Good morning, everyone. Is this working? It is. Okay. Thank you very much. So welcome to our, um, what is this? Class number four. Um, And what I wanted to do today is continue. We have a little bit more of paragraph four to finish. And then I want us to walk through together paragraphs five through nine with the intention of during Sushin to finish the mountain section of the sutra and begin to move on to the water section. So we'll be... The water section, as I said before, will probably go a little bit faster.

[01:02]

Mountains have a tendency to be very slow in their walking, and water has a tendency to be much quicker. So we'll probably see that change of pace as we move on to the water section. And we had some volunteers who offered last time to recite a passage or two from the sutra, and they were Hakusho and Kani, And Emio, who I think is not feeling well still. So maybe if Connie and Hakusho would like to, you guys remember that? Yeah? Okay. A stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. This means that the time when a stone woman gives birth to a child is the night. There are male stones, female stones, and stones that are neither male nor female.

[02:03]

They repair heaven. They repair the earth. There are stones of heaven. There are stones of earth. Though this is said in the secular world, it is rarely understood. We should understand that the reason behind this, giving birth to a child, during the time of birth are parent and child transformed together. We should not only study that the realization of birth occurs when the child becomes the parent, we should also study and fully understand that the practice and verification of birth is realized when the parent becomes the child.

[03:05]

All right. It's a favorite paragraph. The stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. This means that the time in the stone woman gives birth to a child is the night. There are male stones and female stones, and stones need a male or female. They repair heaven and they repair earth. There are stones of heaven and there are stones of earth. Though this is said in the secular world, it is rarely understood. We should understand the reason behind this giving birth to a child. At the time of birth, our parent and child transport together, we should not only study that birth is realized when the child becomes a parent, we should also study and fully understand that the practice and verification of birth is realized when the therapy becomes a child.

[04:06]

Thank you. So we'll be walking through that particular paragraph during Sushin. I'll say a little bit more about it. But what comes to me immediately is this idea of the question, what are you giving birth to right now? In this very moment, what is it you're giving birth to? And what is it that is giving birth to you right here and right now? And how are you experiencing that birthing? How are you experiencing that birthing either of your own giving birth to something? What is that thing you're giving birth to? And how are you experiencing being born in this moment? And what is the experience of being born in this moment? Brother David, gave a talk once in which he said the word for anxiety has its roots in a Latin word, and this is where I can't remember that word, something like engecia or something like that.

[05:08]

I have to look at the exact Latin word. But the Latin word itself means to narrow, narrowing. And it points to the narrowing of the birth canal. How it is that when we are born, we are squeezed through this narrow point into the world, to the other sides. And that's stressful and anxiety-provoking. We feel the narrowing, the contraction. But that contraction is what gives us birth. It's what gives us life. So this suffering that we experience, whatever that suffering is, it's usually a sense of contraction, right? some sense of narrowing and contraction. So what is that suffering giving birth to? What is the opening in which it is inviting you into? And are you holding on? Are you fixing and staying stuck in the birth canal because you're afraid to be born? So what does that experience? So when I read these passages, I think of that.

[06:12]

You know, there's questions in that experience where being born and the contraction we experience in becoming human, being human, is actually a liberation into fully something more full. What is that fullness? It helps us to relate differently to our suffering in some way. So thank you very much for sharing in that. And I had asked, as part of your homework, to look at this phrase, the mountains are walking. What does it mean, mountains are constantly walking? How do you understand that particular phrase? And what are we saying here? What are we talking about? And how does mountains walking manifest in your own life? How do you experience that? So I asked you to kind of turn that over and consider that. And I'd like to take a few moments for you to talk amongst yourselves, to kind of share what it is that you came up with in turning of that particular phrase.

[07:21]

How are you understanding that? Because this is a core point in this sutra, mountains are walking. What are we talking about? What is Dogen trying to point to in this phrase? It's kind of the heart, particularly, of the first part of the sutra. So to understand that helps us to get a better sense of this overall movement that Dogen is trying to support us through in some way. So I'd like you to get into groups of three and take a few moments. I think two minutes, two or three minutes each person would be adequate just to share your thoughts on that. And I'll ring the bell, and then we'll go from there. So if I can find the bell. Is the bell over there? So why don't you find a partner, get together in groups of three? Thank you very much.

[08:21]

Who needs help finding a partner? And please identify the first person to speak. Gladys, do you need a partner? Can we have two groups of two, maybe? Oh, you found? OK. So please identify who's going to go first. OK. Have you identified that person? So now, please go. Thank you.

[10:18]

Yeah, there's so many of us in the world. There's [...] so many of us in the world. Susie said, . I'd like to show you . So it's . So . So moving on to the second person when you finish the first

[11:44]

... [...] Thank you. We take this . [...]

[13:06]

So, what is it that we've created the assassination of a white woman that is telling us you don't have to show you? And what is it that's important to you that is? The way up to the middle of television [...] Well, I just said no, sir. They eat the whole clothes. They walk themselves. Just like the food. [...]

[14:08]

Just like the food. Just like the food. Yeah. And then moving on to the third person. And those who are in dyads can just continue your mutual conversation. It's not true.

[15:33]

It's not true. It's not true. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[16:51]

And wrapping up. Please thank your partners. And then let's come back together. And let's hear what are some of the things that you came up with in terms of understanding or reflecting or how you have turned this particular phrase, the blue mountains walking. Anyone? Rihanna. I was really exhausted, so I wondered if maybe I was hallucinating.

[18:24]

But Mark, you could back me up, right? You saw the rock. Rock. It walked on. So just walking the road recently, coming across a rock that had been run over, I assume, or some treasure had happened where it was split. And it was sitting there, both pieces. You could visibly see that it had been one piece, and now it was two. And whatever caused it to just have that bleeding, that's the mountain's walking.

[19:31]

It's potential, and it's changed, and it's constant. And that splitting gave birth to two rocks. And they are each complete in their moments, in their Dharma position. The mountain of the rock. There you go. Anyone else? What did you come up with? Catherine? that I think children experience where you might be with many, many people, but then all of a sudden there's this deep connection to the grass under your feet and the way that this guy meets the trees and you can understand profoundly in your body the vastness and unity and life in everything.

[20:39]

And then the kind of part of that mystery is that Not everyone is experiencing that at the same time. And so when it ends as it does, there can be this feeling of that abrupt disjunction. And growing up in a culture where there was, in my religious tradition, no connection to that, no way to talk about it, yet you know that that's what it is. There's something. It wasn't God. It wasn't, you know, in the way that I had learned it. No space at all for any language or understanding or direction and guidance with regard to living as that. And so for me, the mountains are walking is the expression of that.

[21:43]

You know, people... can express that in their life. And I'm attracted to that. And that it matters to me that the mountains are plural. And that it's the sutra of the old Buddha is being embodied as expression in us. Yeah, and I've said that for our culture and our world, that those experiences of children are so covered over, you know, as we're growing up or by our culture when children are having them, like to meet that and nurture it as something that can be expressed in the daily activity of old buddhas. Yeah. In other cultures, it's called magic sometimes.

[22:44]

We've lost our capacity to see the magic of the world, right? Yeah, because it's been conditioned out of us. You have to see things rational, right? Just like this, rather than seeing this dynamic, alive quality that has its own mystery to it, right? Yeah, thank you. Anyone else? Peter? and that we're constantly cycling through and these mountains are constantly walking and being cycled through and maybe making a mountain out of a heap. How do we inflate mountains and make things seem more mountainous than they really are.

[23:52]

So yeah, it's just a little thought that, you know, in all those, in all the five skandas that, you know, creates this mountain. This mountain is walking, he's not. So yeah, there's just this constant swirl. The heaping on top of heaping, on top of heaping. And how much of the heaping is the world unfolding in its own way and how much of it is our perception that heaping on, imputation onto reality. you know, in some way. It's not separate. That art extra heaping onto it is not separate from reality, but it keeps us from actually relating to things as they are, you know, and then we fall off the mountain, obviously, into the chasm of separation.

[25:00]

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Gladys. It's not moving. It's just like my body. It's not moving . It's constantly changing according to all this energy. And part of that energy is to surround the air. I am part of all that energy. So that is why . Thank you. One last sharing?

[26:01]

Well, one aspect of walking is you take forward steps. You only have a forward foot and a backward foot, but the act of walking does not put one as being more important or separate in that action. So maybe it's a metaphor for non-duality. And you walk everywhere, mountains, He being Dogen? Yeah, Dogen. Maybe because he walked everywhere, it was easier for him to apply this metaphor of walking to everything. It was a very essential non-dual activity. So there could be a metaphor for everything that's essentially non-dual. What a loss for, I think, many of us in our current culture when we don't walk as much, you know, we drive everywhere.

[27:07]

So our connection to this process of our physical moving through, connecting to the earth, you know, We don't go on pilgrimage so much these days. It's basically, can I get to the corner store? Can I get to the bus? Can I, you know, or drive somewhere? So that connection to this being at one with, this non-duality with our environment, you know, we're often trying to not be at one with our environment, you know, in some way, you know, and a lot of our structures of society create this not-at-one-with-ness that further perpetuates a sense of division within ourselves. You know, so I find when I come here to Tal Sahara after, you know, even crossing a city center, you know, just crossing the street from one city center building to the next, you know, dashing across the street for my life, you know, as the bikes are coming down the hill and the road, you know, the cars are coming down the road and I'm just like dodging the rocks. coming down the hill, targeting me in some way.

[28:08]

It's such a joy to just be here and be able to walk through the valley. There's something that my whole being feels like it's being cleansed. Whatever kind of agitation I had sitting in my cabin in some conversation I just had on the phone or something like that, then I'm able to walk through here and the sound of the creek and the breeze and the mountains sitting upright and steadfast help me to let go of whatever it is that I've been kind of holding on to, kind of slowly, kind of dissolving that quality and saying, I don't have to bear this in the same way as an isolated being. I can give it to the earth to hold as well. So our dependency on this wider sphere that we experience when we walk through the mountains, I think is healing, the deeply healing quality to it. Well, thank you, everyone. I appreciate you taking up this exercise and continuing this exploration of the fascicle and what Dogen might be trying to point us to.

[29:13]

I'd like to briefly go through the rest of paragraph four, and then we're going to move together in a different way through paragraphs five through nine. So if you bear with me, could someone read paragraph four? Any volunteers reading paragraph four? Ko? So, Tanahashi, because green mountains walk, they are permanent. Although they walk more swiftly than the wind, someone in the mountains does not realize or understand it. In the mountains means the blossoming of the entire world. People outside the mountains do not realize or understand the mountains walking. Those without eyes to see the mountains cannot realize, understand, see, or hear this as it is.

[30:19]

If you doubt mountains walking, you do not know your own walking. It is not that you do not walk, but that you do not know or understand your own walking. Since you do know your own walking, you should fully know the Green Mountains walking. Thank you. I'm just curious, of the three translations, do you all have a particular preference for one or the other? Do you find one speaks to you more, captures a particular flavor that resonates for you? Anyone? You like BFL? Yeah, why? Language just seems more concise. Anyone else, a preference, one you resonate more with? Is it one you really don't like? I really like the Tanahashi for the same reasons that she likes to be.

[31:23]

Tanahashi has a tendency to be more poetic. And so some people... aren't so comfortable with the kind of poetic license he takes sometimes with his translations. And other times people really resonate with it because they actually feel it's more accessible and it captures a quality that isn't stilted by trying to adhere directly to the exact word-for-word translation. So that's why it's always beneficial to read multiple translations to see where do you land, which one brings forward that particular quality. Okay, so this paragraph, again, we got halfway through it, and we're talking about Fuyo Kokai's statement, which points to the constancy of impermanence. So blue mountains are constantly walking. Another way, again, to frame that is the only thing that's permanent is impermanence itself.

[32:26]

We also explore that the phrase, those in the mountains... is really pointing to us. We are the ones in the mountains. And because we're totally immersed in the mountains, or another way of defining the mountains is the interdependent co-arisen nature of reality or the reality of all existence. As people in the mountains, Dogen is saying, we should love the mountains. We should love this reality. We should be intimate with it. We should really know it and open to it and have this very close relationship and warmth to the sense of reality because it is our life. And so love here being a recognition and appreciation of our unfathomable intimacy and our lives together. Though the mountains are walking swifter than the wind... which means basically very fast, and that phrase comes from the Lotus Sutra. Yet those in the mountains, being us, do not sense the speed of the mountains walking.

[33:32]

We don't sense, really sense, understand the speed of impermanence, how everything is changing. And... And because we're immersed in this mountain of interdependently arisen existence, which is constantly changing, we actually have trouble gauging this. So there's no way that we can gauge or measure or assess the speed of change, the speed of impermanence. It's beyond our measuring. And also it's hard for us... It's impossible for us to see the face of the mountain because in order to see the face of the mountain, you would have to be external to the mountain. But we're internal. We're within reality. We can't step aside of reality and say, oh, reality has this face. The mountain has this face. Interdependent co-arisen nature has this face. We can't say that because we are within it. We can't extricate ourselves from it.

[34:33]

So our view is always subjective in that sense. And to be in the phrase, to be in the mountains is a flowering opening the world, means that our own personhood acting within the mountain and within the world is also affecting the rest of the mountain and the rest of the world. So everything we do, every little action, our own blossoming, our own opening affects everything, has ripples. I think I used this metaphor before, this idea of a butterfly flapping its wings here in California is going to affect, you've heard this before, the weather in China. There's some way that that interconnectedness is so subtle that everything we do impacts something. So that's something to consider as you're moving through your life. What are the ripples of my action? How is this going to manifest? elsewhere in the world, unbeknownst to me. Because most of the stuff that we do, we don't know the consequences of it.

[35:35]

We have just our own little narrow view saying, oh, I know, you know, if I give this thing to Jodi, that she'll take it and that will be the end of it. We don't know that. We don't know how that action, that simple action, is going to ripple out into the rest of the world. So the great weight of knowing that our activity is creates the world. And therefore, what kind of activity do you want to take up? This is the question for us as Buddhists and Bodhisattvas. How do we want to create the world? What is our action in manifesting the world? Are we conscious of that? Are we consciously creating the world? And not that we're going to know how it's going to be created, but are we conscious of our intention and karma, intentional action? You know, this action that comes out of some intention, even if we're not clear or conscious of our intention, there's still something within us that is directing that action.

[36:38]

What is that that is directing the action? Is it karmic formations, impulses, the intention coming out of old habit patterns? Or is it actually the awake knowing mind observing our... the impulses and our way of acting out of habit and pausing and making a choice to do something differently. So our freedom lies in that space to discern how do I want to engage? How do I want to create the world? How is this activity from the simplest little thing contributing to the manifestation of the world? goes back to what the email was saying, because I think it absolutely has to do with the kind of doing that we're talking about, but it's also a perspectival. Many of us here, or all of us sometimes here, are not in the mountains. You know, we are anything but in the mountains. We are in concrete, and bicycles are barreling down the hill at us.

[37:42]

And this, I feel the encouragement of, I can be in the mountains. no matter where I am, by this expression, if I have that magic or I would think of it as wonder, I reserve magic for something else. But if I move through the world allowing the flower of my wonder to bloom, then I can be in the mountains no matter where I am. And yeah, that's a real encouragement. It's a kind of an internal orientation as well as that vital external orientation. Thank you. That's lovely. Sometimes I think of it as the mountains of our own being. Wherever you are, you're in the mountain of your own being. So what is the experience of being in the mountain of your own being? And at the same time, we're in the mountain, simultaneously, of the pinnacle rising. So we're a mountain within a mountain within a mountain. And we're mountains blooming or rising up within mountains.

[38:46]

So what is that experience? wherever we are is the mountain of practice. Whether or not it's literally on the mountain of Tassajara or it's in Santa Cruz or San Francisco or wherever you are, what is the mountain that you're occupying in this present moment? Especially in San Francisco, what do you see when you see that concrete jungle? Do you see that you're living in the mountains? There's no more mountainous city in this country, I think, than that one. And yet, you think, well, that's not the mountain. Yeah, San Francisco has seven hills, seven smaller mountains, just like Rome, the seven hills of Rome. Only one mountain? Named as a mountain? Mount Davidson. You can call whatever you want to a mountain. To an ant, it's a mountain. Right. So then the next line, those without eyes to see the mountains do not sense, do not know, do not see, do not hear the reason for this.

[39:50]

So again, being those who are within the mountains, we do not have the eyes, ears, the senses. We don't have the external capacity to see the walking of the mountains, to see this whole unfolding. We don't have, again, an objective view of the activity of reality in this way. And something that Okamura talks about is, for example, a person who is sitting zazen, right? They cannot see zazen, you know, The person sitting in zazen cannot see zazen because the person is zazen. You cannot see your activity of zazen because you are the one who is doing zazen. The person is within, so this person within samadhi, within this non-dule, non-discriminating awareness, we can't know that in an objective way. The only way we can know it is to be it.

[40:51]

to those of you who have heard Paul Haller, to experience the experience we're experiencing. Another way to frame the word experiencing is knowing. To know the knowing we're knowing. To knowingly know the experience that we're having. And so Okamura goes on, he reminds us that even though we can't see with our eyes, somehow from the very bottom of our being, we know the mountain's moving. This way of knowing is called the Dharma I. The Dharma I, or the Buddha's wisdom, prajna, is not a certain way of using our brains. It's what's there when I let go of thought. It's what remains, or it's what comes before thought. It sees both sides of reality. This is zazen. Zazen itself is Buddha's wisdom. To really see it, we have to practice. Practice, this points to Dogen's idea of practice realization.

[41:52]

Realization only happens through practice, through the activity of our practice. There is no separate realization that you can get. It doesn't happen elsewhere. It's only through this activity. And I think this also points to this knowing, for me, has a quality of a felt sense. And I also have the sense of experience being a felt sense that... the knowing of what's happening comes from within. It's a felt knowing. There's a tangible quality. There's a word that I can't quite get to at the moment, but visceral, thank you, visceral quality of knowing the known. That's not a cognitive, it's not a conceptual knowing. So, The point of our practice then becomes this bringing us closer to this place where we can have a felt sense of our experience and knowing it on a visceral level.

[43:00]

And Dharma knowing is not a matter of conceptual knowing. It's that which illuminates or knows thought as well as the present moment. So this letting go, only by letting go of thought, which is merely an object that appears within the field of awareness. Thought is always just an object appearing within this wide open sky of awareness. When we leg over thought, then we discover what is it that came before thought, that is before thought, that actually thought is made of, it's not separate from thought, but thought does not encapsulate it. And the only true seeing is The only true way to seer is by practicing letting go and resting back into this state of non-dual awareness. This is practice. This is what we're doing in zazen, letting go of thought, resting back as awareness itself. And the following line, to doubt the walking in the mountains means that one does not know yet one's own walking.

[44:08]

I interpret this as Dogen saying that until you can really appreciate this, this aspect of things that challenge our conventional way of viewing life, being willing to entertain the inconceivability of mountains walking and a stone woman giving birth. Until we can understand this, we can't really understand our own life. So the question that mountains walk is not to understand our own walking. Dogen points out in the Genjo Con, we are continually trying to see things moving around us and don't see that this thing that sees this is moving. So in other words, we are continually trying to see things moving around us. So Lesley in our Dharma talk was talking about the boat and the shore. So we're trying to see the shore. We see it as moving around us. And we don't see this thing that sees the person in the boat, the one that is seeing, is also moving.

[45:10]

So the mind itself is moving. And it's not just that this one is moving. I would say simultaneously both the shore and this one are moving together. But usually we only point to the shore and say that object out there is what's moving. Please stop moving. or move when I want you to move, you know, and don't move when I don't want you to move. But what we're not looking at is this side, which is really the only one that we can have any measure of, control's not the word, true input. I saw a hand. Sasha? Yeah, yeah. You just mentioned control, and I would like to share something about the nature of walking. Mm-hmm. the Paralympics, lots of those are made by that company, and they also make stuff for people who are paralyzed, so some people can actually walk again, so people who sit in the chair, and they can walk again, stuff that, you know, you can't hide under all the pants.

[46:29]

So, we talked about how do these things actually work, and I was like, you know, we must have truck motors in there, and batteries, and they were like, no, that's not how it works. I always assumed walking is, you know, your muscles, your legs, your knee, control, you know, you walk from... Thank you, Kitch. That's what you want to do, you get there, control of activity. And he said, no, walking is actually falling, instead falling, you lean slightly forward with the upper body, you move part of your hip, that side of the hip, which we are going to use in the leg. So what the leg was to do to actually stop the fall. And that doesn't need a lot of energy. I mean, just walking doesn't really need lots of energy. You should just trust your falling, I guess.

[47:32]

So with every step, you kind of fall and trust that we're going to be fine without even knowing that. And I was just fascinated by that. Reminds me of the quote by Suzuki Roshi about everything is falling out of balance. And that falling out of balance is beauty and its possibility and its aliveness and its movement and how much trust it takes to allow ourselves to fall out of balance. moment after moment after moment. This is how the universe walks. Are we willing to trust that? Thank you. I found this very encouraging because, you know, just realizing that we are following and trusting all the time that way, and we don't even notice, and it works. So maybe in other aspects of our life, we can learn to do that too.

[48:33]

Well, it's a powerful exercise to actually ask yourself, what do I trust? how am I manifesting trust, a trust that I don't even, I'm not even conscious of? You're trusting that chair is going to hold you up. You're trusting that the food you eat is not going to poison you. You're trusting so much in every moment that when you turn to recognizing how much you're trusting, what I sense for myself is the deep appreciation, you know, a deep gratitude for how the whole world holds me and makes it possible for me to be here in this way. And so it's great to kind of examine what is trust to me and how am I already relying on it in ways that I'm not conscious of. And, you know, I think actually in our relationships to each other, we're constantly trusting that each of us is going to show up at some level with a certain measure of kindness and receptivity.

[49:37]

Even though there may be some aspect of us that's kind of like, okay, who's this person? What are they going to do? And so on. But I think we actually, I think we err on the side of trust, you know, more so. And that erring gives each other, the person, this... gift of receptivity you know I trust you will come forward and will meet me in a particular way so already we have that degree of kindness in most cases not always sometimes it's different but that's another way to appreciate I already trust you enough to engage with you here and meet you in this way so okay let's wrap this particular section up so Two more lines. It is not that one does not walk, but that one does not yet know, has not made clear this walking. So even though we're walking, even though there's impermanence, we don't see our own walking.

[50:39]

We don't see our impermanence. Even while we are walking, even while we are impermanencing. Impermanencing? So we don't see our own impermanencing. even while we're doing it. We can't know it because we're in the middle of it. We're walking, we're impermising in such a way that it's not something we can grok. And so mountains and walking are beyond all our different ways of trying to understand it and know it. We can't know it. It's beyond knowing. Okamura says that to know or not to know is not essential. In either case, we are walking. That is our practice. Whether we know it or not, We are actually walking, and that is what matters. We keep walking. When we don't see, our practice is based on trust and faith in the Dharma teachings. When we don't see this, even when we don't see this, our practice is still based on trust and faith in Dharma teachings. So this aspect that you've heard again, and again, not knowing, is an important part of our practice.

[51:44]

How do you trust not knowing? and i shared the um the during the sushin the case 20 in the book of serenity was daijang and fayan uh the calling about where are you going i'm going on pilgrimage why i don't know not knowing is most intimate so it's this going forth that actually creates the path even if we don't know where we are going just by taking the step As Sasha was saying, the path appears before us. The path doesn't exist until we take the step. Even if you think there's something that you have an idea of a path, it looks like something you might call a path, it isn't actually pathing until you step on it. You make the path by stepping on it. And it makes you. It makes for your walking because it shows up and it gives you a place for your foot to stop and land and carries you forward into the next step. So we take the next step knowingly not knowing what will manifest, and each step becomes an expression of our trust and faith.

[52:54]

And this is our Dharma practice. This is what we start on the path of practice, having no idea where it's going to take us. How many of you knew when you started practice that you were going to be here? That you were going to end up in a monastery wearing black robes, you know, sitting for long hours in a dark room, eating all kinds of unique foods. How many of you knew that? Yeah, you didn't know where it would take you. And you don't know 10 years from now where you're going to be in your practice. Where will your practice take you 10 years from now? So you're trusting this practice to unfold in a place of not knowing. And would you want to know? Would you really want to know 10 years from now if this is exactly what I'm going to be doing? Yeah. Well, everyone but Mark. It would kind of deaden the quality of aliveness between now and those ten years. Well, why do that? Why walk through that if I already know where it's going to end up?

[53:55]

What are we trusting in? That's the question for each of us to answer for ourselves. And I think that question, you never ultimately land on an answer to that question. I think the question itself is what keeps us afloat. It's the same thing with any kind of inquiry. It's the energy of inquiry that moves us forward. The minute we get an answer, we kind of stop. We kind of stagnate. And we limit our world. We limit ourselves in some way. So that moment by moment, in this moment, what do I trust? Is keeping that yoko on. in some way I think is very helpful. Kai? I was eating a squash dish at a restaurant at one point and there was a, so I could, it was very thick and so I took a bite of it and there was a piece of glass, a piece of glass in the, in the bite that I took.

[55:05]

I managed to avoid any serious damage but to it was definitely a big sharp piece of glass and I was wondering and I think of the circles of hell and how betrayal is giving kind of a special place and there's an element of this trust that you're talking about which I really appreciate how you're framing this that it can't the trust has to transcend the my well-being, because my well-being is very fragile. And there's nothing, I mean, if, I mean, you're saying, like, you can trust that your food is a poison. Well, I mean, sometimes, like, I mean, or sometimes there's a piece of glass in it. Like, sometimes you think you have unconditional love, but then they have an effect. You know, or, you know, whatever it is. And so I feel like the trust that you're talking about is very, very real.

[56:06]

I'm not, I'm not arguing. It's just, like, what, I can't quite get to the end of this question. There has to be a bigger priority or a larger scope than just, I'm going to be okay. Exactly. Trust transcends the personal. So if you keep your scope, your sphere, this small of what is trust, I can only trust what affects me, then that trust is never trustworthy because what you are is conditioned. Trust, I think, has its foundation in the unconditioned. So can we open the aperture of trust, what it is we rely on, and see beyond the personal? Because we are always beyond the personal, even though we abide and operate from this limited sphere of me, me, me, me. That me, me, me is utterly dependent and utterly connected to this much wider sphere of beingness.

[57:10]

So just because there's glass in your food doesn't mean it's about you. And this is usually what we do. We make it about me. Oh, why did it happen to me? You know, and when something goes wrong, we had a flat tire or something gets canceled or whatever, we're like, why are they doing that to me? Don't they know how important it is to me? Why are they trying to, you know? So we personalize it. And most of the time, it has nothing to do about us, right? But we just decided to make it about us. So what is this wider sphere beyond us that we are dependent on, that where our trust, we're lifted up from that area? And yes, it may have a very, if I swallow that glass, it may have a particular impact on this particular Dharma position. Yeah, true. But that Dharma position is not separate from the rest of the whole universe that's unfolding. So... Okay, so last line.

[58:12]

Those who would know their own walking must also know the walking of the Blue Mountains. When we are walking, the entire world is walking. To really know our own walking is to know that our whole life, the whole world, is created through walking. And that is true with not only us, it's true with everything in this way. When we can clearly see ourselves manifesting in this way, then we can see the world outside of ourselves is also walking, manifesting in this way moment by moment. So again, it's not personal. Our walking is personal. We have our own agency, and it's beyond the personal simultaneously. So that's the rest of section four. Now I want us to walk through section... Oh, Tisida, do you have the handouts? And then my notes. Oh, okay. Great. Thank you. So, can we hand these out, please?

[59:14]

How many people do we have? So the kitchen left, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. So, I can't count. Five. How many are in this room right now? Are there 25 people in here? Okay. In the kitchen lab. So this is what I'd like to do. Does everyone have a copy of the handout? Okay. So what I'd like us to do is take about 20 minutes or so, and we're going to break into groups, five groups, with four or five people in them. And each group will be assigned a particular section. And I'd like you to unpack the section to go through the core ideas or takeaways in that particular section. And that includes your ideas, what it is that Dogen might be saying here.

[60:22]

What do you think the core things he's trying to say? What do you take away? What are the core things that you're taking away from this passage? How might you say it in your own words? If you were to rephrase it in some way, how would you rephrase it in a way that would make sense to you? And the other question is, how would you actualize it or express what it is that you understand this passage is pointing to in your own life? How would you manifest it? How would you live it? How would you actualize it? So those are three questions I'd like you to explore, apply to each section that you're discussing together. And you're welcome to use, I think most of you, each group will need to have or would benefit from having Shohako's book. Maybe you have another resource or text that you have access to that you'd like to use. I'd like everyone to have an opportunity to speak in the group, so please make sure that each person makes some contribution to the conversation in the group.

[61:29]

I'm going to give you about five to eight minutes to address each of these questions. So we're basically going to start with 20 minutes. And then I will ring the bell every seven minutes just to give you a sense of how time is changing, flowing, moving. So you have a sense of when you need to start wrapping things up. And then what I'm going to ask you is each group is going to present what your particular understanding or takeaway is for that passage. So you can either identify one person who's the spokesperson for the group or all of you can contribute in some way to saying something, what you discovered or what you came up with in the group. And you're welcome to, if you need to, use the flip chart. It's not a flip chart. It's not flipping. To use the whiteboard, if that would help you with your visual aid. And in your presentations, I'd like you to leave a little bit of time to...

[62:37]

see if anyone has any questions or additional pointers that they would like to bring forward in their understanding. So I think let's count off one to five. And we may have a few, we may have four in them, which is fine. And then we'll go from there. One, two, three, four. Walk through the passages as they're listed. So click number one. There's your passage number. If you please. And if you need the Lord every year, you're welcome. It's a big love. Please have the passage in front of you for those who are listening. All right. So... We had a very rich discussion, and I guess one of the things that we started with, one of the core concepts of sentience versus insentience.

[63:50]

For me, it was really surprising to hear that it comes from emotion. With the actual Mujo, the translation comes from emotion. And to me, sentience was always something that had to do with thinking. And so that was a surprise. And actually, Sasha had an interesting point in the German translation of a lot of German stuff. Do you want to share that? Sure. I just noticed that in some German translations the word sentient is not even translated, so sentient beings are normal beings. which is one reason why I was always struggling with that concept, what does it even mean? And I guess, and when we look at, I think it's Genjo Koan, right, where the distinction is enlightened beings are Buddhas and sentient beings, so there seems to be the distinction between Buddhas and sentient beings and in sentient beings, and Dogen here might be saying that's not even the point, or that's not the way we look at sentient beings.

[65:04]

maybe knowing what's going on, versus incension being just stuff, you know, just being, that might not be actually how this works. So we might not be, I think we said in the end, a lot of this goes back to control, we might not be as much in control as we think we are. Would you guys like to expand on that? I mean, I guess to bridge it, so control, as you were talking about earlier, in respect to walking, we talked about sort of this idea of like stepping back and backstepping as just to kind of talk about like what Okamura said is the introspecting, taking the backward step, looking inward. And then versus kind of, like, going out into the, like, being part of society and teaching, like, um, as, as the, you know, other, other switching of the, of the, walking, backing.

[66:20]

Um, and then the next core idea, I guess, uh, we talked about, like, the impossibility of measuring the Dharma, like, the vision will work to, uh, like how we measure it. And... Yeah. We talked about the concept of accounting, sort of take it like the examining closely, just a translation of Tenkin in the word theory of words. And... Yeah, and then I think that's kind of where we ended with the core concepts, and then we started discussing how can this be actualized or expressed in our life now.

[67:24]

So, Catherine? I was in the dish shack. And I was really frustrated and angry with that particular totally unrealized sentient being. And it caught up in my own... And I just stopped. You know, I turned on the sanitizer and I stopped. And the words just sprang up. You are my heart. And... All of the knotted up energy in being angry and frustrated and really at an impasse just completely burst open. And I understood then in this weirdly conceptual but really visceral way that... True compassion is beyond sentient and insentient beings, and that was the way to walk with myself and with that person, no matter what.

[68:37]

Five minutes. Anything else to say? Ryo had another... Yeah, so I'll touch on one other aspect of bringing it into our life now. We have spoken, I'm going to read this sentence, we should do a clear accounting of the Blue Mountains walking and our own walking, including an accounting of both stepping back and backstepping. So as we mentioned, we looked up accounting in hands. Translated to taking another to inflation that I couldn't agree for that was to overhaul. And we thought that was a particularly interesting to inflation out of accounting. This, we should overhaul our understanding of these binoculars walking. What does it need to let go in this current moment? I know that I personally see that constantly. When I read this, I'm constantly trying to clutch onto me. What is this meaning?

[69:49]

How does it apply to my life? How does this give the media a better life, how can it make my interactions with people on movies? And ultimately, I think it's important to recognize that this is actually not the process of understanding these concepts here today. This is the process of older quality, the part of us that is trying to understand, being able to let go into that one moment. And so as that goes into our life today, I think it's really difficult to grasp. I'm trying to grasp this, but we're going against that concept itself. So really, the only way that it can be said is through the portfolio of this. Thank you very much. Any great questions for this group or a point that we'd like to contribute? I just have been obsessed with this line about we are sentient beings and not sentient beings.

[70:56]

And in my understanding of it, it's very important in the period that I study this notion of sentience. It means being able to be affected by the world, right, and then being able to respond. So being touched on by the world through the senses first. And I was thinking about how convinced we are that we're sentient beings, and yet... you know, sometimes we completely miss that the foxes are singing. People are like, what noise? At the beginning, we saw that. I'm like, what noise? There was a chorus of foxes outside, you know, but we demo. Our sense doors are blocked by our thinking, and sometimes our ability to respond to the world is so blocked by our conditioning and our habits. We say something terrible to someone else, totally unnecessarily, as though they were not a sentient being. because some old habit pattern comes roaring out of us. So it's just been wonderful to me to dislodge my conviction that I'm a sentient being.

[72:00]

Because I have an easier time with rocks might be sentient beings than I do with I might not be sentient. I keep having this image of taking my bone out of my lower leg and putting it on the ground and hitting it with a hammer and being like, well, it's not sentient when it's not in my leg. So where are we sentient and where are we sentient? That's been a super... Exciting. Contemplation. Where does sentience lie? Yeah, where does sentience lie? How do I utilize sentience so easily? Whether because I'm locked in thought or locked in habit. If someone hurts me, I'm like, how could they have done that? That's so insensitive, right? It's the same word, insentient and insensitive. Same word. So, anyway. Can I add something to that? Very quickly. Okay. I am also really struck by this one. First sentence. One thing that comes to my mind is that in Halsufla, this is what it reminds me of, it says form is emptiness and emptiness is what?

[73:03]

And Logan says form is form and emptiness is emptiness. And here it seems to me that When you say setting, the being in setting is only being put in setting. So, there is that potentiality. Even if you think that object is in setting, there is a potentiality of being setting at the same time. So, instead of seeing the time as linear, you can input past, present, past the future in our present. So, it just goes beyond that because it has a future. this particular moment. How is it that, in this particular moment, one day can be sentient and sentient at the same time? Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, group one. Thank you, sir. Group two. Group two. So let me summarize it for our units as stepping forward and

[74:09]

Stepping back are congruent. They're next to and also in opposition to each other. The intentional action is stepping forward. The role is the stepping back. Both occur as the mountain is walking. We also toyed with the idea of the stepping forward and stepping back being in some ways the representations of birth and death as well. Stepping back is also what we do in Desendo. We step back and shine the light inward to look at ourselves. And for Okamura, stepping forward is, as you said, working for the world and being in the world. One theme that kept coming forward in the whole paragraph was time. It's timeless and instantaneous. The walking is timeless and instantaneous. the walking, the action that happens, the walking, the flowing, becomes the essence of the mountain.

[75:12]

So the mountain flowing, the action of the mountain becomes the mountain, the flowing mountain. And then our glass into those stories on constant change of the universal. The universe would be stuck if there weren't constant change, and we wouldn't be here to hear you darn enough. If things weren't impermanent, There wouldn't be room for us to be here. Change doesn't oppose the experience. It's a necessary condition for the experience. And then we had some interesting discussions with actualizing this in the world. And we started with a historical example of a Japanese sewing teacher, who I'm sorry that you might have forgotten, who came, thank you, and taught Blanche how to sew. And that was the example of a woman walking at this university. So we don't have anything like that grand in our own lives. We really try to stick to Dharma with lowercase d rather than uppercase d. Just try to be optimistic.

[76:15]

One suggestion was someone has a prison pet cow who doesn't sit. If that person were to start sitting and were to start a prison sangha, then that would be an example of the Dharma actualizing. That's like halfway between the lower case and the upper case. That's before we made the transition. And then just a general working in the world. However we actualize what we've learned about employment and are able to manifest that. Just however you're working in your office, you're interacting with your colleagues. You don't know how that's going to change the way we meet them and how they respond to that. So specifically the phrase stepping back. Taking time to discover what the body and heart might need to find equanimity. And then the reverse. Having equanimity allows us to take the time to discover what our body and heart needs. And another contribution, trying to step forward with an intention to be of service to the world.

[77:26]

And how do we do that, which is a question of every one. And also, motherhood is an example of the mountains walking, meeting each moment, completely each person, this permanent person, completely in that moment, and it's gone before it's even happened, and letting it go without sticking, because it's just a constant, constant meeting that moment, that person completely, letting it go, meeting the next moment completely, and letting it go. And that kind of, not a specific example, but our summary, based on what you said, actually, of constantly falling, being out of balance, trusting that being out of balance is valuable. It allows us to see our suffering, view in our suffering, which is everyone else's suffering. If we weren't out of balance, we wouldn't be able to be the ancestors of today. And if the ancestors hadn't been out of balance, we wouldn't be here today. And this is the feeling of hope.

[78:27]

She's got it. She's got it. You said it. Is there any other reflections? The rest of you might take away from this particular paragraph. A question you might have later. There's a question. It's on if what do you really take a view to don't really appreciate us today? I'm just wondering, like... To me, that sounds kind of like he's just saying... And even for a moment, if Arminets has stopped, then none of this would be around. And I'm wondering if you'd all push up any light on, like... I think that's the nature of impermanence, that it would all, you know, crash down into a reverse Big Bang if things weren't constantly changing, because there are so many things in motion.

[79:45]

It freezes. And I think rather than being actual physics, and it gets to have faith, It's a way of allowing us to trust that that impermanence is so important. We have to accept it and move with it. We're constantly changing the looping. There wouldn't be space for us. That's what makes the loop. That's the space between us. That's where our space is. That's what I think. I just started talking. But you would have died there in this dying. It's a process of impermanence.

[80:50]

wouldn't be alive. Once it would be permanent, it wouldn't be permanent. It wouldn't be permanent. If it's permanent, it can't change. The expression, nothing can exist effectively. I think you're absolutely static. That's a record. She said, impermanence is the activity of the universe. So, when you take impermanence out, there is no universe. So, he came out as such a question. What would it be like if there is no universe? We don't know. Because impermanence itself is the pure activity of the universe.

[81:56]

If there's no finding stuff, everything is empty of inherent existence. And another way of saying that is, everything is dependent on physical. So if you freeze the universe, there is no universe. Because the universe is the activity of unfolding. So the minute the universe stops, there is no universe. Because the universe says, You know, as, you know, the Gorgina says, there is no runner besides the action of running. The person running and the person, and the running person are exactly the same thing. So, there is no universe, universe besides the action of the universe. The person, the universe running, or manifesting, and the manifesting universe are exactly the same thing. That was more confusing than this whole thing. Okay. Thank you very much for listening. Moving on to group three. Right. Turn that corner.

[83:02]

Go ahead. I can hold it. You know, like, use this here. No, I'm just going to say it. And that was a really scary thing, because that is weird. At least this is weird. Go ahead. Look around. I think that the absence of this section is really asking the question of what is clearance for. That way we can really start the discussion here. The question is observing. You've got that already. This study is the mountain's longest study. So it's about our ability, our really unique ability to use your things to self-defense. The danger is that if our self-reflection can shrink the world, we begin to think that the self-reflection simply, you know, it's us.

[84:22]

Whereas would it be a distortion? where it says here, it doesn't alter, it doesn't really alter divine, it doesn't really alter anything else. We're still in this intersection, what Rihanna said, we're still in this intersection. It's turning that circle in the middle there of the support that we are at. I just put that in a different way. I think to me it seems to me that receptionists try to say that inquiry should be done without the desire to get something out. So the Blue Mountains devote themselves to the investigation point.

[85:25]

mountain. And in the next sentence, the east mountain study is moving along the water. So it's like we are constantly at rest and we are constantly walking. It's like the two virtues of Bodhisattva practice. We are constantly turning the light inward and at the same time we are trying to help others. So moving over the water and we are also turning the light inward. And if there is a circle back to the study themselves. And always be circling back to the study themselves. So always coming back to this one. Just taking refuge in this one. Coming home and sharing this with other beings. Because I think they go hand in hand. That understanding of our common interdependence encourages us to be compassionate and share that with others. We understand that. It shows appreciation. to activate what happened there.

[86:47]

Yeah. I don't want to, I want to be fast at what most. I thought it was really fast in the theater. It was quite a bit worried with us trying to pull up with examples. Like, the minute one of us would say, okay, that's it, we'd be like, wait, now how did you say that? Yes. I tried to get this intellectual concept, and actually what was happening in the discussion was about all the miracles of the Dharma presenting itself. Dharma studies the Dharma, and so that's what was happening. So that's what was happening. So it could be right in your room, or it has stated it to tell you. Anyone else? I don't know your question. I'm sure that's what you're going to ask. Okay. Chisseau has a great question. Are you ready for everybody's question? It takes on how can we say that we're the only things that can reflect on ourselves?

[87:50]

I think that's one of the great ideologies that we've been sold. And awareness either can reflect on itself or it can't. But I think you've spent, I mean, you can't say 500 or a couple thousand years assuming that we're the only thing in the universe that can self-reflect. But shouldn't we test that? Yeah, he's telling us that balance can be that. We're being told that right here. So I just wonder, how would we move through the world if we thought that everything... Yeah, I can really appreciate that. I talk about it all the time. that these, what we consider inanimate things, are really alive. And I still have to do the waves with the new sector.

[88:56]

And we take the panels, and the first thing we do, we talk to the panel, and we do it in the water to wake it up. So it reminds me of what you're saying. You're right, it is all that. Thank you. So one thing that I had in my notes was our study is the study of the universe coming along itself. See, we're studying the universe and studying itself. How does that look for us? So, how will you have the universe taken out of this study? Thank you very much, group three.

[89:59]

Appreciate your contribution. And group four. So, we're looking at the core ideas. I'm going to focus on two birds. I have the idea of how does a practice... Oh, that's flowing. Just as you said, where's this? Where's [...] this? So in that job, then we were very struck by the poet Husa with sunk.

[91:14]

Very well said. Just for him sunk. Reception. We're like, well, because it's stuck. But he just had sunk. Now that was interesting. And if we think, why? How well, how our carbon conditioning actually keeps us in the sunk. Oh, yeah, one of the other, the other, uh, translations of it, you know, we were, at first, um, turn, Well, what's this show?

[92:17]

I'll do it. Yeah, there's a word. Yeah, there's a word. And the next word, uh, uh, translated that word. Drown the art. It's not fine. It's not like this. It's not like this. Something is struck me. I want to see that I have some residents in the group that... ...talks about in this translation. It's just president-based. I said, this is how the person is pointing to you. And the correctness of a living experience of that reaction is, you know, how to rob a story of me. People in the context of the police will say you've been carrying a knife at the same pain rate. that irritating so it seemed like the way I originally was trying to resolve that we talked about this maybe he had such a negative experience himself of feeling something that when he talks about it this pain just had come back to him

[93:20]

Those that I was trying to figure out why would a Buddhist priest write such a thing. What an interpretation. I was just reading. [...] Thank you. For example, this is the idea that we are actualized in our lives.

[94:37]

I mean, so I can't afford this to do that. I can't afford this to do that. I can't afford it. Continually let it go of our thoughts and ideas as they realize that this in a way gives this glory back for it. I'll say, personally, I was just at the very edge of, you know, opening up my eyes and walking. And now, you know, I suppose it's still on the floor. Which I think is, of course, and the passage says, you never can. the phrase, well, water, so how are you going to ever understand? I think, yeah, in my delicious experience, I know what water is.

[95:45]

But then again, you know, at the end, of course I don't know what water is. Not in this, not at this level. So, I So, yeah, I guess how to actualize to practice areas for six hours. I mean, to me, the mountains, they might walk, but it seems like one step every 10,000 years. It doesn't seem like a continual building experience. I didn't know the mountains that might look like they were flowing. They're stuck. But, uh, yeah. So not knowing. I think it's the... It's the... And then the box that... And, uh, later on, I'm going to say that one.

[96:56]

Well, I think. It's a good idea where it is, doesn't it go away? Any version questions for Group 4? Thank you very much, Group 4. And our final group, Group 5. It is very important. Thanks. So this is a final part of the race. We've got a super patient. Just a bit. So before he talks about these formulated virtues of being these two, I'm trying to step forward to work with health problems, and then step back to study this all. With this circulation system, seeing ourselves as these arteries, or parts of arteries, but this was like a fast process.

[97:58]

So these two, and we're just going to practice this kind of thing. and it's not the park, it's the night workers. I'm sitting before you. You know, there's this reality, this world that I'm living to have that this year.

[99:07]

We talked about the birthing. All of us being parents for our child practice and also We're giving both to each other? Is that what you mean? White one. It's very beautiful about how much of us is operating in the universe. And yet, there's also some universe that has helped us to that. And so he reads this passage very carefully, you know, very closely, as it's about normal transmission, it's about being incarnated Persian and Uchiha-Roshi. But I think our communication is going to go more in that direction. How do we understand what's happening between our universes here as all sorts of universe?

[100:12]

Horde their multiple universes lore. So, yeah. So, from the beginning, just at this practice place, what's going to happen in here? What's the meant? How are they? How are they? How are they? they're not here, and yet I know that I'm really proud of you. That's sort of a transition. We can make a bloodmate on a piece of paper and say, well, you were taught this by so-and-so, and therefore it came through you to me, but there's transmission happening here at the time that is not working like that. The power of the mountains teaching you. Anything else?

[101:20]

Any questions? We've clearly expressed the full understanding of this passage. Yeah, I can see though. food dancing across her eyes, and I'm the center of the world that I need to eat now. Which, you know, speaks to... For the whole world we're going to splatter. Exactly, the whole world's going to collapse if I don't get my, what's for lunch today, soup, salad, and rice. And the end of the universe won't manifest my night. So, I have a note somewhere, you know, we must build center and de-center ourselves. in order to have a healthy relationship with others. So we are in the center of the universe. At the same time, we have to de-center ourselves to be in mutual relationship with the universe, to be in healthy relationship with the universe.

[102:24]

So it's a tricky thing to hold this dollar position. We center ourselves to understand how we have to take accountability for this one. We are at the center of the universe. We have to be accountable for this one right here. And at the same time, We have to deceptive ourself to be able to receive and relate to and acknowledge our interdependency with the rest of the universe. So how do we use it? How do we live this? How do we live it? And something that Puchiyama Roshi says in the book that Shavato quotes, that he practiced as universal self. One of these things that he was trying to take up was... I want to take up the practice of the universal self. So how do you do that? How do you practice as a universal self? You know, most of us, I can barely practice as this one, you know, this individual subo one, much less the universal self. What does that even mean? How do I do that?

[103:24]

But that's what I think practice is asking most of every moment. How would you practice as a universal self rather than a solo individual separate universal self? is throwing this light on this simultaneity of the personal, the relative, the absolute. You can talk to something and say, where is that nexus? And how do you live at the point of that nexus? What is that? What is it to live there? Great, thank you very much. Thank you all so much. It was very, very exciting and engaging. Thank you so much for bringing forth the Dharma in this way. Maybe we'll have to do this again sometime.

[104:37]

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