Good morning. While I was waiting upstairs to come down, the Eno came by, the person who's in charge of the meditation hall with this gizmo to show Todd. to use it. And I said to the Eno, is that for me? And she said, no. And I said, darn it. And she said, you have everything you need. And I said, why don't you give the Dharma talk? And she said, I'm busy. So I'd like to talk about having everything we need already.

[01:14]

We have all the materials we need to practice to attain enlightenment right this moment. Back at the beginning of the year, in mid-January, I participated in a study retreat that was held here at Zen Center. And the person leading the retreat was Sho Haku Okamura. Okamura Roshi's teacher is Uchiyama Roshi. And that lineage of Uchiyama Roshi and Okamura Roshi, and if you go back, teachers and teachers and teachers, it's not exactly the same as Suzuki Roshi lineage that we have.

[02:15]

We're here, where everyone here is in the Suzuki Roshi lineage, the teachers. But it's related. They're both all part of the Soto family and even more closely related than that. Not exactly brother and sister, but maybe like cousins. And Okamura Rashi has been here. Many of you know him. He lived here for a while and is quite a wonderful teacher. And he is an expert Dogen, the Zen master who lived in the 13th century in Japan, who was the founder of the lineages that eventually resulted in Uchiyama Roshi and Okamura Roshi and Suzuki Roshi and Zen Center.

[03:16]

So he's an expert on Dogen, and this study retreat was to study a work of Dogen's, a lesser known work of Dogen's. In Japanese, it's called Shoho Jiso. And he translated it as the true reality of all being. Sho is all, many, various. Ho, dharmas, things, people and things, beings. G is true, actual, authentic. And so is form or existence or reality. So the title of this work of Dogen's is the authentic form, the authentic reality, the genuine reality.

[04:26]

of all things. Or the true reality of all beings. So the true reality of all beings is just one true reality of all beings. But as a way to understand it, we speak about it. as though there are two. There's our limited nature, our limited being, our limited existence and there's unlimited existence. There's what we can conceive of And there's the inconceivable.

[05:27]

And these two things match up all the time in each moment. So this is a stick, right? That's a noise, two noises. That's our limited life, our conceptual life. And as you may have heard before, you know, if we look at this stick and recognize, well, what is this stick? What is it composed of? water that I just drank.

[06:30]

When does it become me and when is it water? No one knows the answer to that question. So we look at this stick and then we think about, well, who carved the stick? Without the carver, no stick. Without the tree, no stick. Without the person who cut down the tree, no stick. Without the person who cut down the tree's mother, no stick. Without the person who cut down the tree's mother, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, no stick. This is the inconceivable nature of all being. This is the inconceivable nature of everything that occurs right now. It occurs right now, but its causes are infinite. If you look around and look in, you see that it's completely infinite. That we're riding the crest.

[07:32]

We're surfing the crest of infinite causation always. This is a way of talking about inconceivable nature. And also we can say, well, it's a stick, but, you know, what is it made out of? It's made out of atoms. And what are the atoms made out of? Protons and neutrons and neutrinos and... up and down quarks and what are quarks made out of strings? Turns out everything's made out of strings. Isn't that something that would be surprising? Sort of. Nobody knows, right? Is it a particle or is it a wave? No one knows. It's a particle and a wave, but you can't have a particle and a wave at the same time. It's a complete mystery. At the same time, we have our conceptual idea. This is a stick.

[08:32]

Ouch. Even though it's inconceivable, if I hit myself with a stick, it hurts. Inconceivable pain. This is the nature of things. This is the true nature, the true reality of all existence. Simultaneous. Limited. and unlimited. Simultaneous, contradictory, paradoxical, limited and unlimited. So, then we can say, so what? You know, nice idea, but how does it help that baby? The main way or a main way or a very significant primary powerful way that it helps to understand the true reality of all beings in this way is that it loosens us up.

[09:58]

It loosens up our grasping ideas. It loosens, it helps us get, it crowbars us a little bit from our stuck ideas. And the more we get with it and the more we imbibe it and deeply understand it and allow it to penetrate not just our thinking but our feeling. nervous system and our blood, then we become more and more flexible. So I was thinking, well, this is rather modest. This is a rather modest thing. Well, you become more flexible. It's a little less stuck.

[11:06]

compared to fancy things like Anyuttara, Samyak, Sambodhi, complete and perfect enlightenment, getting a little less stuck is, you know, big deal. But I think it's a big deal because this is the source. of suffering that we can do something about. Our stuck ideas is the source of that suffering. So whether the stuck ideas is some psychological idea, like I'm a terrible person, no one could possibly care about me, stupid, some stuck idea that we have about ourself, psychological, you know.

[12:20]

If we can loosen that up and recognize this ain't necessarily so, not always so. This is deeply helpful. Then if we take it to a residence meeting, what happens in a residence meeting? People have hangups. What are hangups? It's where we're stuck. We're stuck in some way. We get stuck, snagged. Instead of flowing with things, instead of realizing the essence and embracing the 10,000 things, Instead of doing that, we get stuck somewhere. In a residence meeting or at the UN, right? Same thing. In our cultural and social and political life, the most... I would offer, this is my opinion, you may have a different idea, but I would offer that perhaps the most vicious...

[13:37]

destructive actions come from this kind of idea. Not from this kind of idea, from a stuck idea. A very popular one these days is, I'm right and you're wrong. This religion that I have is good. The religion that you have, you're going to go to hell. This is a very popular stuck idea that causes stupid, terrible suffering. So loosening this up, leavening this, softening this. is our practice. And if we can do it at the UN, good.

[14:51]

If we can do it in Columbia, South America, good. If we can do it in the Columbia, South America of my own mind, good. Anywhere we can do it, it's good to do. So that's Sho Ho Ji So, the true reality of all being and some of the implications of that. There's a passage in Sho Ho Ji So that I wanted to recite to you and talk about. So just two notes before I say this passage. So this is from The True Reality of All Being, Shou Ho Jisou, written by Dogen in 1240 or something like that, in the first part of the 13th century.

[16:00]

Then right at the beginning of this passage that I'm about to recite, he refers to another Zen master, Shui Feng, who lived about 500 years before that. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is that English is a little bit odd. And that's because Shohaku Okamura, who did the translation, he said he didn't have much time before the study retreat to do it. He only had a couple of weeks. So he did a kind of rough translation of it that... of adhere to the word-for-word character by character Chinese, but doesn't sound necessarily so smooth in English. But sometimes I find that that's actually more vital kind of translation than the more polished one. Anyway, you'll see what I mean. So it goes like this. Shui Feng said, the entire great earth is the gate

[17:05]

liberation. But people are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged. Then Dogen goes on to say, therefore we should understand that even though the entire earth and the entire world is the gate It isn't easy to exit or to enter. There aren't many who have exited or entered. Even when they are dragged, they do not enter, they do not exit. When they are not dragged, they do not enter, they do not exit. Just a little bit more.

[18:08]

Those who try to take forward steps and enter will make mistakes. Those who try to take backward steps will stagnate. What can we do? When grabbing the people, and trying to make them getting in and getting out of the gate, they are getting far and far. When grabbing the gate and putting it into the people, then there is the possibility of entering and exiting. Wei Feng said, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, but people are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged.

[19:15]

Therefore, we should know that even though the entire earth and the entire world is the gate, it isn't easy to enter or to exit. There aren't many who have exited or entered. Even when they are dragged, they do not enter, they do not exit. When they are not dragged, They do not enter, they do not exit. Those who take forward steps and enter will make mistakes. Those who take backward steps, taking the backward step, will stagnate. What can we do? When grabbing the people and trying to make them getting in and getting out of the gate, they are getting far and far.

[20:21]

When grabbing the gate and putting it into the people, then there is the possibility of entering and exiting. So what I'd like to speak about is what does it mean The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. What does that mean? And secondly, the part that attracted me actually to the passage the most is what comes next. But people are not willing to enter even... Even when they are dragged, you know. I think we need a little noun or pronoun adjustment, you know. Not people, not they. I would offer we as an alternative pronoun.

[21:26]

I, even when we are dragged up to the gate, come on, get through that gate. No, no thanks. I'm busy. Can't do it now. I have important people to see and things to do. Talk to me some other time. Even when we are dragged, we're not willing to enter. What I appreciate about Dogen, and about our practice in general, is that rather than spend a lot of time, as we sometimes do, condemning ourselves for not entering, reprimanding ourselves for not entering, fantasizing about how someone else is entering because they're a lot better than me, but I can't enter because I'm a bum.

[22:40]

Rather than doing that, It's like from beginningless beginning, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, but we are not willing to enter it even when we are dragged. Let's face it like that. Then what do we do? What do we do about that? Then what? Given that that's the case. Once we've improved our personality a great deal and start to be willing to enter, then we don't have to worry about it. But until then, then what? And in these last five lines of the passage I just recited, I feel like Dogen gives us some clues as to then what? Then what do we do when we refuse to enter? Those who take forward steps and enter will make mistakes.

[23:48]

Those who take backward steps will stagnate. What can we do? Though that looks like a question, it's actually an answer. When grabbing the people and trying to make them, getting in and getting out of the gate, When grabbing ourselves and trying to coerce ourselves through the gate of liberation, we just go further and further away from it. On the other hand, if we can get the gate and fit it around us, grab the gate and put it into the people, then there's the possibility of entering and exiting. The entire great earth is the gate of liberation.

[24:54]

Last night, I was here with many of you to celebrate Paul Hallers, the co-abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, his 60th birthday. And it was a lot of fun, actually. Great singing and... Rounds and various other things. So I was going to ask his permission, but he's not here. So I'm going to assume that it's OK for me to talk about Paul Haller. Paul Haller was born 60 years ago. That's why we had a celebration last night. So he was born. I actually don't know if his birthday was yesterday. Thank you. The 26th. 60 years ago, on the 26th of, thank you, June, Paul Howard was born somewhere in Ireland.

[26:06]

On the 26th of June, at a particular minute, he was born. I was born on St. Patrick's Day. There's a little resonance there, even though I'm not Irish. My background is Jewish. I was born at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital on March 17, 1947. Being 60 is popular around Zen Center these days. A lot of people are 60. Anyway, he was born at a particular minute on a particular day 60 years ago. He wasn't born the next day. He wasn't born the day before that. He was born that day. Another feature of Paul Haller is his height. And I was going to ask him this morning, but I didn't see him, how tall he is. Does anyone know how tall Paul Haller is? Six feet?

[27:11]

Six feet two inches? He's about six feet two inches. Well, let's say he's 6 feet 2 inches, okay? He's not 6 feet 10 inches. He's not 19 feet. He's not 1 foot. He's a particular height. Born on a particular day. Now, this is not just characteristic of Paul Haller, right? This is all of us. It's extremely exact. The nature of the limited world is extremely precise. It was in a precise house that he was born. He wasn't born two blocks away. If you had gone there and went two blocks away, you would not have seen him being born. He was born in an exact place at an exact time. This is the nature of limited reality. This is the nature of karmic reality.

[28:13]

This is the way karma works. It's exact, very, very, very, very precise. If we could, we could probably count the number of molecules in this room. It is a precise number. This is karmic life. This is our limited life, our limited mind, our karmic mind. The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. The liberation is First of all, liberating from karmic limited to unlimited. To realizing, deeply realizing, deeply recognizing that even though what I just said is true, it's completely not true. There is no 60 years old, there is no Paul Heller, there is no 5 foot 17, 15 inches, there is no nothing.

[29:16]

All of that's just stuff we make up. It just came up, right? Due to infinite causation, my eye object and eye consciousness and ear and so on and so forth. We just create all this stuff called Paul Hallers and Steve Weintraub's in March 17th and Six Feets. We just create all of it. It just comes right up like that. More or less out of nowhere. And it keeps going on like that. That's the unlimited side. That's the inconceivable. Tom Cleary wrote a book many years ago called Entering the Inconceivable. This is entering the inconceivable. The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. The entire earth is how we enter this inconceivable world. So the first liberation...

[30:19]

is from conception to beyond conception. The second liberation, there isn't really two liberations, but the second liberation is when you flow freely back and forth from one to the other, from the conceivable to the inconceivable. When you recognize or able to, you know, like that baby did not need inconceivable help, That baby needed conceivable help, like milk from his or her mom, or to change the diaper or something like that. So we have to be able to completely be, in the karmic world, completely, totally limited to the very specific 10 fingers, not 12, not 19, not 2, 10 of them. That's it. That's our limitation. We're completely in the limited world and we're completely in the unlimited world at the same time.

[31:23]

Now, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. The reason he said that is because the only way to get to the unlimited world is by the limited world. There is no unlimited world other than that other than, I don't know how to say it, other than, other than the limited world. It doesn't make any sense. There isn't any place called the unlimited world, you know, called Nirvana or something like that. There isn't any such place. There's only karmic life. And in karmic life is the gate to non-karmic life. There isn't any other gate. getting excited about this. It's really terrific stuff.

[32:33]

That's why the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. Each experience, each moment, each each thought, each feeling, is the gate, is the karmic thing that is the gate to freedom from itself. So this that I'm talking about the corollary of is that we have the opportunity in our karmic life to

[33:51]

The words don't really work so well, but metaphorically perhaps we could say to pierce our karmic life and enter non-karmic life. I don't mean go somewhere else. Just simultaneous realization. Like that. The corollary of that is, in Suzuki Rishi's expression, nothing special. The corollary is that there's no special place to go to. There's no special thought to have. There's no special experience to have called complete perfect enlightenment. There's no special place to go called nirvana. This is as much nirvana as we're going to get.

[34:57]

Here it is. Doesn't look like so great, but this is it, you know? This is as much enlightenment as we're going to get right now. There ain't gonna be no more. This is it. So, in accord with this, teaching in a sashin many years ago. A sashin is where you sit in this cross-legged way for many, many hours a day for too many days in a row. Sometimes seven, sometimes ten, sometimes five, so on. So this was a sashin. Suzuki Roshi was leading this sashin. This is a story, not my own story. This is a story from Ed Brown. You may have heard. And Suzuki Rishi was leading a sishin. Maybe it was here. Maybe it was in the base, the zendo.

[36:00]

When we first moved here, the zendo was the rec room. It had a pool table and interior awnings over the windows, red and white striped interior awnings, which we took down. And painted everything black. We didn't do that, but anyway. It used to be linoleum. Before the wood floor, it was linoleum. Anyway, maybe it was a seshin here, or a tasahara. Anyway, in the midst of seshin, you know, around about the third or fourth day, after you've been sitting many, many, many hours, having a very difficult time, mostly, Suzuki Rishi said, in the midst of zazen, just kind of out of the blue, He began and said, the problems you are now experiencing. And he paused. And Ed related, relates, that what he thought Tzuzuki Rishi was going to say was, you know, something profound and zen, you know, like the problems you are now experiencing are like clouds in an endless sky.

[37:19]

Yeah. the problems you are now experiencing are mere figments of your karmic imagination and when you attain unsurpassed perfect enlightenment they will seem as nothing to you. Something like that. He was expecting Suzuki Roshi to say something along the lines of you know, no pain, no gain. Along the lines of You know, this is really difficult what you're doing, but your effort is really worthwhile because you're really going to get something terrific at the end of it. It's a capitalist metaphor. Your return on investment is going to be great. You're putting a lot into this. You're really sweating. You're really having trouble. But man, you're just going to be reaping benefits from this.

[38:22]

So probably not surprising at this point, I could say Suzuki Rishi did not say that. What he said was, the problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. What a thing to say. The problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. What about the third noble truth? What about the end of suffering? Where did that get left out? You know? You know, not only that, but... But, you know... Okay.

[39:24]

I won't end all suffering. But the problems I'm now experiencing. We don't like the problems that we're now experiencing. We want better problems. I want better problems than the problems I'm now experiencing. spiritual problems, you know, elevated problems. I want problems that will indicate the depth of my understanding. The problems that people can look at and say, wow, those are really fabulous problems. I wish I had problems like that. The great matter of life and death, so on and so forth. Not the problems I have now, which is that

[40:26]

I'm in turmoil. I hate being here. I want to get the hell out of here. I'm ashamed that I want to get the hell out of here. Not problems like jealousy, anger, envy. Those are not good ones to have. Those shouldn't continue for the rest of my life. I want better ones. He said that because, he said, the problems you have now will continue, the problems you are experiencing now will continue for the rest of your life because the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. Including our not so great problems. Including our, oh thanks so much. Including our junky problems, like being thirsty, you know.

[41:28]

You shouldn't have to drink so much water. Anyway, I did think of an instance recently that I thought exemplified the kind of problems we don't want to have. So not last week, but the week before, my wife, Linda, and I went on a vacation. And we went on a bicycle. We were biking around, bicycling around in the Napa Valley and also along the coast on Highway 1. So we were biking around and we stopped at Point Reyes Station at a delicatessen. Linda said, oh, let's get some ice cream there. I said, oh, good idea. Let's stop and get some ice cream. So she went in and got some ice cream, and I was outside watching the bikes.

[42:33]

And there was kind of one of those plastic picnic benches, you know, with seating on both sides. And I went over to one, and there was a young man sitting over there. I think he was on the phone. So I kind of signaled, you know, is it okay for me to sit down here, kind of. He didn't really respond to that, but I sat down. Then I realized, oh, well, when Linda comes, I have to get it. So I went and got a chair for her. I took off my helmet, put it down. I went and got a chair for her. And when I got back, the young man had gotten off the phone. And he said, I don't really appreciate having to smell your sweaty helmet. Wow. I didn't think my helmet was really that close.

[43:42]

But anyway, he said, I don't really appreciate having to smell your sweaty helmet. And I said, oh, sorry. I picked up the helmet and went somewhere else. We had our ice cream somewhere else. Anyway, later, a few hours later, we were cycling along Highway 1 north of Point Reyes Station. That's where we had stopped, Point Reyes Station. And actually, that's about as close to nirvana as you can get. You know, the Pacific Ocean, trees, cycling, you know. I have to show you this. When I cycle, when I'm going downhill sometimes, I let go of the handlebars and I go like this. It feels great. Anyway, so we're cycling along Highway 1.

[44:44]

However, I was not noticing the Pacific Ocean, the trees, and I wasn't doing hand gestures. What I was involved in, I was deeply involved in revenge fantasies. Having to do with this person. I thought of some really good things to say in response to. I don't really appreciate having to smell your sweaty elbow. I thought it's a really fantastic things, you know. But the things that I thought of were really very, they were primitive. Adolescent, you know. Male. Male. Fantasies, you know?

[45:44]

Things that would show him who's boss, you know? Me, not him. Even though he was younger and stronger. I don't know if I actually fantasized having a fist fight. Oh, I did think, I didn't fantasize having a fist fight with him, but I wished I had studied karate like the old guy in the karate kid, you know? So I could have said, oh yeah, well, da-da-da-da-da. And then if he would have done anything, I would have just... Taking care of them, you know? Without breaking a sweat. So anyway, these are the kind of problems that I don't want to have, you know? I mean, you know, here I've been practicing Zen for decades, you know? And I'm involved in adolescent revenge fantasies, you know? Okay, now, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, but people are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged.

[46:58]

Now, the other thing that happened that day is that I was visited by Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva Kuan Yin is the hearer of the cries of the world. She is... She is the bodhisattva of compassion and she appeared, she has a thousand arms and appears in manifold form. That day she appeared as a bodhisattva called. I don't really appreciate smelling your sweaty helmet. Bodhisattva. As that Bodhisattva she was dragging me to the gate of liberation.

[48:05]

The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. So I don't appreciate smelling your sweaty helmet Bodhisattva was urging me through that gate. But I wasn't willing to enter. I wanted to stay with my primitive adolescent revenge fantasies. No thanks. No liberation for me today. So I failed to enter the gate. I'll just say a couple more things. I failed to enter the gate, but it's okay that I failed.

[49:31]

two reasons. One is we need a source of inspiration and a source of motivation deeper and truer than success. Success is terrific, you know, and it's a very strong motivator. It really works well, you know, and we really love it. And we're successful. But it's not trustworthy. It's not stable. So in this connection, I think of Nelson Mandela. As we all know, Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years and then was released. and then became president of South Africa.

[50:40]

It's a wonderful story in hindsight. I said to somebody the other day, it's a wonderful story. They should make a movie out of it. And he said, well, they already are. And Morgan Freeman is going to be Nelson Mandela. So anyway. Oh, so he was in jail for 27 years. And now we can say, Oh yeah, but he was successful because he was released and then he became president of South Africa and so on. But of course, 27 years is thousands and thousands of days. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of hours. And of course, during all of that thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of hours, he didn't know. He didn't know. Oh yeah, after 27 years is when I'm going to be released. Now I've done 10. I've only got 13 more to go.

[51:43]

He didn't know that. In fact, he could have been prey to discouragement and perhaps was, likely was. But there's something other than success that he was depending on, I would wager. And that's very good for us to know about. To have something solid that doesn't depend on success. Something that's going to be there when we fail. When we fail, [...] and then at the end of all of that failing, then our Our heart fails and our brain fails and our nervous system fails and all of our organs fail and that's called dying.

[52:44]

And we die. And there ain't no way that we're going to be successful there. So my failure is good practice. for all of the many, many failures that I'm in store for, that are in store for me. That's first of all. Second of all, I failed to enter the gate of liberation. The entire great earth is the gate. I failed to enter the gate of liberation, but failing to enter the gate of liberation is a gate of liberation. You can't actually escape the gates. The gates are everywhere.

[53:49]

Failing to enter the gate of liberation is another gate, right there, right then, right now. That is a gate of liberation. Just like the one that I just failed to enter. Well, circumstances are slightly different, but basically it's the same idea. I think I will stop talking in a minute. And I don't have any particular concluding words.

[54:58]

So anyway, I've enjoyed speaking with you and exploring. Wonderful teaching. Shui Feng's wonderful teaching, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, as explicated by Dogen, as explicated by Shohaku Okamura.

[55:24]

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