Good morning. Good morning. Last night I went to Carmel to lecture. There were about maybe 20 people there, and they sit. Zazen, we say Zazen, and then do Kinhen, and then do a service. It's pretty much the same forms of here. They used to do the Echo, not the Echo, the part that we do, the Echo All Buddhas, slightly different, but since Shogun's been there, they're up to speed with our, so I don't have to get confused anymore. They were doing a previous version of ours. Anyway, it was to hear, to be here, and hear us chant and hear them chant, there's such a feeling for me of continuity.

[01:02]

It's amazing, really, that we're sitting here doing this and there every Tuesday night doing that and then going about their lives, but kind of plugged into the same intention, maybe. So, in a way, that's what I want to talk about this morning. It's very springy out there, you probably noticed. And so before I start, I just want to mention a spring thing. Maybe it's not a spring thing. In China, I want to tell you something about a river in China because it's going to fit into my talk, which is the Wang River. I don't even know which river that is, but supposedly the Wang River, as it goes, as it comes down from the mountains to the ocean, goes through nine bends, nine big curves in the river.

[02:03]

And somewhere in the middle of that is a place called the Dragon Gate, where when fish go up the river, if they make it past that gate, somewhere in the nine bends, they turn into dragons. So says Dogan. and probably many other people. So before I begin, before I read you what I want to talk about this morning from Dogen, I want to once again make my usual disclaimer, which is that I am not a scholar. I'm definitely not a Dogen scholar. However, I am a practitioner in Dogen's way, as you are, and often encouraged, surprisingly sometimes encouraged by what I find in Dogen. So I keep looking at Dogen, and there are parts of Dogen which I would never bring up here, because I would have no idea what he's talking about.

[03:10]

But there are other parts that are very encouraging to me. So this is one of my favorite parts of Dogen. It's from a, it's called Yui Butsu Yoputsu, Only Buddha and Buddha. which is also my favorite fascicle. And maybe once we are done with this three-week intensive that we're doing, which we're not thinking past, I know, but after that, we're all going to go on to other intensives, many different kinds of intensives that we're going to. And the one that we're going to be doing here, I'm debating, talking about this fascicle during that intensive, that five-month intensive. So right now, for this morning, here's this bit of Dogen. There has been a saying since olden times. No one except a fish knows a fish's heart. I talked about fish last time, right? It's not that I'm totally into fish, but for now.

[04:12]

No one except a fish knows a fish's heart. No one except a bird follows a bird's trace. Yet those who understand this principle are rare. To think that no one knows a fish's heart or a bird's trace is mistaken. You should know that fish always know one another's hearts. Unlike people who do not know one another's hearts. But when fish try to go through the dragon gate, they know one another's intention and have the same heart. or they share the heart of breaking through the nine great dens. Those who are not fish hardly know this. Again, when a bird flies in the sky, beasts do not even dream of finding or following their trace. Or, as they do not know that there is such a thing, they cannot even imagine this. However, a bird can see traces of hundreds and thousands of small birds having passed in flocks.

[05:20]

or traces of many lines of large birds having flown south or north. Those traces may be even more evident than the carriage tracks left on a road, or hoof prints of a horse in the grass. In this way, a bird sees a bird's trace. Buddhas are like this. You may wonder how many lifetimes Buddhas have been practicing. Buddhas, large and small, although they are countless, all know their own traces. You never know a Buddhist trace when you are not a Buddha. You may wonder why you do not know. The reason is that while Buddhists see these traces with a Buddha's eye, those who are not Buddhists do not have a Buddha's eye and just notice the Buddha's attributes. All who do not know should search out all who do not know that might be us, should search out the traces of the Buddha's path.

[06:27]

If you find footprints, you should investigate them, whether they are the Buddha's footprints or not. On being investigated, the Buddha's traces are known, and whether it is long or short, shallow or deep, is also known. To illuminate your trace, is accomplished by studying the Buddha's trace. Accomplishing this is the Buddha Dharma. So, one of the reasons that this is one of my favorite ones is it's so outrageous. How does Dogen know what birds see? You know, but he talks as if he does. And it kind of makes sense, right? I mean, I can believe it. Birds actually see where birds have flown and We don't. Certainly that part's right. Or for me, that's right anyway. But maybe birds do. Anyway, leaving that aside, one thing he's definitely, in my experience, correct about is people don't know one another's hearts.

[07:36]

People, we think we know one another's hearts. We see someone acting in whatever way and we think we know what they're feeling. We think We know why they're doing that. But everything we think pretty much has to do with us. We think they're acting that way because they don't like me, or they do like me, or they're trying to make me upset, or they're trying to support me. So we go around with this non-Buddha's eye, viewing the world, viewing its attributes all in response to me and what I perceive as my well-being. But the fish, the fish swim up the Wang River, knowing each other's hearts. You know, I'm from Idaho, where the salmon come all the way.

[08:40]

I don't know if any of you even know where Idaho is, but it's north of here. It's not Iowa. It's not in the Midwest. It's west of Wyoming, but it's east of Washington and Oregon, where the fish come from, come up the Columbia River, and then into the Snake River, and then up the Salmon River. And it's amazing. It's totally amazing. The salmon come up. If you're standing near the Salmon River, when they come up, you could walk across the Salmon River because they're just so thick. The fish going upstream. And in fact, here at Tassajara, we have sometimes seen steelhead. Have you ever seen steelhead? I've been here where people have seen them bit. Steelhead salmon going up, or steelhead trout, I don't know which they are, but they go up Tassajara Creek. I think at this time of year, but when Keith comes in, I'll ask him, he's seen them. And actually a few years ago, we saw something much smaller, some kind of trout.

[09:45]

going up Kabarka Creek. So that would, were some of you here then? Did you see them? Yes. You know, those big rocks right under the bridge. When we stood at the creek side of the bridge, these fish were just like so determined jumping up the creek, you know, up those big rocks right there for days. They were about this big, I think. Anyway, it's an amazing sight. really, the determination, the intention to go upstream, to go back, you know, to lay their eggs. I mean, that's what the sealhead are doing. I guess that's what these fish were doing, too, and they were much smaller. Anyway, so I can believe that, in fact, the fish know each other's heart because they're very similar. Now, they're doing what fish do. They're going upstream. They're going home. They're going, and they... They are surrounded by their buddies who are doing the same thing, much as we are here at Pasa Hara and all the way out to Carmel, all the way up to Boise, Idaho, where I just was.

[10:56]

So let's get off to the part about us. Buddhas are like this. You may wonder how many lifetimes Buddhas have been practicing. Buddhas, large and small, although they are countless, all know their own traces. You never know a Buddha's trace when you are not a Buddha. So I haven't so much wondered about how many lifetimes some Buddha has been practicing, maybe you have, but I have wondered, maybe not always in these words, but sort of, could that Or could this situation actually be at all related to Buddha? You know, is this a Buddha land? Is this, you know, is that person, are they a mistake? Did they somehow get into my Buddha land? You know, they came from some other hell realm somewhere when I'm being pulled into this now?

[12:04]

So, you know, this, the last sentence, and this paragraph says... You never know... Let's read it again. You never know Buddha's trace when you are not a Buddha. Or maybe a more positive way of saying this, I mean, I've heard it said that if you can know whether you're enlightened by whether you see everyone as Buddha, that Buddha actually saw everyone as Buddha when he was enlightened, he said, I'm enlightened with everyone. I'm enlightened with everything. That's how we actually saw it. So we could gauge our own insight based on what do we see around us? Do we see ourselves surrounded by Buddhas? Often not, right? Often it's pretty hard to see. What is that person? They don't look so good to me. They don't look like they're trying really hard. They look like they're full of self-clinging.

[13:10]

And yet, to see things with the Buddha eye, what is that? What is this Buddha eye that Buddha sees things with? So I think it's the seeing how things are working together, seeing the heart of this person. What is this person's heart? And how would we see this person's heart? If humans are more complicated than fish, and we're not just all, maybe we are, maybe without knowing it, we're actually just swimming upstream, you know, and we're all doing that. But exactly what is that? How does that translate into something that we might understand about another's heart? So, it goes on to say, excuse me. You may wonder why you do not know. The reason is that while Buddhists see these traces with a Buddha's eye, those who are not Buddhists do not have a Buddha's eye and just notice the Buddha's attributes.

[14:17]

All who do not know should search out the traces of the Buddha's path. If you find footprints, you should investigate whether they are the Buddha's. On being investigated, a Buddha's path is known. A Buddha's trace is known. To me, this is like the hopeful part of this whole passage. Those of us who don't know, who can't, you know, looking around, we're not seeing Buddhas, we're seeing something else. We're seeing a lot of complexity and confusion and, you know, maybe some danger. Those of us who don't know should search out a Buddha's footprint. search out a Buddhist footprint, and the hopeful part is that when, and then investigate and see, is it a Buddha? Or search out a footprint, and then investigate and see, is it a Buddhist footprint?

[15:19]

And then the hopeful part is, if it's a Buddhist footprint, you can actually know it. It can be recognized. It can be seen. So, what is a footprint? How would we know a footprint if we saw one? If we really, you know, if we want to know, Really? Buddha said he was in line with everybody. That means all these people around here, even more surprising, that means me. That means Buddha was saying, I'm a Buddha. Whatever that means, it certainly would mean somehow I'm okay. As I am, I fit in. I'm part of the Buddha realm. So how do I look for whether that's true or not? How do I find these footprints that are recognizable? So I would suggest maybe a footprint is anything that sticks around.

[16:28]

It's like in your life, in your heart, if there's something that, you know, there's a whole lot of our day and you don't even notice. Right now, we're breathing air. We don't really think about that very much because there it is. If it started to go away, we'd notice it really quickly. But right now, we're fine with our air. But there might be some other things that keep sort of arising in your heart or in your memory or in your mind that are bothering you. They're like, here they are. They might be pleasant things. Sometimes pleasant things arise. Often they're not so pleasant, things that are worrying us in some way. I would suggest that we treat those as footprints. We have this question about them.

[17:30]

Are they the Buddha's footprints? What is this doing here? You know, what is this event? in my life, in my mind, in my body sometimes. What is it? And to have it be a real question. You know, often our feeling about it, especially if it's not so pleasant, is it's a mistake. It's somehow it's gotten in here, into my mind, and it should get out somehow. Stop thinking this. Stop having this feeling. Stop having this memory. So instead, I suggest that Dogen is suggesting, together we're suggesting that you take that experience and have a more questioning attitude toward it. What is this? And then be careful, because when we question, we tend to leap right to our brain.

[18:36]

ask our question with our brain, try to figure out the answer with our brain. You know, we really sort of limit our questioning capacity. We give it all to, you know, that one that we've been trusting to run our life, our brain, the one we think is me. And we say, is this a good thing or is this a bad thing? Figure it out. How would you work with it? What should you do with it? So be careful. That's not, I think, That's not what I'm suggesting. I don't think it's what Dogen is suggesting. Instead, to hold it, you know, like you're sitting zazen, like you're walking zazen. If something arises that you recognize as a footprint, as something that's there for you, even if it hasn't stayed around for a while, if it's the first time, but it has a certain amount of... energy, charge maybe, to really have a question about it.

[19:46]

What is this? And then to slow down, stay close, and let it unfold. Let it move at its own pace. Keep your eye on it. Sort of, you know, Sesshin is great training for this kind of thing. because we sit down in Sashin and after some amount of time, a few minutes or a few days, various parts of us start to speak kind of loudly, right? Like, I heard, I heard. So for a while we move. We move and we try to relax. We know it's tension, so we try to relax. But after a few days, usually that doesn't really work anymore. And then we're left with facing this part of ourself that is, maybe some of you don't have pain in Sashim, I'm so sorry for you. Really, I'm very jealous.

[20:47]

But you're missing this great opportunity of just staying close to that difficulty and seeing what happens with it. And some of the things that we notice are, usually, there's a layer of it that is just resistance It's just, I hate this. I don't want to be having this experience. I can't stand it. It comes in various intensities. I hate everybody because I hate this. So there's a layer that's just resistance, and sometimes that layer can go away by getting closer to the experience. Just being there with the pain in our back, in our knee, in our head, If that layer goes away, it's very different. It's very different. There's a whole layer of pain that's not there anymore.

[21:50]

This works the same in our life. It's something we're worrying about. If we can stop believing that it shouldn't be there and just approach it with an open heart, it's not as painful. It may still be painful. It may still be pain. So in seshing, then sometimes one of the next things that happens is that if that layer goes away, then we notice, oh, this is still pain. The pain isn't what I thought it was. Pain might be a kind of pulsing. It might be that we decide it's time to move. I'm not saying we should never move, but we can come to that from closer to the experience. then from some idea of, I shouldn't have to feel this way. And then sometimes it actually shifts. You know, the pulsing actually moves. Sometimes it loosens up in some way that we had no idea it could do.

[22:56]

How did that happen? I was trying to relax it, but I couldn't, but now it's relaxed. Sometimes it actually goes away. A lot of the time it doesn't go away, it just is there. at a pace that we can stay with. And if it's an emotional pain, it's usually almost always been there for a long time, given our age. All of us, even the youngest of us, we've had time to go through a lot of emotional pain and plant it. Not meaning to, but it gets planted. in our body somewhere. So under stress, that pain gets activated again. Something in our life says this is very similar to what happened back then, and that pain comes forth again. If we do this same movement with it, we try to be close to it, find it.

[23:57]

First of all, find it. Find it in our body, not just the story about it in our head, but find it and then stay close to it. And see, if the resistance is gone, can I see the movement of it? And if it seems like there isn't any movement, fine. Just stay there and look more closely. Then if it loosens some, again, it may go away. You may never feel it again. More likely, you will feel it again, but there will be this knowledge, this body knowledge that I won't die if I feel this. That's kind of our response. If we haven't done this process, we actually feel like I have got to never feel this again. I managed to survive it the first time, and now actually all my life energy is devoted to do not have this feeling again. So we get a little whiff of it, and then we do something that takes us away from it, if at all possible.

[25:00]

So if we actually stay through it, there's a whole different attitude. Okay, this may not be pleasant, but I can stay there with it. I can live through this. I'm not three years old anymore, however old we were when we first absorbed that energy. So, searching out a footprint. If we see a footprint, investigate it. We see something that looks like it exists. It looks like it's in our life. Investigate it. See. What is it? What is it? Does it? And is it a Buddha's footprint? Meaning, to me, meaning, is there any way that this could be beneficial? That this fits into the world?

[26:01]

fits into the whole dependent core arising. Is there any way to have actually that open-hearted question as we look at this footprint? To illuminate your trace is accomplished by studying the Buddha's trace. In another place in this fascicle, it says, Something like all, it says all beings, I'm not sure about that, all people, I can't remember the way he says it, but basically wish with all their heart to know, to know their trace, to know their life. Each of us wants to know, what is my life?

[27:04]

What am I doing here? Does it work? Is it okay for me to be here? Do I belong? Is there something I'm supposed to be doing? What's going on? Why am I here? This kind of longing to feel, I mean, there are many ways to put it, to feel well used, to feel safe, to feel like I belong, to feel that everyone wonders that. And this is encouraging us to look at the things that we see, the things that we feel, and actually have that question, have that question be more conscious and leave some space for the answer to appear not where we normally look for it, not in our thoughts, not in figuring out what am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to be, who am I supposed to be, but to not the... Our thoughts won't participate in it.

[28:06]

You know, we have wonderful brains and we don't want to get rid of them. They should participate. It's just that we've encouraged them to take over the whole show and feel responsible for everything. So just take a little break and open our hearts to a wider, dependently co-arisen universe. And look at this. See, we will, according to Dogen, If we can see these Buddhist footprints, then we will know what our place in the universe is. I'll stop there and see if you have anything you'd like to say or ask. to see who is Patrick's, who is Trace, like the crash I got was pretty different.

[29:16]

It made me think that Dogen was saying, kind of, who is for her people to see this, this person giving this dark talk and wow, how wise, full of community, all these great things that looks good. sounds good. I don't want to be like that, but, you know, but, but how did that happen? Where, where is this person coming from? You know, so I guess the, the question that I got from that, that I didn't question, that seemed like, seemed pretty clear was, it's like, don't necessarily just, you know, don't, don't just, but yeah, no, that's what I think. That's what I, I mean, I don't know what he was really saying, but you and I agree that we look and we, we see what we see, right?

[30:25]

Somebody could look at somebody giving a Dharma talk, you know, very nice. Okay. So thank you community saying, wow, that looks great. Somebody else could look like what, What do you, what does she think she's doing up there? How could she be, you know, blah, blah, blah, many things, you know. That's how we normally look at the world. That's how we see it. We see, oh, I want to be like that. Oh, I don't want to be like that. Do I want to be like this? Maybe this is not the place for me. Maybe I should leave because they let people like her sit up there and give Dharma talks. You know, we've, We've had those thoughts. I've had those thoughts. And then what would it be to see the traces rather than the attributes? I think, like you said, it's like having some feeling for the complexity of a person. How does one do that?

[31:26]

What does one do with one's fear if one's going to give a Dharma talk? Not to necessarily think that, but to actually know it. Like, this is a person like me. When... You know, I think this has been a really helpful thing for me over my years at Zen Center. For some reason, I have... It's been pretty easy for me to see our Addison teachers as humans. So both when they do... stupid things, and when they do brilliant things, it's, you know, for some reason, so when, you know, when Richard Baker did his stupid things, I, I felt like he was just a person doing these, you know, I wasn't really, like, devastated, even though he was my teacher, and I totally appreciated him, you know, so, uh, when, it's not that, I mean, I do have projections on our abbots when, um,

[32:33]

when Mel joined Reb as an abbot at Zen Center. It was a while when Reb was just the abbot, and then Mel joined him. I had this dream of... They were sitting on a piano bench playing, and I went up and sat on the piano bench with them. A little egotistical dream, right? Anyway, I don't know if that means anything to you, but to me it meant... They were people that I could... join in some way. And that they were, this wasn't in the dream, but in my feeling is they're going to make mistakes and they actually need my help. You know, I think we can look at our teachers like that, like these are people and they actually need my help. You know, they need my help in so many ways. They need my help in noticing when they go off. They need my help in appreciating them when they're, you know, working, trying hard. They need my help in loving all these other people around.

[33:34]

So, yeah, I think something like that are the traces, like we have some knowing, you know, knowing each other's hearts. Pardon? Yeah, well, you know, one way of describing it is they actually see the, they see the dependable rising. They don't just see it from their... Well, Suzuki Roshi said, big mind is just knowing that you actually have small mind. It's like knowing that I experienced the world from here. But that isn't how the world is. The world is... So if you know I experienced it from here, that means you know that it isn't like this. Otherwise, you think it is like this. But, you know, you all came here to hear me.

[34:35]

Right? No, do they like me or don't do it? Oh, my goodness. So, anyway, so that's one way of describing the difference. Sarah. Sarah. I just don't want to be manipulated by you or anyone else. That's my experience. That you have a footprint that says that. Yes. the inside is don't let yourself be manipulated don't manipulate and yes they go together very well don't they don't manipulate and don't be manipulated yeah yeah and you know we are so when we're seeing attributes when we're seeing them as separate human beings we're pretty manipulated because

[36:07]

We have our imagination of our benefit. My well-being is way uppermost. You know, it's kind of on high alert. Even if it seems calm, it's kind of there on high alert because all of our protection mechanisms are in place. And red lights are just going off, you know, all the time. Like, oh, this is a good thing. Oh, that's a bad thing. But if we have this wider... vision, things happen, this body-mind experiences it, has a response, and then we play our part in this wider picture. And it's not really, it's, you know, it's not being manipulated, it's not being, it's not not responding. You know, we are responsive. we want to be, we are a responsive animal.

[37:11]

So that might feel manipulated because somebody does something and our senses, our body, our mind responds to that. Yeah, it's allowing what's happening and it's allowing the response. And I think often the response is the hardest thing for us. You know, our we have some response and it can be contraction. That's the one that I think it works the best for us to like make some space for the response. I couldn't quite hear you. Making room and then you see what it is that fills up that room. Yes. Thank you. Yes, Cormac.

[38:13]

In my never sort of attends to my pain, I found that I can be very sneaky in that I can oftentimes without really realizing it, be attending my pains like get rid of shit. Yeah. Yes, yes. I still got that motivation there. Yes. It seems that Well, does it work? No. So there you go. Well, just keep doing it and it will hurt and you will, you know, want to... Isn't there some way... And you might keep saying, oh, I'm not meditating hard enough because maybe it did work sometime that actually the pain went away. So now you think the way to get rid of this pain is to really meditate hard. Yeah. Well, you just do that and, you know...

[39:16]

That's the good thing about the world. It keeps giving us feedback. We call it feedback. It keeps having an effect on us so we can keep trying to meet it. Just try to meet it. And then when you see that sneaky part of you that's really trying to get rid of the pain, how do you be open-hearted to that part? Can you get closer to that part in a way that's open-hearted? Julie. So when pain comes up, it seems that awareness becomes very sharp and very luminous. It's almost easy to observe pain. But when there's no pain, awareness seems to be dull. Yes. Or there's a great amount of black city patterns.

[40:19]

you're aware of hate to the point where maybe you remove a layer of that hate, how are you aware of complacency? Yeah. Well, you should take what I say with a grain of salt because I think that probably is the realm that I'm most, you know, like my favorite of greed, hate, and delusion is definitely delusion. So much more comfortable than greed or hate. Uh, so however, having worked with this for some time. For one thing, I think a place like Tassajara, and there are other places, you know, or any place where the place is intense. Tassajara is not totally intense, but it has, I mean, you know, like you could go to a war zone or something, and then you probably wouldn't be complacent, right? So Tassajara is not quite like that, but it is a place where you are encouraged to, like, take care of detail after detail after detail. And I think that's okay because it's not really complacent.

[41:22]

You're actually taking care of things. And if you don't have immediate pain, you will have pain. You have a body. You have mind. It's the nature of humans to have pain at some point. Almost certainly you will have pain. And if you don't now or maybe even if you don't ever, there's plenty of pain around you. So those of us who don't have so much pain currently can actually open up to other pain. And that's tricky. You know, it's not like going out and searching for somebody and, you know, can I help you? But they come to you. You know, they need your help and you need to have a vicious heart. You know, you need to not just believe what they're saying, but actually be there in an upright way for what's happening. and learn how to not be complacent in that situation because there is pain there to get close to.

[42:27]

I don't believe that you get close to their pain, but you will have a response. So to stay close to your response to their pain is not complacent. Yes. [...] That is investigating it. It's still not like where you're investigating it.

[43:30]

We're still not seeking it. Yeah. Yeah. What you're bringing up is really subtle. It can be really subtle. It's not always subtle. It can be. I think one way of saying is there self-clinging? You know, like we're because we have senses. Because we have eyes, ears, nose, in a way where you could say we're always seeking. We're just like, you know, we're this bundle of receptivity in a way, and the world is surrounding us and moving, and so, like you say, things come to us. And then how do we investigate it? Same question. You know, is there extra? I think one way, you know, this, as I understand, Soto Xanas is practiced here, kind of narrow band. It's really a body practice, which doesn't mean that your thoughts and emotions aren't included in it.

[44:33]

They're very much included in it, but the body's kind of like a gate. And self-clinging or seeking with grasping or aversion, any of them actually appear in the body as tightening. So that's one way to, you know, if you're in a subtle mode, if you're in a gross mode, you know, and you're just totally into aversion, then, you know, you don't have to go looking for this. But if it's, I mean, then you have to be careful and stay close to it, right? But if it's more subtle and you actually are not sure, am I just being responsive or am I looking, am I grasping for it? Then I would say look for tightening. somewhere, anywhere in your body and use that as a guide. Is what?

[45:38]

Non-seeking, but with awareness is investigating. There's still, yes. I mean, there's not always seeing, you know, we don't see everything. That's not, we don't have to see everything, we can't see everything, but not turning away. All right. Thank you very much.

[46:17]

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