So we are studying then the law. Is it on. It's the replay. No. Hello? No?

[01:10]

No? Nothing? No? Okay. Okay. The most important piece of a Dharma talk. The microphone. Hello? No? Uh-oh. Okay. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay. If my voice fades, just signal and I'll bring up the volume. And please pardon me because I came down with a head cold last night. So that's happening right now. So I might be needing to blow my nose throughout this dharma talk. So we're studying bendowa during this practice period.

[02:17]

One translation is the wholehearted, talk on the wholehearted practice of the way. And as I was preparing for this talk, which is probably a big mistake, I don't think I understand Dogen at all. And I'm helped by that, by this continuous message that I've heard from very eminent teachers that say Dogen is so difficult.

[03:25]

Dogen is so difficult to understand. So with that kind of encouragement, you can imagine. What I did say on Monday was that the way that I'm able to enter, into Dogen's teachings is attempting to connect with this young man who had so much fervor for finding the truth. There's something about that that touches me very deeply. So when Dogen Senji wrote Bendawa, I believe the date is 1231. So he was in 31 or 30 or 31 himself. And he had come back from China.

[04:29]

And I try to imagine here's this young man from an aristocratic background. who became a monk at the age of 13, I believe, who had his first inkling of impermanence by watching the incense drop at his mother's funeral, I believe at the age of seven. And he had searched in his own home, in his own country, in Japan, for his key answer that just was driving him. And he couldn't find it there. So he made this hazardous trip with his teacher Mio Zen and went to China looking for an answer, looking for an answer. And that experience of Master Dogen arises for me this notion of wholeheartedness.

[05:39]

He threw himself completely into searching for an answer to his question. the utmost important question in his life. So in his opus, his great writing, the Shobogenzo, Bendawa is seen as the first chapter. And it's full of this zeal of I found the answer. I know what the answer is. And let me tell you about it. Because you need to do it. Now imagine in our own culture and in our modern time, imagine if one of us finds an answer and we go about telling people, we got the answer.

[06:41]

I know what it is. Let me tell you and you have to do it. I don't think they would have called us enlightened or Master Dogen or Master whatever our name is. He was confident. He was confident. So in expressing himself at this young age, there's this raw energy that he brings to what he has encountered. There's an engagement that he brings in the text. When you read the text, actually, the actual text is rather short. And then there are 18 questions, which some people say, you know, he might have written him himself. He was so confident that he wrote the question and then he gave the answer, right? As a way, as a way to talk about, you know, what he wanted to put across. So there was engagement, there was raw energy, and he left no room for doubt.

[07:50]

So there's confidence and there's certainty. There's immediacy. There's ritual. And there was an intimacy with what he found. So that's what I want to focus in this. remarks this evening is about this whole notion of the intimacy that is required to practice wholeheartedly. So as students of the text, we need to understand the context of where this text arose. As a way to enter that door of becoming intimate with what it is that we are studying, what we're receiving, the teachings that we're receiving. This is a text that was written in the mid-1200s.

[08:58]

And it's important to place it in its cultural and historical environment. So it's very long, long, long, long time ago. What was happening in this land that we call America in the 1200s? So it's very long. And I was struck with that notion of longevity and history when Huitzu Suzuki Roshi opened his talk on Saturday. And if I remember correctly, he said that Rinsoen has been there for over 500 years. You know, the temple where Suzuki Roshi came from, over 500 years. And they've had 37 abbots.

[09:59]

So that notion of long time, long time. How do we enter that? How do we enter that? something that has come to us through the ages. And his confidence, I mean, I get very tickled by this young man because his confidence was such that when he finished the text and he signed off, he concludes with locating the work in time. And he says, at least according to the translation of Okamura and Leighton, It says, the third year of the Kanji period, 1231, on the mid-autumn day, written by Shaman Dogen, who went to China and who transmits the Dharma. No doubt. No doubt.

[11:05]

In the footnotes, you'll find that mid-autumn day refers to full moon day. Soon we will have a full moon. The moon is almost full. And Shaman is the Sanskrit for Shramana, which means a mendicant practitioner or a monk. So he very much saw himself as a monk, yet he was transmitting the Dharma. No question about that. So I ask you, how many of you have that confidence? How many of you have the confidence that with what you know so far, you're able to transmit it? A friend who is a Zen priest in the lineage of Mausumi Roshi and Roshi Bernie Glassman once said to me that Roshi Glassman says that we teach what we know.

[12:08]

I guess he's going to give a talk and wasn't sure if she could do this. He said, we teach what we know. And today during tea in our small groups, our invitation was to pair up. for two minutes in a dayat, in twos, and to teach each other zazen in two minutes. I don't know about the other groups, but the group that I was in was quite beautiful. The wisdom that arose in those four minutes. Confidence, immediacy, ritual, intimacy, ingredients. of wholehearted practice. So at this point, when Master Dogen is writing Bendawa, I read in a commentary that he was at the beginning of his career. And I kind of chuckle at that sentence because I never thought of Dogen Senji, like he had a career, but he did.

[13:15]

So it was at the beginning of his career. And this is what he's talking about. I went to this place. This is my paraphrase. I went to this place seeking. I found what I was looking for. And let me tell you about it. Let me tell you about it. So we must understand the context in which we're moving at all times and with what we're engaging in and with what we're engaging.

[14:19]

It's important to understand that context. The time, the history, the human beings that were there. It must be understood in order to intimately enter the teachings. So there is a quote I'd like to share from the text. It's on page 23, where he says, For all ancestors and Buddhas who have been dwelling in and maintaining Buddha Dharma, practicing upright, sitting in Jiju, Samai, is the true path for opening up enlightenment. Both in India and in China, Those who have attained enlightenment have followed this way. This is because each teacher and each disciple has been intimately and correctly transmitting this subtle method and receiving and maintaining its true spirit.

[15:30]

Intimately and correctly transmitting and receiving its true spirit. How do we receive true spirit? How do we receive true spirit when it's offered to us? Often the offering of a true spirit that's being transmitted to us could be unfamiliar, could seem unfamiliar, could feel unfamiliar, could be even a little scary, a little challenging. Yet how do we receive it? So in my limited understanding, in my experience, what I'm seeing is in my own practice that I cannot engage in wholehearted practice without a complete commitment to cultivating intimacy.

[16:57]

and to cultivating and not knowing mind. And that this cultivation of not knowing mind and of complete intimacy begins with this being here, right here. And does not begin with that other that we perceive in the relative reality. I found myself engaging with this question as I was remembering Simwala Schultz's Wayseeking Mind Talk of last Thursday morning here in this Buddha Hall.

[18:05]

There was a sense in how I heard your story, heard Simwala's story, That there was intimacy and an immediacy to sharing her story. The story of her mother and her father and her second father. The teachings received. True spirit being transmitted. I went away and it was still with me up until today, the image of Simuala's father already ill with tuberculosis who was staying at the VA hospital and would come home and then go back to the hospital.

[19:12]

And in one of those visits home, He and Simwala's mother made love and Simwala chose to enter the planet. Intimacy, immediacy in the content of the story and in the sharing of the story. I just sort of wanted to imagine this woman welcoming this man who was already ill with perhaps wide open arms. Yet what I also experienced

[20:19]

during the sharing of the Waisiki Mind Talk was there was a shift that happened here in the Buddha Hall, at least for me, of watching it, that from the intimacy of the sharing of one person's life story, it shifted to questioning the person about who they are in the body that they're presently inhabiting. And being asked for help. It was subtle. Perhaps not intended. Yet something happened. At least for me. So questions came. Questions came. Yet how often in asking the questions, we move away from true spirit.

[21:20]

So how do we address the questions within ourselves rather than addressing our questions at the other? And I don't know about you, but for me, when I engage in asking questions, it's a way to soothe my discomfort, my sense of not knowing or my scare of the unfamiliarity of what's in front. So some of the questions began to focus on race and racism and I was struck and wondered how many speakers who are white when sharing about their life are asked about race and whiteness in the sharing of their life story. So the subtleties of connecting with what's right in front of us.

[22:34]

Of not being too concerned with this little small self that is trying to make a good impression or want to be a better person. But just throwing ourselves in the ocean of Buddha. with full raw vigor and enthusiasm. And like Dogen Senji, yes, I have an answer to what I was looking for. Let me tell you about it. Focus, self-focus. So Dogen went to the source, to the source. And another passage of his life that is very moving to me, and it's another doorway of where I enter into Dogen's teaching and his life, is with the immediacy and intimacy that he surrendered to Master Nyojo. Tendo Nyojo.

[23:45]

And I like to read that portion of that's in the Transmission of Light, the translation. of Zen Master Keizan's Denko Roku by Francis Dojun Kuk. And it's a passage where it says, this is Dogen writing a letter. So imagine, imagine, we've all come to Zen Center and we come here and we started with Zazen instruction and we see a teacher and all of a sudden we're struck by that teacher. And we want to get close. So we decided to write a letter to that teacher to let him know of our intention. And Dogen said, since youth, I have aroused the thought of enlightenment. No question. Not like, I think I want to practice. I come here and I just sort of want to check it out.

[24:51]

No, no. Since youth, I have aroused the thought of enlightenment. Though I sought the way from various masters in my own country and knew a little about the principle of cause and effect. He did acknowledge that he knew a little bit of something. I still did not know the real goal of the Buddha Dharma. I was occupied with its names and forms. Finally, I was instructed by Zen master Senko. Esai, Esai, how do you pronounce it? And learned about Rinzai teachings for the first time. Now I have followed Dharma Master Miosen to China and have been able to come here where you teach. So here he is. Here I am showing up. I'm in your temple. I'm in your monastery. He continues. It is good fortune resulting from conditions in past lives. So he's very certain about that. I've gotten here because there's been some good conditions in past lives.

[25:54]

I, an insignificant person from a distant land, ask you in your great compassion to allow me to come often to your quarters to respectfully ask about the essentials of the Dharma. Regardless of whether it's day or night or how I am dressed, in your great compassion, please hear my request and grant it. So here's this young person having met this teacher. Saying, I'm here. I want to come. Can you let me? Can you let me? I'm knocking at your door. I'm surrendering. For me, that's very moving. Just that. That letter. Yet, then this is what his teacher said. Then Master Ryujin said, Disciple Dogen, from now on, regardless of whether you're wearing your Kesa robe, Or whether it is day or night, you may question me.

[26:58]

I will overlook the absence of ceremony as we were father and son. As if we were father and son, or mother or daughter, or parent or child. Complete meeting, complete surrendering, complete intimacy and immediacy. All of this happens within ritual. There is ritual. And our ritual that we share that is so rich, it's zazen. It's zazen. So can we allow us entering zazen to be the fertile grounds where the seeds of intimacy

[28:05]

and immediacy and deep confidence arise. Can we forget the small self and enter completely into surrendering? So in closing, I like to read a poem. In the spirit of ritual, in that spirit of not knowing, and in the spirit of wholeheartedly wanting to touch each other. And the poem is by William Stafford.

[29:10]

From the darkness around us is deep. And it's called a ritual to read to each other. If you don't know the kind of person I am. And I don't know the kind of person you are. A pattern that others made may prevail in the world. And following the wrong God home, we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind. A shrug that lets the fragile sequence break. Sending with shouts. the horrible errors of childhood, storming out to play through the broken dike.

[30:15]

And as elephants parade, holding each elephant's tail. But if one wonders, the circus won't find the park. I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk. Though we could fool each other, we should consider. Least the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep. The signals we give, yes or no or maybe, should be clear.

[31:24]

The darkness around us is deep. Is there anything anyone would like to bring up? You feel like you got three more years.

[32:39]

And what happens? That's what happens. Yes, I see it. right where it is right now. Nothing to say. Actually there is something. Don't hold to that comparing mind. It'll get in the way. Enjoy your 27 years. My story was that it was such a good .

[34:05]

I was wondering What I'll say is the interpretation that he was confident, you know, and that's my interpretation. So you probably see more of my condition patterns than anything else. I like to believe that he was confident since I wear these robes and I follow what he said. And I do hear that it could be a contradiction to Roshi's statement of beginner's mind. Although there are passages in the text where he talks about he himself doesn't know. So there was something that he found and he fervently wanted to teach that.

[35:13]

I'm struck by the fact that he had a deep experience as a feminist. Then his father died also while he was still young.

[36:36]

He was an orphan quite early. Before his mother. So that might be a helpful discussion for one of our T's to see if we can identify when we had our first taste of impermanence. Yes. Remind me your name. I don't think there's fundamentally any difference. That was that time.

[37:38]

This is this time. My sense is where I'm coming from with that is that, particularly in the West, There seems to be Western culture, there seems to be this immediacy that everything begins here now. When I was growing up in New York City, someone from upstate New York said to me, yeah, people who grew up in Manhattan thinks there's nothing west of the Hudson River. So it's like our location becomes very focused. In my experience, it's important to open ourselves to the context around the times that we're in. I had just a rose that I'll share.

[38:44]

I didn't plan on saying this. It's that my first experience of realizing that everything didn't just begin in 1492, as I was taught. I traveled to Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1983, when it was still the Cold War and the so-called Iron Curtain. And I was walking through the Jewish section of the city and there was a Jewish cemetery. And the friend that was hosting me, I went to Munich and then she invited me to come to, let's drive to Prague. So we drove from Munich to Prague. And she said, most people from the United States, when they visit Europe, they always go to like London or Rome or Paris. Very few people think of Europe, you know, beyond that. So we went to Prague and she thought that it'd be, I would find it of interest to go to this section.

[39:47]

And in this Jewish cemetery, there were tombstones that people died, like in the... And I remember walking through there and just stopped in my tracks like, my God, people died in the 1200s. It's like the 1200s. It's like, wait a minute, so-called America was discovered in 1492. And there was a whole civilization. I was 30 years old. So that for me became a very central theme of my life to be very, at least, try to be aware what is the context, what is the time, who was there before me and who might come after me. So he was writing in his time and his practice was within his time. And it's up to us now to do the practice in our time. Yes.

[40:55]

What is your name, please? Mm-hmm.

[42:01]

What is it to arrive authentically at a yes, no, or maybe? I love the word authentic. There's something about it. What arises to respond to you is that we cannot think our way through that. The question is a very rich question. to sit with, how to arrive, say it again, say it again. Authentically at a yes, no, or maybe. Or perhaps more so how to be authentic with yes, no, maybe. It's a very rich question to sit with. If we start thinking our way on how to do it, we've lost the mark. not know how to be authentic.

[43:32]

It's authentic. To me, I don't know really what intimacy is. I think that's why I talk about it so much. I don't think I have a clue of what it is, but I have a wholehearted desire to experience it before I die. The closest thing might be... This is what just rose as an example of the closest I've come to feel, oh, this is really intimate. I parented a child the first three years of his life.

[44:37]

He's now going to be 18 years old. I stopped seeing him when he was three, and he's not in my life. I remember when I became partners with his mother when she became pregnant with him, and I decided to partner to be a parent. So I knew her before he was there. And then nine months later, there he was. And I remember distinctly when he came out of her, he was born in the bathtub, that I immediately knew that I love this being. And it wasn't a thought or an intellectual understanding. I felt it in my almost DNA. And that's for me is the closest that for the first and only time in my life so far, I was able to experience when there was an absence of love and there was the beginning of love.

[45:47]

And that feeling there, you know, for me has a little bit of flavoring that could be in the realm of intimacy. How I was with him in those three years. Imagine each other in diapers. Thank you very much.

[46:35]

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