So, welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Any of you, it's your first time here in particular? Welcome, welcome. My name is Greg Fane. I'm very happy to be here and talk this morning. And I'd like to begin by... acknowledging and thanking my teacher, Sojin Roshi, Mel Weizmann, former abbot and senior Dharma teacher of these temples, still abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. And I'd like to say that although I'm very happy to be speaking this morning, it's a little sad the circumstances under which I'm speaking is because it was supposed to be scheduled Reverend Hilda Gutierrez-Baldukin, Lyuman, who is co-leading the current practice period with Zenke Roshi.

[01:08]

And she unfortunately couldn't speak this morning because she had to go to a funeral of her aunt with whom she was very close. And so that's sad. And just, you know, life is constantly... giving us reminders of the frailty and fleeting nature of this human existence. So in the current practice period that Senki Roshi and Ryuman are leading with the able assistance of Shuso, Marsha Angus, They're studying Bendowa, a fascicle of Dogen Zenji. Now, if this is your first time here, you'll probably hear a little bit about Dogen Zenji from time to time, or all the time.

[02:11]

Anyway, he was the founder of this school of Zen in Japan. He brought the Soto School from China to Japan. And I'm probably going to repeat just a little bit of what has probably already been said in Blanche's classes. So for those of you in the practice period, I apologize, but just a little. So, bendo wa, generally translated as a wholehearted practice of the way. In many versions of the shobo genzo, a collection of Dogen's writings. It's the first fascicle, and Dogen wrote it shortly after he came back to Japan from China in the year 1231 of the Common Era. So, there's three characters.

[03:12]

Ben means effort. Do means Dao, the truth, or the way. In this case, it's It's short for Butsudo or Budawei. And Wa means a talk or a story. So it's a story, a talk about putting effort into practice of the way. Something like that. Meshi's Nishijima and Cross, who did a translation of the Shobo Genzo, the only complete translation we had so far, they translated as... a talk about pursuing the truth. But we are more familiar with it as a wholehearted practice of the way due to this book that was published in 97, which is a translation of Dogen's Bendowa and translation of Uchiyama Roshi's commentaries on Bendowa.

[04:22]

So this book is kind of dear to my heart because there was a sesheen in Tassahara, a special sesheen that Blanche arranged when she was leading practice period in Tassahara in fall of 98 to sort of celebrate the publication of this book. And she invited seven, well, including herself, were seven Soto Zen teachers from different schools, temples around the country, different lineages, but all Soto Zen. And each gave a talk on Bendawa each successive day. And it was a tokubesu sesshin, a special sesshin. So they invited other people from outside the practice period.

[05:26]

Besides the teachers, some other people were allowed to come along. Some people were invited. It was sponsored by the Soto Education Society here in San Francisco, which Shohaku Okamura, at that time, one of the code translators of this book, was very active in that. So somehow, I got invited. And the story of that is pretty strange. At the time, I was living in East Oakland in a big, converted, one of those industrial spaces, and I made a little zendo in my space so I could sit, because I couldn't always make it to Berkeley Zen Center. And I had just For a little while, I had been connected to the internet with my computer, and I saw, wow, it's pretty easy, I can make a webpage.

[06:27]

So I did, you know, 97, 98. I put a webpage up inviting people to come and sit with me if they wanted to in my little Zendo. You know, it didn't make a thing out of it. I also liked putting myself out there as a teacher or anything. No way. But putting a webpage up has a lot of consequences. as I discovered. I'm in a couple of manual guides to Buddhist practice centers that were published. Nobody ever contacted me, but there I was. All on account of that webpage. So I have to figure that's how I got invited. And I asked Mel, I said, can I go? What do you think? And he said, apply. And so, next thing I knew, Shinshu Roberts, formerly known as Kokai Roberts, at that time, she was Blanche's assistant.

[07:33]

And she's calling Mel, who's Greg Fane? Mel said, well, he really wants to go. I said, okay. So they let me. You know, I never sat at Tongari or Tassahara. It was the first time I'd ever been there. and made a big impression. And the whole time I was there, I was not very settled in that sesshin. And I was just thinking, you know, I'm so coming back. Which I did, before too long. For nearly six years. And then, in honor of that sesshin, Okamura sensei put out this book, which is called, Sitting Under the Bodhi Tree, Lectures on Dogen Zenji's Bendawa. And this is all the lectures by the seven teachers at that Dasahara Sesshin. And there's this really blurry, out-of-focus picture that says, all the Sesshin participants, there I am!

[08:47]

These are both available in our bookstore. So, the Vendawa, this fascicle, about the wholehearted practice of the Way, includes the Jijiu Zamai, or as we call it in the Zen center, self-receiving and employing samadhi. Now, this is like part of bendowa. It's not actually a separate, I don't think, I think some people don't realize that. It's not like a separate writing or teaching of dogens. It's just like the heart or the nugget of bendowa. But this part of it, We chant as liturgy in Zen Center from time to time. We used to chant it in Tassahara a lot. And just recently, I discovered, because I got myself into noon service yesterday, whoa, we're chanting Gigi Uzamai.

[10:00]

We're a self-receiving and employing samadhi. So I love this. I love this chant. I love to chant it. It's... amazing poetry, and kind of tricky, actually. It's Dogen at his best, and at times, most incomprehensible. But I just love the feeling of it. I love to chant it. And you know, parts of it hit home for me. This book, The Wholehearted Way, it's a little bit, you know, Bendawa is not very long, you know, the fascicles, they're just short essays, basically. So, there's a translation of Bendawa, and all the rest of it is Ushiyama Roshi's, Ushiyama Roshi was Shohaku Okamura's teacher, okay, and Ushiyama Roshi's teacher was the famous Kodo Tsawaki, homeless Kodo.

[11:07]

So, it's a different lineage from ours, but a close, you know, related. I think there's like cousin affiliations between these two lineages, which I'm not exactly clear on. Yeah, very close. I've actually read this book twice. You might say, so what? Well, I don't read a lot of Dharma books. I'm not much of a scholar. It's not my

[11:39]

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