This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Throughout this session I've been bringing up Wind of the Family House and I wanted to make a few comments about that and and some cautionary remarks maybe, or some balancing remarks, if it might have felt weighted on one side. So this morning we had our monthly memorial service for Suzuki Roshi, and in the echo, in the dedication, it says, May the teaching of this school go on endlessly.

[01:02]

And that leaped out at me this, you know, teaching of this school. May the teaching of this school go on endlessly. What school? You know, and I, you know, may all teachings beneficial teachings go on endlessly and may the teaching of the school go on endlessly but I wanted to mention that over and over and over again Suzuki Roshi you know doesn't attach to Soto or this school or Soto Wei he brings it up and that's his tradition and lineage and wind of the family house, but over and over he's saying, you know, this is not a special way as opposed to other ways or holding that up above or even being Buddhist, anything that separates.

[02:15]

Just be completely yourself, whatever that is, and we need to say things and wear clothes. So not to get overly attached to the beauty of the forms or the beauty of the ceremonies or the wonder of seshim practice or any of, to not cling to it and get attached to it as, you know, praising self at the expense of others or this is the best. And at the same time, completely enter and take up these teachings completely and find who you are in those practices. So without labeling ourselves or setting ourselves apart, completely enter these forms when it's appropriate, you know.

[03:21]

without getting too attached. And Denny had brought up days ago about the raft, getting attached to the raft, or the beauty of the raft, and forgetting about what was this all about in the first place, waking up, relieving suffering, ending suffering. And I was reminded of when we first bought Green Gulch, when we first practically were given Green Gulch, Mr. Wheelwright made it possible for us to get this beautiful piece of property fronting the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Anyway, Zentatsu Baker, the abbot at the time, 1972, June is when we got it, and I was one of the first five people who homesteaded. were the first ones to go out and live there. And that summer, lots of people began to come and Zen Tatsu Baker brought friends to see this jewel of a place.

[04:30]

And he brought Gary Snyder, whose writings we've been reading during the session and during class, the great poet and Zen practitioner. Anyway, so they were walking around and what Gary Snyder said to Zen Tatsu Baker was, as the story came to me, I wasn't there, wasn't with them as they were walking around, but he said, it's too beautiful, you know, or this may be too beautiful a place for people to be able to practice well there. I mean, Green Gulch, I know that some people feel it's like this paradise place. Of course, if you live there and it... And if Gary were to have come to live there as a student, then very soon you see all the problems and challenges and how people can't wait to get out, get over the hill.

[05:32]

But I was just reminded of that, getting too caught up in the beauty of the temple or the land or the robes and forms. I was reading Suzuki Roshi talking about sewing. Actually, I was looking in the Suzuki Roshi Index for anything on mending, but I didn't find anything. But he does talk about sewing okesa. He had invited Yoshida Roshi to come and teach sewing. And he gave a number of lectures. This was really introducing the practice of sewing Buddhist robe. And... I think he might have been reading from a sutra where it describes the making of the robe and the kind of cloth that's supposed to be used in the colors. And then he mentioned that for us to sew our own robe, you know, it's almost, we have to be careful about this because it's kind of a luxurious practice to have the time to actually do this.

[06:41]

We often, and this is what I mean by praising self, getting attached to our way. We sometimes think, oh, store-bought robes from a store, that's less than or something maybe. But the point that Suzuki Roshi was bringing up was to do it in the old way, which means gathering rags that had been left and clean them and dye them and cut them. This takes an enormous amount of time. And people may need to farm or do other kinds of things, have some kind of livelihood to support the temple. They don't have time to just go onto the road looking for rags. He also said in the Heian period there was a practice of sewing Buddha's robe where you took one stitch and then you did a full bow, then another stitch and a full bow. And he said that You know, this is kind of maybe luxurious, a wonderful devotional practice, you know, very inspiring.

[07:46]

And yet, you know, how many people have that, the time, you know, you've got to go to the kitchen and chop vegetables. I mean, stitch, full prostitution. I'm sure after I say this, somebody's going to say, I'm going to do it, I'm going to make a rock suit like that. But anyway... He kind of cautioned us to not make it into some special devotional practice. We sew our own robes. This is a tradition, this is a practice we're doing to not get too attached to it. So I think it's, when I say cautionary, the main practice is to completely be ourselves, to find out what that is, settle the self on the self, And without calling it anything special.

[08:50]

Yeah. This is making these ticking noises. I don't know. So to completely find out what it is to completely be ourself and then to make everything, have every activity that we do be our practice. Grandmother mind, making each thing practice, whatever it is. And then, you know, there's the danger of getting attached to that. Ooh, I make everything practice. So we have to over and over again let go and check. and see if it's become all too precious, or if it's just really ordinary at this point. And I feel like at the end, by the way, we're coming to the end of something, maybe. Anyway, to have our Zazen practice...

[10:05]

It's just you come to the Zen or you sit and it's time to leave. You go do something else, you come back. Where it really is, it really became kind of ordinary. I don't know, this is how we spend our day. Not too special, really. So not feeling much difference between coming to the Zen of Frizzazen and doing soji and washing clothes and having tea with a friend. Just our life, a practiced life. And within that, joyful gratitude and connection with beings of all kinds. And to be able to be with beings of all kinds, not be seen as something separate.

[11:06]

I was remembering Suzuki Roshi when he met my husband's parents, my parents-in-law. Some of you have heard this story. Steve Weintraub's parents, my parents-in-law, who are no longer alive, actually came over from Europe when they were pretty young. and lived on the Lower East Side, Jewish. A couple met on the Lower East Side of New York, and they were in business in the luncheonette business. Luncheonettes, for those of you who don't know, were, we used to call them drugstores in the Midwest. There was a counter where you could get sandwiches and malts and ice cream, you know, Sundays, and they sold school supplies and pharmaceutical stuff, and you know, it was kind of that kind of a store. Anyway, they're in the luncheonette business. They both worked. Anyway, when they met Suzuki Roshi, they came out to California to see Steve, who was at Zen Center.

[12:10]

And Suzuki Roshi was probably the late 60s. And, you know, they talked with Suzuki Roshi a little bit. And afterwards, Steve's mother said to Steve, it was like he was in the luncheonette business. He was completely... I don't know what it was like, but whatever they talked about, he wasn't like the exotic Zen master of Japan. That quality, that's what I aspire to, to be with people like that, to take any form and not have it somehow be special and separate, just to be with people. May it be so. So what I'm going to try and do today is finish a little section here of two paragraphs, I think.

[13:18]

We ended yesterday talking about the ultimate realm must also have a thousand types and ten thousand kinds. So our various practices result in all sorts of Buddhists being in the world. 10,000 kinds are not one particular Buddha that everybody becomes. According to the conditions, this is the awakened Buddha of this person's practices. So that's where we ended yesterday. And these next two paragraphs, if we reflect further on the real import of this question, the question we were looking at was, whether we see all beings, see water, there's a kind of water there that every being sees from a different perspective, or that we have various views, different kinds of images, and we call that water.

[14:28]

I think that's this question that is being brought up. If we reflect further on the, and at this point Dogen kind of turns things, If we reflect further on the real import of this question, although we say there is water of the various types, it would seem there is no original water, no water of various types. Nevertheless, the various waters, in accordance with the types of beings, do not depend on the mind, do not depend on the body of these beings. They do not arise from different types of karma. They are not dependent on self. They are not dependent on other. They are liberated, dependent on water. Therefore, water is not the water of earth, water, fire, wind, space or consciousness. It is not blue, yellow, red, white or black. It is not form, sound, smell, taste, touch or idea. Nevertheless... The waters of earth, water, fire, wind, space, and the rest have been spontaneously appearing as such.

[15:34]

I'm going to stop there and I'll get to the last part. So if we reflect further on the real impact of this question, although we say there is water of various types, it would seem there is no original water, no water of various types. So which is the real water, you know? Is there some original water before anybody looks at it, before anybody has a perspective on it? Or are there various perceptions of various... Because before he was saying there's water, water to these various beings looks this way, right? We talked about the water of the Deva realm, the heavenly realm, the jewel necklace, the water of the animals, the dragons, their palaces, dragons and fish, the water of the pretas, the hungry ghosts as raging fire, etc., and the human water is the water that we see.

[16:39]

So he started out by saying there are these different waters dependent on karmic destinies. You go into those realms through one's karma. Those are realms of karma. But now he's saying you know, there's no water that they're all looking at and see a certain way. Is there something called original water that is the true thing and all the views are illusory? So how can we know it's original water if there's some original thing, if all we have is our perspective? It's like in self-receiving where it says... However, all this is beyond our perception, right? It is unconditioned in stillness. So this question of, is there some kind of original water like that outside of our perception?

[17:42]

And Okamura brings up that it's the same question from that poem earlier about Mount Lu. Do you remember? What is the real face of Mount Lu? And I think... Sutungpo Suu Kyi was saying, you can't, because you're in the mountains and you have a view, there's no way to see Mount Lu, some real Mount Lu. It's dependent on your view, dependent on your view. And Dogen goes even further to say that the mountains, not only can you not see the true mountain, but you are the true mountain. It's your true body. So in the same way with water, what is true water? And Dogen answers with, nevertheless, this, you know, it would seem there's no original water.

[18:46]

And then he says, nevertheless, the various waters, in accordance with the types of beings, and then he kind of... opens it up in a very Dogen way. Do not depend. This water that various beings see, we actually have water that we see as water, it doesn't depend on mind, it doesn't depend on body, the body of the beings, it doesn't depend, they do not arise from different types of karma, they are not dependent on self, they are not dependent on other. So he's turning this now. First he was saying the way we see water is dependent on our karmic life and type of being that we are. And now he's saying it doesn't depend on any of these things. And here he's kind of negating it in a kind of Prashnaparamita way.

[19:47]

He says that all these waters are not dependent on karmic consciousness. And then this next line is, and this is kind of the, kind of in lights, they are liberated, dependent on water. All these views about water that are not dependent on mind, body, and all this, they are liberated, dependent on water. So I wanted to spend some time with, they are liberated, dependent, dependent on water. So the liberated here is the character To, Datsu To, which we came upon earlier. To is to penetrate and Datsu is drop off or take off. Shin Jin Datsu Raku, you know, body and mind dropped off. Datsu Raku Shin Jin dropped off body and mind. This is Dogen's exchange with Ru Jing, with Tendo Nyojo.

[20:48]

At his realization, he said... Shinjin Datsuraku, body and mind dropped off. And Ru Jing said, Datsuraku Shinjin, dropped off body and mind. So this, they are liberated, they are toodatsu, dependent on water. So what is water? Or the question is, what are What is the self? What is anything? And in its nature of water, or nature of all conditioned things, is that they are empty of own being, right? They're empty of separate self. So liberated, dependent on water... water in and of itself is liberated in its own selfness, in its own waterness, because it is empty of anything that any of the beings in all these realms observe and see.

[22:01]

The actual object itself, the actual water itself, is actually free of all those conceptions, all those observations, all those beliefs. The water is actually empty of all those things that we put on it, just the way we are, or just the way anything is actually free of, liberated from what we attribute, that we bring and place on it with our consciousness. The thing itself is not actually touched by that. It is free of that. We can slather it with as many conceptions as we want, but water is liberated, dependent on water. So, water, and what is water?

[23:04]

If you study water, our water, with our karmic consciousness, we can study water and see that it is empty of water, actually. Water is made up of all, everything in the entire universe, non-water things. And we call it water. So water is liberated, dependent on water, dependent on just how it is arising itself. It is free. water's practice is simply to be water, and which is our practice, simply to be ourselves. What is that? What is it to completely be ourselves? We might have some idea of what that is, based on our karma consciousness, who we are, and other people might have a lot of ideas too, but who I think this teaching is, we are free, we are liberated, we are

[24:18]

Todatsu, freely going through all barriers. This Todatsu is to penetrate all barriers and go through all barriers freely. Is liberation the self liberated or water liberated or anything So everything is liberated in this way. And Okuma Roshi spent some time with helping me to understand these things being liberated, dependent on water, all our views being liberated. And the example that he uses is a baby, that a baby is liberated from babyhood.

[25:24]

It's completely a baby. It's completely a baby, just as a baby is, but because of the truth of emptiness and dependent on its babyhood, it is free of babyhood and can grow and change and become toddler, toddler-ness, toddler, and then little boy and girl, and then growing and changing and evolving and transforming, and it is free of babyhood. If it were not free of babyhood, or liberated from some solid way it is, it couldn't transform. It couldn't grow and change. And we too. Emptiness means that there's nothing fixed and stationary and stuck. We appreciate that very much and are so happy.

[26:32]

And other times, why does it have to change? Why does it have to die? Why am I growing old and not able to do what I used to do? This is suffering. Suffering is when the way things are which are empty of abiding self, impermanent. And when we're not in accord with the Dharma seals of impermanence and non-abiding self, then the other seals of suffering, when we're not in accord with that, then we suffer. And when we are in accord, then the fourth Dharma seal of nirvana appears when we're in accord with things. As Suzuki Roshi says, things as it is, the 10,000 things, one single body. So sometimes we feel happiness and joy in things being liberated and ever-changing and impermanent and not fixed and not stuck.

[27:42]

And other times we, in a kind of narrow way, We have sadness around that. But actually, if things didn't change, how would our children grow up? How would the flowers grow? And how would we make food? And how would it ever be personal day? Things would just be stuck. This is even impossible to conceive of. So this is Dogen's expression of emptiness. This, they are liberated, dependent on water, is... is this way of talking about, in this beautiful poetic way, it's been talking about mountains and waters being liberated from, in our self nature, liberated, dependent on the way things are. So,

[28:44]

You know, there's that book, Suzuki Roshi's Not Always So book, and that comes from a quote in a lecture where he said, the secret of soto, actually he said soto practice, is just two words, not always so. Which got a big laugh at the time, and then he said, well, in Japanese it's two words. But not always so, this teaching of... This is the secret that things are not always so. And when we fix, try to fix them and make them and keep them, cling to them, attach to them, then we lose this flowing water, flowing mountain quality of who we are and how everything is. And at the exact same time, and this is Genjo Koan, you know, all things are Buddha Dharma.

[29:54]

And when all things are Buddha Dharma, there is birth and death, delusion and realization, practice, all these things. When things are Buddha Dharma, meaning redolent with the four seals, you know, no abiding self and... impermanent, all these things, but those are Buddha Dharma and they appear, they ganjo, they appear as such in their Dharma position for that moment, completely still, like that torch in the funeral service. Each spot on the wheel is completely still. in that Dharma position and then there's the next position and then the flowing and changing and transforming and arising and vanishing. So there's mountains are walking.

[30:58]

So we're liberated from that Dharma position, liberated from being stuck in any position Dependent on what? On that very position. It's built into it. It has its own nature is empty. Not always so. And the next part is, therefore, water is not the water of earth, water, fire, wind, space, or consciousness. It is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. It is not form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or idea, meaning object of mind.

[32:12]

Nevertheless, the waters of earth, water, fire, wind, space, and the rest have been spontaneously appearing as such. So this is, you know, this has, he starts out with no, no, no. No eyes, no ears, no nose. The water is not any of those things. It's not the water of the elements, you know, the skandhas. It's not these colors of form. It's not sound, smell, rupa. However, they also appear as such. completely appearing as Buddhadharma and no abiding self. So there's no water of. And there's water that appears as such in this moment, not as a fixed thing, but in this moment. So...

[33:20]

this quality of that Dogen is so, you know, with difficulty, I think, for us to understand. Still, I think this teaching is his teaching from Genjo Koan, and as they say about Genjo Koan, the entire Shobo Genzo, his whole masterwork is just commentary on Genjo Koan, this Genjo Koan of... manifesting completely and being both completely still and completely impermanent, changing, no abiding self at the exact same time that each of us and each thing is this. So this genjo of manifestation and the todatsu of liberation is how we have always been.

[34:28]

And to live that out, live out our genjo koan, and the translation of genjo koan is actualization of the fundamental point. It actually isn't a strict translation of those characters. genjo koan, but the genjo koan is this fundamental point of how we exist. So appearing and liberated from that appearance, appearing as water. And then water, as we know, transforms and will come upon it, right? It goes up, it goes down, it covers the sky, it turns into dew, it's cold, it's hot. If it were not liberated, dependent on water or its empty nature, those transformations would not be possible.

[35:36]

I wanted to read, I had mentioned Shohako Kimura Roshi saying about the difficulty of this text, you know, and I wanted to read what he said. Although I have been studying this strange, difficult to understand, and yet beautiful and attractive writing for many years, I have been simply overwhelmed. I often wanted to just throw it away. But if we can find the thread of teachings from Buddha through Mahayana Buddhism and Zen tradition until Dogen, we can see what he is doing. We can discover the meaning of this wondrous writing for ourselves. We will completely miss the point if we just read Dogen and make one fixed system a philosophical theory based on our understanding of his writing.

[36:53]

If we do that, we create another system of views, another problem. Instead, when we read Dogen, we have to apply his words in our lives, studying our relationship of the self and the myriad things. I was very encouraged, comforted. by reading this. I have been simply overwhelmed with this beautiful, difficult to understand writing. So this last paragraph, nevertheless, we just said nevertheless, they appear as such even though they're water appears as such, or the views of water, the way water looks, appears as such. This being the case, it becomes difficult to explain by what and of what the present land and palace are made.

[38:00]

To say that they rest on the wheel of space and the wheel of wind is true neither for oneself nor for others. It is just speculating on the basis of the suppositions of an inferior view, and is said only out of fear that without such a resting place they could not abide. So this present land and palace are made, this being the case it becomes difficult to explain by what and of what the present land and palace are made, is referring to this... very age-old, wanting to find someone who made something or a creator that we could depend on who made this and did this. And then to say that they rest on this wheel of space and wheel of wind.

[39:02]

The wheel of space and the wheel of wind are, when we talked about the cosmology from the Abhidharma Kosha, the description of Mount Sumeru and the ranges, and then underneath it are wheel of wind and wheel of space that hold up the whole world. To say that they rest on the wheel of space and the wheel of wind is true neither for oneself nor for others. It is just speculating on the basis of suppositions of an inferior view, and it's only out of fear. So this, we want to... We want something that's substantial. We talked about this yesterday. We can depend on it's going to be there. It's going to be like that. We're resting on the wheel of wind or the wheel of space. It's going to be there. And this, I mean, he says this is a view out of fear, you know, that we so want and it's so comforting to feel like there is something to depend on. And this, you know, teaching, Heart Sutra teaching,

[40:08]

If this has happened actually to me in classes where people become very afraid, and it says this in Diamond Sutra, if upon hearing this teaching one becomes cowed and fearful, then you have not become a bodhisattva. So we hear this teaching of no abiding self and... There's fear because we think, well, there's nothing there. There's annihilation. There's void in the sense of nothingness. But this is not what the teaching is because there is also appearing. There is the genjo as well as the emptiness and the liberated and non-abiding self. But we want so much for there to be something to stand on like the wind, this wheel of wind or wheel of space where somebody created this.

[41:11]

But this, I've had, as I was saying in class, people come up after a class where we've talked about Heart Sutra or something and literally say, are you saying, and obviously frightened. This happened to somebody else too in class, that there's nothing, you know, that, so... We're not saying that, and the teaching isn't saying that, but people will go to that. In fear of you, it said, only out of fear that without such a resting place, they could not abide. Unless I've got some kind of stable something, how could I live? How could I abide? This safe, fixed, We want things to be... We don't want anybody we love to die. And then this last line, the Buddha has said, all things are ultimately liberating.

[42:15]

They have no abode. And it's not... said where exactly this quote from the Buddha comes from. But we can find things like that in sutras. The Buddha has said, all things are ultimately liberated. They have no abode. All things are not always so. Not always so as they appear right now. Not fixed. Not solidly substantial like that. All things. And everything then is moving and still. completely still and completely ready in the next moment to change and turn and walk. The Blue Mountains are walking. And the East Mountain moves over the water.

[43:18]

And the East Mountain moves over the water. The moves over the water, I found in Bielfeld, commentary means never separated. The East Mountain moves over the water means never separated. This stillness and movement coming and going. I don't know if the tape can pick up the can and run. I hope it can. So we have coming and going. And then in our echoes, we say, in the pure dharmakaya, there is no coming or going.

[44:26]

no appearance nor disappearance. So we're constantly moving with both of these, always. Because of our human form, we can only say one thing at a time. We can say appearing and then we can say disappearing. We can say coming and going and not coming and going. But to say blue mountains are constantly walking, I think, is fu-yo-do-kai trying to say both at once for us. It's not nonsensical. It's compassionate speech, speaking to who we really are, not stuck in coming or going. All things are ultimately liberated.

[45:27]

They have no abode. And, you know, some person might hear that and feel freed, and someone might feel afraid. Whatever comes up for you, we're asked to investigate this concentrate on this. Live it out and live it out in our lives, in our zazen practice, in our life of activity and stillness. Live it out. So I want to thank you all for your practice. these days, this practice together, I think I did feel it became kind of nothing special, just what we were doing together.

[46:35]

Nothing to write home about, but something to leave home about. No, nothing to leave home about either. as ordinary and lovely as our Canyon Wren. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[47:24]

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