Good morning. So this weekend, can you hear OK in the back? This weekend we are having a study session today and tomorrow. And we have four study sessions, one now this afternoon and then two tomorrow. I think the study sessions are open. I believe, or they are now. If you're here, you can look at the schedule and you're welcome to come, if you're not too daunted by what you hear this morning. There are about 20 or 22 of us sitting sasheen, and you're invited to come and participate in the study and the discussion. The subject this weekend are going to be two short but somewhat dense fascicles by Dogen Zenji, who we are given, if you've been here or any of the San Francisco Zen Center-oriented places, you'll know we have a predilection for studying Dogen.

[01:19]

We do it over and over again. We actually even put photograph. His picture on the wall so we don't forget what he looks like. But he was quite an amazing writer and practitioner. At the core of his practice he emphasized Zazen and this is the tradition that was handed down to us and by generation after generation of women and men to Suzuki Roshi, to Sojin Roshi, and to us. He is also given to words. And this is not always in the Zen tradition. Dogen was fearlessly willing to step into places that other people would have kept silence and that's partly what we're going to talk about in the next two days.

[02:33]

So these two fascicles which are often seen together are, one is called Zenki and I'll unpack the title a bit in time. Zenki can be translated as total dynamic working or cleverly rendered as the whole works or something of that type or undivided activity. And shoji is translated as birth and death or life and death. And both of them are about this matter of life and death, which has a slight amount of urgency to some of us, especially as some of us are getting older. And we see that we're closer to one supposed end of life than we are to the other.

[03:42]

These are two of the first fascicles that I had an opportunity of dokens that I had an opportunity to study with a Zen teacher close to 30 years ago at a study retreat with Kategiri Roshi who has since passed on and I remember it vividly I remember the experience of studying vividly, I remember the content, not at all. And I have searched to see if I had notes, because they would be useful, and I can't find them. And also, these are two of the really early Dogen writings that were translated into English, and I think that's what Kategoriya Roshi was working on. from wonderful translations by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe, two scholars who did translations from the late 1960s on, and they were the ones who put these two together, because they're short, they're short fascicles.

[05:08]

And the language of them is... Well, Dogen, I think, intended it to be quite accessible. They were teachings for lay people that were written sort of well into his teaching career. in the early, I don't know, 1240, 1242, when he was well established in Kyoto and well known, he had his monastery, was cooking, and he was also offering teachings for lay people. So the language is, I think that the The Chinese that it's in is relatively accessible. But the ideas are not easy. So I'm going to take time to try to unpack this and also take time for questions and discussion.

[06:21]

And this lecture today will go a little longer than usual since it's a part of our study Sishian. And since we're in Sishian, we won't have tea and cookies afterwards, so you're invited to settle down and get ready for this ride, whatever it is. So, the question that came to me very soon after thinking about studying these is why? What's the point of studying these two fascicles? What is the point to me and what might be the utility to you?

[07:25]

And in this, I should say also by way of reference, there's not a lot written on this, but if you go online, you'll find two lectures by Sogen Roshi that he gave in North Carolina about 15 years ago, and there's a lot of really good stuff in them. And there's also, I was... Just two days ago, Andrea Thatch, it occurred to her that she had these set of lectures by Shobhapa Okamura from one of his Genzo-e, one of his teaching weeks, on these two fascicles. They take up 12 CDs. It's like 18 hours. of teaching on this stuff, and it's great. You know, it's somewhat overwhelming.

[08:28]

I've listened to about half of it now. And it's also really, it's exciting to see somebody who can really dig into the language and kind of the envelope of meaning of each character. You know, what it not just what the character means, but what the character refers to and where it's connected in the Zen literature. So, I recommend those. So, the point to me is these fascicles are about the question of life and death, the question of death in particular, and the question of nirvana. And let me read you just the beginning of these, just to set a context.

[09:35]

The beginning of Zenki, which you have it, right? Yeah. Just the first couple of sentences, the great way of all Buddhas thoroughly practiced is emancipation and realization. Emancipation means that in birth you are emancipated from birth. In death you are emancipated from death. Is that the translation that you have? And the beginning of Shoghi is, I'll give you two translations of the following. One is, because a Buddha is in birth and death, there is no birth and death.

[10:41]

It is also said, because a Buddha is not in birth and death, a Buddha is not deluded by birth and death. These statements are the essence of the words of two Zen masters, jñāsan and tiṁśan. Let me give you another translation of that. We're going to come back to these in some depth. Because there is Buddha within living and dying, life and death do not exist. And in response, the following was said. Because the Buddha did not exist within life and death, he was not infatuated with living and dying. So it's a rather different translation. So going back to this opening of Zenki, it's from a poem or a verse that comes from the record of Engo, who was one of the commentators

[11:52]

on the koan collection. All of this is touching on koans, on teaching stories, on stories of enlightenment. But the full verse is this. Life fully manifests its function and death fully manifests its function as well. All within the limits of great unbounded space, for they are both the moment-by-moment manifestations of a sincere heart." Read that again. Life fully manifests its function, and death fully manifests its function as well. All within the limits of great unbounded space, for they are both the moment-by-moment manifestations of a sincere heart.

[12:55]

So this question of life or birth and death and nirvana, these are kind of burning questions for humans. And they were for Domain as well. If you read his biography, his way-seeking mind was... It arose, at least according to the story, watching the incense smoke flowing over his mother's casket when he was a child. I think he was quite young. And he saw this and that raised the question, what is birth and death for him?

[14:03]

I think various of us have, if not that story, have our own personal moment when that question arises, or when we manifest the question. I think I've told this, I was about five, and I was, when we were ill, when we were children, we got to sort of stay in our parents' bed, which was a big bed in a sunny room, and watch television all day. Like great. So I had something that kept me away from preschool. And I was watching TV, and there was a sort of a public service program on that was about heart disease. And it showed, it was like, I remember it very vividly, like black and white, you know, it's like a guy going to the bus

[15:15]

He was approaching the bus stop and the bus was kind of pulling away and he was, then he was like running after the bus and then clutching his chest and falling down. And I think that the, probably the message, which was not sophisticated in, you know, this is like 1951, 52, it was like, oh, don't run for a bus. Could be bad for your heart. And so the next day I'm better and the bus for preschool comes. And they kind of blow their horn at the foot of the driveway and it's like I open the door and I'm walking very slowly and mindfully to the bus. And they're going nowhere.

[16:19]

I'm still walking freely, really slowly. I'm not going to run for that bus. But that was, you know, some five-year-old intimation of mortality. And I'm sure various ones of us have stories like that. I think what Dogen is trying to do is to put us at ease and to give us a teaching that will relieve us of our anxiety of our deep existential anxiety the anxiety we have about the reality of our death that we cannot avoid and then you know if we're here as we're here as zen students and we're doing this kind of uh what is it we're doing here this weekend you know we're sitting facing the wall uh why are we doing that you know we have some uh

[17:40]

wish to be free. We have some yearning for nirvana, whatever that is. And we have some anxiety about, can I do this? Can I be free? What is nirvana? What is liberation? And so the whole, actually the whole point of Buddhism can be reduced to four words, which is, you can do this. And that is what Dogen is saying in his inimitable and elliptical way. You can do this. it's already done if we just wake up if we just let go so to skip to the end thereby saving us four sessions of lectures at the end of Shoji

[19:05]

passage. Dogen says, however, this is after enough words. He says, however, do not analyze or speak about it. He could have said this in the beginning. Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha. great expression. That is something I remember from studying with Katicariya Rosha. Just throw your body and mind into the house of Buddha. Then all is done by Buddha. When you follow this, you are free from birth and death and become a Buddha without effort or calculation. There's a little catch in the next sentence then. Who then continues to think? whoops so Vinny says in the next paragraph there's a simple way to become a Buddha when you refrain from unwholesome actions and are not attached to births and deaths and are compassionate towards all sentient beings respectful to seniors and kind to juniors not excluding or desiring anything

[20:43]

With no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha. Do not seek anything else. So this is his very straightforward instruction. Of course, within this is the unanswered question of how. How is the is the real, that's the real Zen question. Not exactly, not why or what, but how? How do we do this? And the thrust of these fascicles is to try to explain, try to give us a glimpse of how to do it. How to be free. We're doing it as we sit.

[21:50]

We do it as we practice zazen. As he explains, from the moment of our birth, when our life begins, that living is moving, you could see it as moving in the direction of dying. It's certainly touched by it, and it includes it. And yet, here I am, for example, I'm 63 years old, and I was relating this story of when I was like five or six those that child and that adult our life never touches that life as a child never never meets that child never meets

[23:13]

the adult in his 60s, nor does the adult meet that child. And this is true for each one of us. They are two completely distinct moments and stages, as actually is every moment of our life. And yet one stage does not hinder It doesn't block the other from occurring. And this is actually as it is moment by moment in zazen. You take a breath and at the end of Each exhalation, so long as we're alive, an inhalation begins.

[24:20]

And there's that moment, there's a moment where it turns. There's a moment of turning from exhalation, and then the next moment, inhalation. and we can never quite pin down that moment and yet each of us experiences it thousands of times a day and as closely as we look we can see that place where it just turns but we can't see the turning itself There's no meeting, there's no intersection of this moment when you breathe out and this moment when you breathe in. This applies to our life.

[25:30]

I'm sure that many of us have had the experience of being with someone as they're dying, and when they've died. Even though their capacity may be diminished, there may be pain, the person may not have consciousness as one might understand it. Still, we know when they're alive. We know we have some, there's a state that they're in that we call alive. Up to the very end. And then there's a state in the next moment, there's a state that we might call dead.

[26:40]

and there is a distinct difference even though the more we examine it actually gets really difficult to determine what is that? Is that when the heart stops beating? Is that when there's no electrical activity in the brain? I think that the ethicists argue about that. It's not completely clear in the field of medicine, I don't believe. But generally, we know there's a difference. Those two moments do not meet, nor do they impede each other. But as Dogen says in Genjo Koan, Ash does not turn back into firewood.

[27:45]

They don't reverse either. So they are related. They are related as a kind of... We see it as a process. We see it... Sojin talks about this in his lecture. He talks about it as... It's like seeing frames in a movie. When we watch a movie, it's composed of thousands of individual images that are moving past a light and they have the appearance of continuity. You can stop on each frame though, and each frame is minutely distinct as a moment from the moment before and the moment after. So, even in that last moment of life, even if we have diminished capacity, in a sense, life is fully functioning.

[28:58]

And then, it is not. And this is... I don't know about you guys, but this is a source of some anxiety for me. I feel myself grasping for life. Even though I have experience of being very close to the edge of it. In a sense, that makes it all that much more precious. And this is where Dogen is trying as best as he can to put us in some ease. The other thing that sometimes we fail to notice but we have an opportunity to notice as we're sitting here

[30:12]

is that we have moments of complete freedom. Sometimes it takes really slowing down, slowing down breathing, doing this indescribable activity of zazen, in which there are flashes or we see, I'm completely free within coming and going. I'm free from in just even in a moment to be free from like and dislike is a great relief. And what a wonderful aspiration it would be to expand that territory so that we experience freedom in a wider way.

[31:22]

So how can we live? I think this is the essential question that Dogen is presenting. And in this afternoon, I think we'll read the whole text of the Nenkin and plunge in, but how can we live? How can we live in a way that includes the reality of that life is slipping away and yet is also fully functioning? How can we learn about being completely alive within our own experience? Not just the experience of sitting sasan, but the experience of any activity. Because every activity is fully functioning.

[32:29]

This is what it says in this verse. Life fully manifests its function. Death fully manifests its function as well. all within the limits of great unbounded space. And I love this next line. For they are both moment-by-moment manifestations of a sincere heart. It might be a somewhat imaginative translation, but it's really good. Moment-by-moment manifestations of a sincere heart. This is encouragement. But I'm tempted to go on, and I'm tempted to stop.

[33:56]

But maybe this is a good place to stop and take some questions or thoughts before we press on. Is there something on your mind? Yeah? Is there an edge to play with that, well, I think there is, but I'd like some more thoughts on it, between having an understanding or even experience that moment by moment each frame is a new moment and yet not knowing where that edge is even between one breath and the next. Okay, so clarify the question. The question, well, it sounds like a paradox. It's a paradox. Yeah. So, in practice, is it to seek? to divide each moment, which almost seems analytical, or is it a process of being comfortable with saying, I know there is a moment where these things change, but I can't find it.

[35:01]

Right. Okay. Well, thank you for that question. The context for this verse that I read is a commentary by Ingo on Case 55 in the Blue Cliff Record, which we've talked about before. Some of you know it quite well. It's called Dawu's Condolence Call. Let me just read you a little bit of it, OK? Dawu and Chinduan went to a house to make a condolence call. Yuan hit the coffin and said, alive or dead? Wu said, I won't stay alive, and I won't stay dead. Yuan said, why won't you say? Wu said, I won't say. Halfway back as they were returning, Yuan said, tell me right away, teacher.

[36:04]

If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. Wu said, you may hit me, but I won't say. Yuan then hit him. And then Dawu says, he was fine with being hit. But he says, you probably should go away, because if the other monks heard that you slugged the teacher, you're going to be in trouble. And then later he wakes up. So this is a commentary on that koan. And Shōhaku-san, Shōhaku Okamura spends about five hours talking about this koan, literally. But one of the things that you could say is, and this is where Dōgen is so remarkable, I won't say

[37:15]

is both a response to the question and it is a... I mean, it's a way of not giving the student the answer. That's one thing. Because the student has to discover it for herself or himself. But it's also like, we can't talk about this. You really can't talk about it. It's beyond words and beyond thinking. So it's not just, I won't say, it's, I can't say. It's something that one has to bring forth in one's own understanding and when you do that, that is going to be beyond words as well. You know, so, I, you know, I can tell you a story about my remembered experience as a five or six year old of the anxiety of death, but it can't convey, it can point to that anxiety, but it can't really pinpoint what was that experience?

[38:42]

Who was that kid and what was he thinking? Just as you can't, you could, even if you could experience, which you can, the turning of your breath, you could never convey it. And yet, Dogen is doing this, you know, this sort of archetypal Zen thing, which Suzuki Roshi called, making a mistake on purpose. by trying to talk about this in his amazing kind of circling around way, and we can kind of get it, and we won't be able to reduce it to words, but it if we allow it to work on us I think encountering this 30 years ago these fascicles have been sort of working on me my anxiety is not all gone and it may never but something has been working and that's what Dogon is trying to convey to us and that's why that's why we talk about these things

[40:07]

So, that's a partial answer. I'll let it work on me. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Thoughts? Yeah. I'm curious. People have near-death experiences. And I'm wondering how a person who's had a true near-death experience would interpret this. It's almost like they've lived through that transitional period that we can't talk about or identify. And yet they seem to... I'm just curious. A friend of mine recently had a near-death experience and I'm just trying to connect what you're saying with this event that occurred. What did that person say? He said that he... It's so hard to put into words, but to paraphrase, he said he felt that He was suspended. He was terrified. He was terrified. And he was suspended in time and in place.

[41:12]

And he said he felt that more. You know, people say there were life rushers in front of him. In front of him. He did not experience that. It was just so heartbreaking to hear him describe this. And I'm just curious how this might relate to what you're saying. Does anyone else have an experience like that they want to convey before we... Is that Fulani? Yeah. I had an experience like that when I was in the ocean. I don't want to tell the whole story, but I was diving surfing and got caught in a big tide. So I ended up back in the ocean. So I'm a Catholic at this time, so I just said, Hey, I'll marry. I knew I was dying. I was very young. And I couldn't fight that ocean. submitted to it. And then suddenly I was suspended and I became quite tired. And I wasn't me. Just everything was dark and twinkly and black. That's all I could say. It was like the total was everything.

[42:15]

And then all of a sudden, I felt this big old piece of clay hit the sand. I guess it was me. Like a hand. And then I asked my father for a hot dog. And that's it. So I think each person on each depth is different. I think each person's experience is different. So that's all I wanted to say. I think, yeah, anyone else in this realm of experience? I had an experience like this as well in a medical procedure about 20 years ago. I remember whether this is... I think I remember. This is the thing about memory.

[43:17]

It's like, do I remember or do I think I remember? Having a perception that I was really close to living or dying and over an interval of time that I can't You know, it probably was no more than 30 seconds or a minute. I have no idea. It was sort of timeless. But I had this perception. I had no particular fear. I had no particular pain. And kept being presented with a question about living and dying. saying, well, I prefer to live. And that's what happened. It wasn't like I insisted on living. It was just a preference, because I knew in some place in my brain, I knew this was beyond my choice.

[44:24]

But the preference may have had its effect. This is more of what we'll get into this afternoon and tomorrow. It's like that moment of death does not hinder your life and your life does not hinder your death. But there are places where they come very close together and those really get our attention. So that's sort of a partial response. There was something back there. You mentioned this line in there about when you get to this point you enter into the house of Buddha. Throw yourself into the house of Buddha and let Buddha do his thing. That sounds a lot to me like this inane thing here in Christianity.

[45:28]

Let go, let God. And it seems to assign some supernatural powers to Buddha. I don't understand it in that way. This is a pretty interesting passage. We have this idea of what Buddhism is from what we study here in the Zen school. In Japanese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism is often broken down into, quite dualistically, into two dimensions of practice. Self-power, which is what he's called the Zen school. It's the self-power of sitting, of effort. I think it's called jibiki and then tariki which is other power and Japanese Zen kind of breaks down into these in one way of looking at it so the Zen school is seen as the self-power school and the Shin Buddhism or Pure Land Buddhism is seen as an other power approach

[46:56]

This is a very unusual statement by Dogen. It's about as close as he gets to this other power school. But really, this is a false distinction. For example, you. Or me. It's like, here we are. You walked in through the gate and sat down to do zazen and listen to the lecture, right? You have to make some effort to do that. But, why? How did you get here? How did any of us, most of us, I would guess, were not born into a Buddhist family or into a Zen tradition. get to even the thought of walking through this door.

[48:01]

It's not like Jesus or the gods or the Buddhas gave us some message, but there was something ineffable that drew us here. And I think that's kind of what he's saying is like, well, pay some attention to that. But there's an active principle in that expression. It says, throw yourself into the house of Buddha. Not like, fall into the house of Buddha. You actually have to make some effort to do this. And again, we come back to the question of how. But I think this is an unusual statement for Dogen, but it is something like letting go of any fixed idea you have about what is life, what is death, and what is nirvana.

[49:13]

So I think we'll explore this a bit further tomorrow. The way I hold it is he goes on in the next paragraph to give you a set of very simple instructions. And I think the way I hold it is just follow those instructions. That's throwing yourself into the house of Buddha without making it either a bigger or a smaller question. That's what throwing yourself into the house of Buddha is. Right. And it's without making it... Throwing yourself into the house of Buddha sounds like a big deal. But actually he's saying it's not so... The activities are not so complicated. What does that mean, throwing yourself into the house of Buddha? Yeah, what does that mean? What do you think? Somebody want to... Drop body and mind. Drop body and mind. I was thinking it might indicate relying on something in addition to your own effort and self, that there's something else.

[50:28]

We can't name it, but there it is. It's like you said, it's a false distinction between self power and other power. It reminds me of the end of the Heart Sutra. and I was studying it, that really all the Buddhas rely on Prajnaparamita, that there's this whole explication of emptiness, but in the end they just throw themselves into the house of Buddha. It's tricky though to rely on something outside yourself. Well, outside is, I can't say what it is. It's not outside, but it's not what we think of ourselves, as ourselves. I wonder if you could speak about the metaphorical quality of birth and death. It's easy to look at that as a physical process. Let's talk about that this afternoon. Even the translation itself. Let's talk about that rather than open up that particular question.

[51:33]

take this as throwing oneself into the house of Buddha is, I don't want to be excessively literal, but it strikes me as interesting that at least in the copy that I'm looking at, Buddha is not in uppercase. It is not Buddha as, you know, Chakyamuni Buddha. I see it as throwing yourself into your truest self, because we all carry Buddha within us. You know, there's no such thing as Buddhism. Buddhism is something that probably arose in, probably out of, I would say, out of German theological thinking in the 19th century, like a lot of religious praxis. In Southeast Asia, what we're calling Buddhism, and they call Buddhism now too, is called Buddhasasana, which really translates as Buddha practice, which you could say

[53:03]

Just Buddha. Be like him. Try to practice as you envision Buddha practicing. And as you read, as you study the sutras, which Dogen did extensively, you have an idea of what it means to live that path. So it's just, it's a kind of, you could say it's a kind of emulation, and it's a kind of merging. But it's not an ism, is a thing. It's, as soon as you create an ism, then you're creating some objectification that then is really outside of yourself. It's like bring, if another, you know, principle that Dogon is getting to and that's really essential in the Zen tradition is all beings are Buddha.

[54:16]

So it's bringing forth that capacity within oneself and encouraging you to recognize, oh, this is in me. Yeah, very. The passage, I was wondering if you'd read it again. Life and death fully manifest their functions. Yeah. You mean the verse? Yes. One second. Let me read you, before I do that. Here's three versions of the first two sentences. I'll read you the verse. The verse is... Life fully manifests its function and death fully manifests its function as well.

[55:34]

all within the limits of great unbounded space. For they are both moment by moment manifestations of the sincere heart. So those, the first two lines are the opening. So in the translation you have the great way of Buddha thoroughly practiced is emancipation and realization. Emancipation means that in birth you are emancipated from birth in death you are emancipated from death. And in two other translations, when we thoroughly explore what the great way of Buddha is, we find that it is liberation from delusion and letting our true self manifest to the full. For some, this liberation from delusion means that life liberates us from life and death liberates us from death. and a third translation the great path of the buddhas in its consummation is passage to freedom is actualization that passage to freedom in one sense is that life passes through life to freedom and death too passes through death to freedom thank you um so the first time you read it

[56:58]

I heard, and I hear it echoing through the other ones, that some of the language like fully manifest and thoroughly, something thoroughly, felt like an exhortation. Like, pay attention, wake up. I heard it on the effort slide, like there's something to be done thoroughly in order for this to be manifested. strikes me as being on the self-effort side of what we were talking about. And the second time, later, when you read it, it sounded like it was saying, this is already happening. There's nothing to be done. There's only to be seen. And I was going to ask you which way to read it, but from the discussion, I'm wondering if it's both. It's both. But let's look at this.

[57:59]

This is maybe a good place to end, actually. And we'll get into this in more detail. The wonderful ending of Genjo Koan. Genjo Koan, there's three or four other fascicles that really touch on the same issues of birth, or life, and death, and nirvana. And Genjo Koan is the first, and we've studied this in detail, and we will study it again. But let me read you, because I think this touches on exactly the question. Zen Master Baoche of Mount Mayu was fanning himself. approached and said, Master, the nature of the wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why then do you fan yourself?

[59:04]

Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent, Vāce replied, you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere. What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere? asked the monk. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply. Then Dogen comments, the actualization of the buddhadharma. So that's an act, right? The vital path of its correct transmission is like this. If you say you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent, and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent. Because of... They said, this is such a great ending. The nature of wind is permanent.

[60:06]

Because of that, the wind of the Buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river. the wind of the Buddha's house. So, in another translation, the cheese of the Long River, which I think is maybe an unfelicitous translation somehow. But it calls for activity. And this is at the core of Daobing's question, it's why He ended up in a Zen monastery because he began in a Pure Land school. And he kept saying, if we're all originally enlightened, why do we have to practice? And his Tendai teacher said, you know, you should go find a Zen teacher and ask them.

[61:11]

It's something that we meet. It's actualized by meeting. It's not actualized by waiting for a pacman. It's actualized by sitting. It's actualized by bowing. It's actualized by giving and receiving food. It's actualized by looking at someone in the eye. by touching a hand, all of these are the actualization of the Buddha's way. If you don't meet, if you don't connect, there's nothing happening. So, that's a really good place to end for this morning. Again, you're welcome back. I think in the afternoon we'll read the text and get into texts. Okay? Thank you.

[62:14]

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