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 evening. My name is Greg Fain. I am the tanto at Tassajara. That means head of practice. I'm very happy to be here. I'd like to begin tonight by thanking and acknowledging my teacher, Sojin Mel Weizmann Roshi, the abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, my home temple. And just to say that my talk is just to encourage you in your practice and share our mutual appreciation for practice. So yeah, I was about to say, tonight I want to talk about my coffee mug.

[01:00]

I think as befits the Tanto, I'm the only person in Tassajara who has a coffee mug with a quote from Dogen on it. Dogen is the founder of our school in Japan. He brought the Soto Zen school from China to Japan in the beginning of the 13th century. I was given this mug by our student here, John Hale. He was John and I did the Great Sky Sesshin at Hokyoji Temple in Southeast Minnesota, Kategori Roshi's Temple, in Southeast Minnesota in 2008, August 2008. That's when I first met John. And he was wearing a Missouri Zen Center T-shirt that I was very taken with. Actually, the T-shirt has the same design as the coffee mug. And I gave him a Zen Center T-shirt, of which I have about 50.

[02:05]

And he said he would send me a Missouri Zen Center T-shirt, which he did. He mailed me a Missouri Zen Center T-shirt, but he sent the T-shirt wrapped around this coffee mug, which I love even better than the T-shirt. And the coffee mug says Missouri Zen Center, and it says sameness. And the quote says, it is sameness for the sea not to refrain from accepting water. And for this reason, water smoothly gathers together to make the sea. I recognize that quote as coming from a Dogen fascicle. Dogen was... very literate man and a prolific writer. Recently, Zen Center celebrated publishing a complete translation of his major life, not the only thing he wrote, but the major life work of his, his Shobo Genzo, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.

[03:21]

This is only volume one. Volume two is even fatter. And I recognize this quote as coming... from one of Dogen's essays called Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance, Bodhisatta Shisho Ho. But I was wrong. Actually, the quote comes from John's teacher, Rosan Yoshida, who is the teacher at Missouri Zen Center, published a translation of Shu Shogi, which is a Soto Zen text, meaning sort of the meaning of practice and verification, which gets chanted a lot in Zen temples in Japan. And actually, Dogen didn't write Shushogi. We studied it as a group, Sojun Roshi's priest group, which usually meets about once a month in Berkeley, back when I was living in the Bay Area.

[04:28]

going to Sojan Roshi's priest group, we were studying shushogi. And that's when I found out that it was actually sort of compiled in 1889, so pretty recently. But it's all Dogen's words. It's like in the priest group, we call it Dogen's greatest hits or Dogen mashup. But a big part of shushogi... This wonderful book, Limitless Life, which is a recent addition to our library, a gift from John. A big part of Shushogi is taken from this Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance. So it's really the Dogen fascicle, the Four Methods of Guidance that I want to talk about. And where does this come from? It's kind of... and obscure teaching.

[05:28]

Actually, I don't want to keep you in suspense much longer, so I'll just tell you. Bodhisattva's four methods of guidance are giving, generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. That's how Kaz translates it. Kaz Tanahashi, who did this translation. So where did that come from? Did Dogen cook that up? No. But was it something that the Buddha said? No. Actually, it's Mahayana teaching, and it's kind of obscure. Where you can find it in other texts is not very many places. It shows up, it's like mentioned, these four methods of guidance. Other translations I could share with you would be the four social teachings, four elements of sociability, four elements of a bodhisattva's social relations, the four social laws, the four methods of winning people, or top tips for bodhisattvas.

[06:47]

Nah, I made up that last one. But that's kind of what it is. It's practical. down-to-earth advice. And it's mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, in chapter 12, the chapter about Devadatta, and the Buddha talks about teachings that his cousin Devadatta gave to him in a former life. And it just says, oh, and those four methods of sociability, or whatever you want to call them. That's it. It's just a mention. And... It also shows up in this text called the Daichido Ran, also known as the, wait for it, Mahaprajnaparamita, I'll try that again, Mahaprajnaparamitopadesa, which is a humongous compendium of commentary on the perfection of wisdom in 25,000 lines.

[07:53]

It's in chapter 66, which has never been translated into a European language. But it's in there. And we know this because Dogen is reputed to have read the entire Buddhist canon by the time he was 17. Some people say twice. So... It's kind of interesting that he seized on this little kind of obscure teaching and expounded on it very beautifully. And may I say that contemporary Dharma teachers never tire of talking about this one Dogen festival. Because, well, for one thing, it's really accessible. It's kind of easy to get to. And it's really good advice. It's really good advice on how to be a bodhisattva. And, um, what?

[08:55]

Yeah. So a lot of contemporary Dharma teachers like to talk about this. Now here's another one. So, oh, another place that shows up is a Dogen fascicle called Ipyakuhachi Homyomon, the 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination. Gate number 94. That's about it. That's where you can find this. So, bodhisattvas are what we are training to be. I said this a lot last summer. This is like, Tassajara is bodhisattva training academy. Bodhisattvas are beings who work tirelessly for the benefit of others.

[09:56]

Bodhisattvas always keep in mind other people's benefit and their salvation. Bodhisattvas are always working to bring beings across to the other shore from suffering to freedom. from delusion to enlightenment. Bodhisattvas think about that all the time. And, you know, it's a nice line of work. It's a nice thing to do. And it's work. So you might need some advice. What do bodhisattvas do? They practice generosity. That's the first teaching. It's the first of the paramitas. The perfections that bodhisattvas practice is generosity. That's the initiatory teaching. I loved when Sojin Roshi was here recently and gave the talk with Steve in the dining room.

[11:01]

And he said about guest season. Oh, guest season? Oh, that's just our generosity. That's it. He just summed it up like that. Guest season? That's just our generosity. That's what we practice. Yeah. traditionally said in Buddhism that in the practice of dhana, in the practice of giving, you can give three things. You can give material goods, you can give teaching, the dharma, and you can give fearlessness. That's what bodhisattvas give. So in this essay, Dogen just takes these four teachings, one by one, and talks about them. And, well, giving material goods is pretty obvious. And when we give material goods, we also get material goods.

[12:04]

We give them for our own benefit, we give them for others' benefit. But we appreciate the emptiness of giving, what we call the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. Ultimately, there's no giver, receiver, or gift. And giving teaching, the Dharma, you know, is kind of the same. Conventionally speaking, I'm sitting here giving a talk. You're sitting there listening, but we're actually giving each other the teaching. When I do practice discussion, you know, I'm listening, and the student's listening, and And we're actually guiding each other. So it's this back and forth, this mutual giving and receiving, the activity of generosity. And the fearlessness, actually bodhisattvas give four kinds of fearlessness.

[13:08]

It's another list. It's also mentioned in the Lotus Sutra in that same chapter, one of the teachings the Buddha received. I looked it up. There's fearlessness arising from the awareness of something omnipresent in the world, fearlessness arising from perfection of character, fearlessness arising from overcoming opposition, being free from the dualistic world while in the midst of it, and fearlessness arising from the ending of suffering. So Bodhisattvas work on that. Work on being present for people. Work on being an inspiration. Work on being someone that, okay, I think it's okay to be with this person, to trust this person. Yeah, I think it'll be okay to inspire that in other people. Dogen plays with this idea. He plays with the emptiness of the three wheels.

[14:11]

And he says things like, you know, to offer flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathagata is generosity. He says, when treasure is left just as treasure, treasure becomes giving. And later on, in a similar vein, he says, to leave flowers to the wind, to leave birds to the season, are also acts of giving. And when I read this, I naturally think of the wilderness where we live. So may I offer you the Ventana Wilderness? I'd like to give you this perfect, untouched wilderness. I want to give that to you tonight as an offering because it's a treasure. And I'm giving it to you by leaving it just as treasure. When treasure is left just as treasure,

[15:13]

treasure becomes giving. So please accept my offering. It's for you. I'm giving you the wilderness. We are giving the wilderness to each other. We're giving the wilderness to the wilderness by leaving it alone. He also says giving to yourself is giving. Know that to give to yourself is a part of giving. When you practice generosity, you are giving to yourself. You're giving yourself freedom and release. By knowing the emptiness of the three wheels, you can kind of loosen up on the sort of ideas that constrict you. We talk about giving each other space. I think we better give them some space.

[16:18]

What's that? What does that mean, to give someone some space? But we understand that. Yeah, I need to give them some space. And in the fall practice period, when Tenshin Roshi was here teaching, he talked about offering each other boundaries as a gift. I'd like to offer you this boundary. In order to be more intimate with you, I'd like to give you this boundary. Let's have this boundary with us. So these are some ideas that came up with me, thinking about the practice of giving. Kind speech. This is my constant practice.

[17:20]

What comes up for me today is the quip, the snide comment, the wisecracks and witticisms made at other people's expense. I don't want to do that. I don't want to use that kind of speech. I mean, there's all kinds of speech that's unkind speech, but that's what was coming up for me today. So, thank you for listening to my confession. And confession is actually what you can do when you're not practicing kind speech. Thank goodness. We can confess. We can say, you know, what I said just then? I regret that. The way words can leave the mouth, you can't put them back in. You can't. You can't unsay them, but you can confess. You can't say to your friend, you know, that was messed up, and I regret it, and I'm sorry, and here's why I won't say it again.

[18:32]

And not only that, another way you can practice kind speech is to ask for feedback. Ask people. There are many ways you can do this. Sometimes I ask people, are you mad at me? It's a conversation starter. It's kind of an icebreaker. If I suspect there might be some ill will, I might just ask that, are you mad at me? And one time a friend said, well, no. But if I was, I wouldn't have said anything. Yeah. So you can invite that. You can invite that. If you want to know what people are saying about you behind your back, give them a chance to say it to your face. Ask them. What do you think?

[19:34]

Yeah, you might be surprised. People might be just waiting for the chance, waiting for the opportunity. Oh, it's okay. Oh, I can share this. Seems like you're going to be okay with that. Oh, that's great. And this is also, you know, giving the gift of fearlessness, right? But this is going to be okay? Wonderful. Okay, yeah, I do have a couple things to say, actually. And it's helpful. It's helpful. It's helped me a lot. Master Dogen says, he says, if kind speech is offered, little by little, kind speech expands. May it be so. May it be so. Ponder the fact that kind speech is not just praising the merit of others,

[20:38]

It has the power to turn the destiny of the nation. And then beneficial action. Sojourn Roshi's Dharma is just doing one thing completely. Just completely taking care of whatever's in front of you. Do that. When he was here giving the talk in the dining room, he was talking about washing windows, I think. When you're washing a window, you're just washing a window. You're completely taking care of the window. You're not doing anything else. You're actually practicing generosity with the window. You're actually practicing kind speech with the window by just being there for it. Completely doing that. And taking care of that one thing, whatever it is, Whatever's in front of you is taking care of everything.

[21:39]

Your practice is for others. When you do one thing completely, you're doing it for its own sake, and it's benefiting self and others. Beneficial action means to help people. Thus, benefit friend and enemy equally. benefits self and others alike. If you have this heart, even beneficial action for the sake of grass, trees, wind, and water is spontaneous and unremitting. And now it's time for a Suzuki Roshi breakdown. This is something Suzuki Roshi said January 4th, 1970. Each one of us is, should be beautiful flowers.

[22:43]

And each one of us should be Buddha himself who lead people in our practice. So whatever we do, there must be some way of doing it. And we should always think, consider about this point. How we find out the way we should do it at that time... is to think about what will be the way to help people to practice religious way. If you don't forget this point, you will find out how to treat people, how to treat things, how to behave yourself. And that is, at the same time, so-called bodhisattva way. You know, our practice is to help people, underlined by the transcriber. Our practice is to help people. And how to help people is how to practice our way on each moment, and how to live in this world, and how to practice Zazen. Okay, getting back to my coffee mug.

[23:48]

Sameness. That's the fourth one. That's Rosan Yoshida's translation for doji. In Japanese, doji means... Do is same and Ji is thing, matter, or task. In Sanskrit, Samana Artata. It's also been called cooperation, identity of purpose, identification of self with others, non-difference, mutual service, non-opposition, and cooperative function. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it doing the same thing. Nishijima Roshi calls it identity of purpose, sharing the same aim, or colloquially, being in the same boat. And the reason I wanted to talk about this tonight was I thought some of you might have been wondering when we had the community meeting not too long ago towards the end of May,

[24:59]

I don't know if anyone remembers, but towards the end of it, I was in the middle in the fishbowl, and I started talking about my coffee mug and got a little choked up. Does anyone recall that, you know? Well, no. It was kind of subtle. I remember thinking, oh, gee, Tonto, what's he talking about? That's what I'm talking about. Because the question came up in the community meeting, how do we truly engage and embrace difference? That was a topic for conversation. And the conversation kind of went like, well, does that mean we ignore difference? Or we're trying to homogenize practice to make everyone the same? And I think as a community, we understand, no, we're not trying to do that. Dogen says, excuse me, identity action means non-difference.

[26:10]

It is non-difference from self, non-difference from others. For example, in the human world, the Tathagata took the form of a human being. From this, we know that he did the same in other realms. When we know identity action, self and others are one. Okay, well, gee, maybe... That does mean we're trying to homogenize everything and make everything the same. But then he also says action means right form, dignity, correct manner. This means that you cause yourself to be in identity with others after causing others to be in identity with you. However, the relationship of self and others varies limitlessly according to circumstances. And I thought, well... This is kind of like a dining room crew. I've been leading a retreat, co-leading a retreat, a zen and yoga retreat this weekend, having a blast, doing a lot of yoga, and eating meals in the dining room.

[27:16]

So I've been thinking about dining room crew. But it really goes for all our crews. But on the dining room crew, we have various positions, A, B, C, D, E, whatever. And... People who do these positions, they get the little card that says what they're supposed to be doing, and they're all unique. They're different positions. But actually, the whole crew is doing the same thing. When it's dinner, they're all serving dinner. It's like an animal with 18 legs. Ideally. Ideally. People don't say, well, I'm the... see person and says I do this and I'm only taking care of this table over here and I'm not doing anything else no they're functioning together as a crew and doing the same thing but they're not the same people but they're doing the same thing it's also like again I'm doing this yoga class I'm thinking oh yeah

[28:19]

Identity action means firing up the mirror neurons. Mirror neurons, okay, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But as I understand it, they play a part in learning. And our mirror neurons fire with each other to help us learn things. So that, for instance, Anna said in this yoga workshop she was trying things she hadn't tried before. And I'm very familiar with that feeling. When I'm in a class, when I'm in a class with other people, my mind will be saying, no, I can't do that. And then all of a sudden my body goes, whoa, urvadhanarasana, here I go. You know, how'd that happen? It wasn't something I did, actually. It was just the mirror neurons going, oof. So that's how I understand mirror neurons. And I think that's actually what... is a part of identity action, working together, practicing together, body-to-body practice.

[29:29]

It doesn't mean we're trying to be the same people, but we are helping each other. We are in the same boat. Sojum Roshi also said, he used to talk about the early days of Sokoji, when hardly anybody knew how to sit zazen. I mean, there was Suzuki Roshi, and then all of these... Americans, you know, young men and women who were just like, you know, they didn't know how to sit Zazen. And it was hard for this practice to get established because they didn't have this core of people who actually, you know, knew from Zazen. But once there were, once they had like a lot of people, a fair number, sort of a critical mass, then it was easier for new people to come. They could get Zazen. once they sort of got going. Again, this is mirror neurons. This is working together, sharing the same aim.

[30:32]

So how do we truly engage and embrace difference? We practice like a bodhisattva. So that's my answer two or three weeks later. Practice like a bodhisattva. Practice as a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas don't say, I can't practice with this person or that person because they're weird. Or they make me uncomfortable. Or they're doing hard time in prison. Or they used to be in a gang. Or they're a different color. or a different sexual preference, or whatever. Bodhisattvas don't do that. They just don't. No. Wait a minute.

[31:34]

Oh, yeah. It is sameness for the sea not to refrain from accepting water. And for this reason, water smoothly gathers together to make the sea... And Kastanahashi's translation of that same passage is that the ocean does not exclude water is identity action. Water does not exclude the ocean either. This being so, water comes together to form the ocean. So, the ocean does not exclude water. And Buddhism does not exclude people. If Buddhism excluded people, it would not be Buddhism. Buddhism also does not exclude squirrels. But that's a different Dharma talk.

[32:41]

I truly appreciate that Nishijima Roshi talked about Samana Artata, doji, as being in the same boat. Because last summer, I talked about this idea of American independence and self-reliance, paddle your own canoe. And actually, You don't have to paddle your own canoe, because there's only one canoe, and we're all in it together. The entire universe. There's one canoe, and it's the size of the universe. And it's called the S.S. Ekayana. E-K-A-Y-A-N-A. One vehicle. One vehicle. carries suffering beings across. It can't exclude anybody or it wouldn't be the one vehicle.

[33:53]

So it includes people. It includes everything. It includes difference. It accepts, embraces difference because it's the one vehicle. And it's not exactly a canoe either. It's more like a trimaran. Trimorand has got these two things out on either side, right? Pontoon, would you call it? Giant pontoon over here called wisdom, and another one over here called compassion. Even keel. Smooth sailing. All of us in the same boat. And... That's how we truly engage and embrace difference. We don't exclude. So, thanks for listening. Please take good care of yourselves.

[34:58]

Please continue your diligent practice. Good night. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[35:34]

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