without giving way to our doubts. So the Buddhas and ancestors are ordinary human beings who have inquired or have not given up inquiry and are saying, let's study this together, just as we're doing here. And then paragraph 38.

[40:30]

These words should be engraved on skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, engraved on interior and exterior, body and mind, engraved on emptiness and on form. They are engraved on trees and rocks, engraved on fields and villages. These words that start off this paragraph means the expression of the mountains. So their particular virtue is of peacefully abiding and walking and of non-flowing and flowing. So these are their expressions, their way of speaking and chanting, their manifestations, their actions, their teachings. And Dogen says that these expressions should be engraved on our skin, flesh and bones and marrow. In other words, on our entire body. And not just on our physical body, but also on our practice body. And not only on the exterior of our body, but also the interior.

[41:31]

in our hearts and minds. Okamura, in commenting on this phrase, says that interior and exterior of body and mind is a translation of shinjin esho. Shinjin is body and mind. And a, or exterior, means the environment or circumstances we are living in. And shou, in esho, shou, or interior is a retribution of karma as our whole body and mind. So this goes back to personal karma and collective karma. We should engrave these words constantly in peace and constantly walking, both inside and outside ourselves, on our body and mind and environment. We should care for ourselves and our circumstances and keep the whole, that is, esho, interior and exterior, as one thing, healthy. Now this phrase engraved on trees and rocks is from a story in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra about one of the Buddha's previous lives in which he was a boy named Sesan Doji which translates as Snow Mountain Boy.

[42:49]

So I'll tell you this story. Snow Mountain Boy came upon a monster and another name for those monsters, Rakshasa, who was reciting a beautiful Dharma verse, although only half of it. And the verse goes, all beings are impermanent. These are the beings of arising and perishing. And the boy thought these Dharma words were truly inspiring, but felt that they were only half of the teaching. So in order to get the monster to recite the full verse, the entire verse, the boy offers himself to the hungry monster as food in exchange for first hearing the remaining lines before he is eaten. And the monster agrees and recites the second half. A rising and perishing cease. Calm extension is nirvana. A rising and perishing cease.

[43:53]

calm extinction is nirvana, whereupon Seisandoji, overjoyed but also fearing that this verse will be lost to others, thus eagerly inscribes the whole passage on all the trees and rocks to assure others will be saved as well. So when he finished doing this, he climbs up a tree, a very tall tree, and prepares to... leap into the demon's mouth, right? But just as he leaps off at that very moment, the monster transforms into Indra, the gardener of the Dhamma. There's Indra again. He shows up everywhere, right? And in the end, Indra saves the boy's life. And the boy was so happy about this, right? So this is a very strange but sweet story. I wonder where they come up with these things. Where did that come from, really?

[44:55]

I think another way to think of this idea of engraved is also being tattooed, right? And these days, getting tattooed is a bit in vogue. Chisseau tells me that she has a number of tattoos, although only a few are visible, mostly on her arms. And I asked her, what purpose did they serve? Because I'm just kind of curious why people get tattoos. And she says they serve as talismans and mnemonic devices for her. You know, ways of kind of both as certain types of protections, but also remembrances, remembering devices. So I confess that I never got a tattoo. I briefly thought about it, but I kind of felt, you know, the human body is beautiful enough just as it is. So I didn't feel the need to further adorn it. And I was also imagining myself, you know, 50 years down the road with a tattoo, going, mm-mm, you know, it doesn't look so good now.

[46:00]

So I thought, okay, well, just leave it as it is. But the fact is we are already tattooed, all of us, right? It stains us with Dharma truths. It stains us with these verses. All beings are impermanent. These are the beings of arising and perishing. We are the beings of arising and perishing. We are stained with that Dharma truth. And arising and perishing cease. Calm extinction is nirvana. That true truth that too is something that has been engraved and tattooed in us. So these words are already graved on each and everything and all phenomenon. And we are also engraved or carved or tattooed by the sounds of this valley, by the sounds of the creek, the birds, the foxes, by the hot springs water, the heat, the cold, the rain.

[47:13]

and we're also engraved or tattooed by our myriad life experiences, by our families and living conditions, by our particular needs and emotions, our loves and our fears. Life carves or engraves us. What you think about and what you worry about is carved into your face. Do you ever notice that? You can see, you can read people by reading the carvings on their faces. We have a sense of their life in many ways. Just like rivers of rain down mountainsides, our life is like water that flows through us and our faces encarves us. I was thinking of this yesterday when we were walking up the road and seeing how the recent rains have already come kind of carved out the road in new, unique ways. And each year the county comes along and grades the road and makes it fairly smooth again, right?

[48:15]

And even despite the amount of traffic from the vehicles that come up and down the road, it isn't until nature gets its way, nature gets in there with the rain and the rockfall, that it really does the deeper engraving. So our life is carving out our face all the time, Every action you do is carving out or engraving your life in some way. What is it that you're carving out with your actions? So in what ways are we deeply tattooed or carved by our experiences? So on to the last paragraph for today. Although we say that mountains belong to the country, actually they belong to those who love them. When the mountains love their owners, the wise and virtuous inevitably enter the mountains. And when sages and wise ones live in the mountains, because the mountains belong to them, trees and rocks flourish and abound, and the birds and beasts take on a supernatural excellence.

[49:28]

This is because the sages and wise ones have covered them, with their virtue. We should realize that the mountains actually take delight in wise ones, actually take delight in sages. And this first line of this paragraph is an often recited favorite. Although we say that mountains belong to the country, actually they belong to those who love them. And the Chinese character for love that's used here has a heart in the middle of it. But this love is not in kind of the usual negative sense of attachment and kind of grasping desire, as it's commonly used. Rather, it's used here in the positive sense of what I would say is knowing and appreciating our shared being. And when we know and appreciate our shared being, this results in a wholesome wish to take care of... things and each other because we recognize each other as intimately connected.

[50:34]

To love means to be at one with, to recognize and to celebrate our shared being. So we are in the mountains here at Tassajara and we love them and we care for them because we are in the mountains and they are us. We're taking care of our own being in this way. The mountains belong to us and we belong to the mountains. They take care of us. And I actually feel that the next line talks about the country. Like these mountains, sometimes we say, belong to the nation or the territory. But Dogen says, although the mountains belong to the nation, they actually belong to those who love them. And I feel that kind of tasahara belongs to us. And I don't know if you have that feeling that, you know, we live here, this is part of us. We love these mountains. These are special to us and therefore they belong to us in some way.

[51:36]

And you really have this sense also people in Zen center, you know, people who have been here and practice here for a number of years, they come to love the Sangha, love the community, love the practice. And then they go off and go back into the world and to do other things and they come back after a number of years or decades. And they still have this warm sense of, This place belongs to me. Tal Sahara belongs to me. City Center, Green Gulch. This practice somehow belongs to me. And I belong to it. And then they get a little puzzled when someone opens up the front door after they've rung the doorbell at City Center. And the person says, hello, who are you? You're like, well, don't you know who I am? Even though I haven't been here for 10 years, this place is still belonging to me. So that's the kind of way that there's some part of us that is retained. And it's the sense of owners here in this verse isn't so much about our proprietariness, but it's more the sense of being a host and guest, having a loving relationship between a host and a guest.

[52:50]

I want to just briefly say something about the term virtuous. Virgem seems to be kind of an old-fashioned word, but if you actually look at the root of it, it means power. And it means the power of integrity. So in ancient cultures, there was this understanding that rightness with one's world and rightness with one's life created a power. That is, rightness being an integrity, a sense of wholeness, a seeing of being completely with something. Right? created a sense of power, power of coming together, of strength and mutuality, and that this power could be then conferred onto others or mutually recycling and nourishing and supporting each other. So when the sages and mountains live in the mountains, because the mountains belong to them,

[53:54]

Trees and rocks flourish and abound, and the birds and beasts take on a supernatural excellence. This word supernatural here can also be translated as excellent, spiritual, or inspired. And so since the mountains belong to the sages who live there, trees and rocks abound and flourish, and birds and animals are inspired. This is because the sages extend their virtue, they extend their power of integrity. That is, they recognize their independence with nature and act with power of this being in accord with all beings. And so when they do this, flowers and fauna abound and flourish and are equally inspired to manifest and express themselves because they don't have a sense of threat from human beings. I think of this kind of excellence, natural excellence or inspiration whenever I hear the trill of the Kenyan wrens or hear the fox cries at night when we're sitting here in the Zendo or see these deer that have been roaming around, this family of five deer that have been roaming around Tassajara for the last several weeks, even when people are in plain sight.

[55:14]

They don't seem too concerned. And it's this kind of way in that their presence allows us, allows me at least, the feeling of transcending my sense of a separate self. Okamura adds that when people who love the mountains enter and live in the mountains, the mountains start to radiate a spiritual light. The beauty of this light attracts more way seekers. And as Dogen tells us in The Bender Wall, in the Zen mind, one realizes that trees, grasses, and land involved in all in this all emit a bright and shining light, preaching the profound and incomprehensible Dharma, and it is endless. Trees and grasses, wall and fence expound and exalt the Dharma for the sake of ordinary people, sages, and all living beings. Ordinary people, sages, and all living things in turn preach and exalt the Dharma for the sake of grass, trees, walls, and fences.

[56:22]

And perhaps this is the key message of San Sui Kyo, that everything is emitting the light of reality. Everything is already the truth of suchness. Everything is expressing and teaching the Dharma by its very existence and doing so not just for itself but for the benefit of all beings. All beings preach and manifest suchness for the sake of all beings because this is how interdependent origination works. Just as the sages practicing in the mountains make the mountains, and the mountains practicing in sages make the sages, so too does practice expression of each being give rise to other beings in an ever dynamic and constantly flowing creative exchange. So how we practice here in the mountains of Tassajara influences those around us, both near and far, in everyone else's practice.

[57:37]

affects us. So all things we come in contact with here at Tassajara and elsewhere flourish by our love, our attention and care. And we in turn are nourished and illuminated by their love and care and practice. So this working together, this having virtuous relationship with self and others, with ourselves, And with the 10,000 things has a significant impact. We are carving the universe as we practice. It all comes down to this, to having peaceful and loving relationships. So I'm going to pass over paragraphs 40 and 41. and tomorrow continue with the way of water in paragraph 42, I'll just briefly say that the primary point of paragraph 40, which mentions the yellow emperor, who is said to have respected the sages as teachers and honored them without standing on worldly forms, is that even someone as powerful as an emperor cannot expect to fully enter into the mountains without first kneeling and bowing.

[59:02]

And if you recall, I mentioned in a previous talk that the Chinese characters from meditation, Chanya, they're homophobic, homophobic? That was a Freudian slip. Homophonic translation of the Sanskrit word jhana, right? Literally means to bow before the mountains and rivers. So the way the Chinese understood meditation was to sit and bow before the mountains and rivers, which means to return to our own nature, to return to the mountains and waters that we are. So even the emperor would not expect to go into the mountains without first kneeling and bowing. Even the emperor must practice a form of renunciation of role and worldly authority, as well as self. and appear humble in order to be able to properly enter into the spiritual intimacy with the universe. So political and religious power welds no real authority over the mountains, despite what the laws of human governance might think.

[60:12]

The mountains, that is, true reality of all beings, is its own authority and always has the last say. And then finally in 41, Dogan reminds us that we can't view our practice or the mountains or any spiritual way with our conventional limited human views and calculations. We can't measure the reality of all being in this way. And there's no point in falling into comparison using human concepts when encountering the mountains because thusness or suchness is beyond measure. Okay. So thank you very much for your kind patience and attention. I realize that was a lot. And now I think we will go for a walk and actually hear the direct preaching of the mountains and waters themselves surrounding us in the walls beyond the Sazendo.

[61:25]

May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Burhen, say, gandho, boom. Say God.

[62:11]

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