Ah, lovely late spring morning. We are cruising along in our practice period and I've been thinking about what to talk on today. I'm going to talk on a fascicle of Dovians that I think is apropos to practice period. Practice period in a traditional sense is a time when the practitioners would go to the monastery and live there and settle in and simplify their life for a fixed period of time, usually for three months. That goes back to the time of the Buddha

[01:02]

when the monks and nuns would return to the monastery during the rainy season because you sort of didn't want to be out walking around the villages and in the woods in the middle of the rain. And in our Zen tradition there would be there would be two practice periods in the course of a year, two Angos, and the monks would simplify their activities. And here, well I think that our Shuso who's doing an excellent job leading us, I think that Jake you've simplified your life. All you have to do is just have to keep coming here. That's pretty straightforward. The rest of us it's not necessarily so easy, especially this is the difficulty of actually living and practicing in the world. And if I look

[02:05]

around the room I see a lot of people who've been practicing a long time, practicing really strongly, and some of you who are newer, but everybody's putting in this effort in the middle of their lives, in the middle of having jobs, families. It might be a battery problem. Is there a battery there? I'm moving my head. Okay. Raise it up a little bit. Okay. It sounds like a battery to me. Any other opinions? Anyway, let's try this and see what happens. So what I want to talk

[03:10]

about today was Dogen's last fascicle, which is translated by Kastanahasi as the Eight Awakenings of Great Beings, or the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Persons. And this was written, he wrote this in January of 1253, which was just as he was really entering his final illness. He died in September of 1253 at the age of 53. He was born with his century. And this was afterwards, this was the last essay or fascicle that he wrote for Shobo Genzo, and I won't go into a

[04:12]

lot of details, but about the various texts and versions of the Shobo Genzo. But what he did here, as we know, because we talk about A. H. Dogen quite frequently, and Sogen's been teaching from that in his class, a lot of Dogen's writing is very complex. And he's using, he uses language in a remarkably subtle way to point beyond the words themselves to what he's teaching as the undivided nature of reality, the undivided nature of our lives, where everything is connected, everything is particular, and yet inexpressible. And

[05:18]

it's, you know, this is often hard to get your mind around, but in this teaching he's very practical and down-to-earth, and he's borrowed basically most of the text, is just taken whole from the Buddha's last teaching, from something called the Parinirvana Brief Admonitions Sutra, which are the Buddha's last, his last words before he died. And similarly, sometimes the Buddha's teachings can be very complex, but you know, when you're dying, things get stripped down to basics, and you're probably not going to expound in a complex and philosophical way. You

[06:25]

just say what's on your mind, what's the point. So that's what I'd like to go through, I'd like to go through this. It's one of those lists that are so commonly found in Buddhism, you know, the six this, or the eight this, or the five this, and those are convenient systems and ways for us to actually memorize principles and practices and points. So this is these eight realizations or practices. And I was fortunate, I was talking with Sojourn Roshi a couple days ago, and I borrowed his copy of Maezumi Roshi's commentary on this, which is in a book called The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment, which is, the commentary is really

[07:26]

excellent, but what was also sort of an extra, what can I say, an extra benefit from borrowing his book was, it's completely full of all of his very neatly penciled notes, Sojourn Roshi's. So he's like, he did a lot of the kind of grunt work. He saved me from delving into Wikipedia a lot. So anyway, let me read you this list. Very straightforward. So number one is having few desires. Number two is knowing how much is enough, or being content with what you have. Number three is enjoying serenity or the tranquility of nirvana.

[08:32]

Four, making diligent effort in your practice. Five is not neglecting mindfulness, which is a really interesting way of framing it, not neglecting mindfulness. Six is practicing meditation, which it has a feeling of meditation, also has a feeling of concentration. Seven is cultivating wisdom. And eight, which is a little surprising where he takes this, is not engaging in hollow discussions. Or as the translation I'm working with is from, by Master, Reverend Master Hubert Niermann from Czechoslovakia, and his translation is not playing around with theories and opinions. So those are the

[09:42]

eight realizations. And you can see them, as I was saying, they're led by these various lists. There's ways in which this overlaps with the Eightfold Path. Some of these elements of these eight realizations are the same as in the Eightfold Path. They have elements of the Paramitas, or the Bodhisattva's practices of perfection, and the factors of enlightenment, and so on. It's not useful to try to find exact correspondences, and the Buddha didn't lay this out as one after another interlocking system. They overlap. And also, the nature of these eight is, you can see them,

[10:50]

Maya Zuma Roshi describes them as, you can see them as circular or as spiral. So if you look at, say, just a couple, having few desires, obviously is linked directly to the next one, which is knowing how much is enough. And then if you know how much is enough, you're actually going to be serene, and serenity and tranquility are going to arise. When serenity and tranquility arise, then naturally what you might do is just sit down. So when you sit down, we sit down, we cross our legs, and we take up meditation. And as we know, we have to make an effort to it. We

[11:55]

have to include mindfulness and concentration. And from those, they are the expression of wisdom. And then, once that's arisen, all that, shut up. You know, don't make a big theory about it. Don't have a hollow view. And we're just quiet, sitting in our place. So you can see this as sort of circular or spiral. And you can also see, there's also a question of, how do we think about these things? This is described, well, let me read you the beginning. All Buddhas are enlightened people. And because of this, we call what they discern, the eight realizations of the Great One. When someone discerns what this

[13:02]

Dharma of theirs is, it brings about nirvana, which is freedom from suffering. So, I think a question that arises, and it arises with various sets of practices that we're taught. How do we think about them? Are these something that we aspire to, or that we, you know, we look to our teachers, or we look to the Buddha, it's like, oh, this is what they do. And, or is it something that, and they do it naturally, not so much as practices, but are they doing it out of just kind of the natural unfolding of enlightenment, and this is the behavior of it? Or is it what we have to cultivate in order to, if you will, become Buddhists? So, one of the

[14:12]

things that Mayazumi Roshi talks about that I like a lot, and this is, he talks about it the way we traditionally talk about the precepts when we go into detail, that you can look at them from three angles. You can look at them, what he calls, from a Hinayana direction. I prefer to call it a literal sense. So, yes, these are a set of practices that you do, and in that sense, they are prescriptive. They tell you what you ought to do, how we ought to live, you know, having few desires, being content, practicing meditation, not arguing or getting into vain discussions, and so on. The second angle that we can come at them from is what you might call the Mahayana, the Mahayana

[15:16]

perspective, and in a sense, that's the perspective of compassion, that these are not rules, but these are ways that we can live so as to free other beings. The first one is, you know, if you look at it from the literal level or the Hinayana level, it's so that I can be free. If you look at it from the Mahayana level or angle, it's so that all of us can be free together, and thinking of that, in a sense, as like a subjective approach where everything is part of oneself, and one is part of everything, and so the practices that others do benefit us, and the practices that we do benefit them.

[16:22]

The third way to look at this is what's often called the Buddha nature direction or vector, and I think of that as descriptive. This is just what we do. This is what great beings do when they slash we are awake. This is how we just work in a natural way. So those are perspectives, and it's very interesting. I'm looking at this first paragraph. I see he says, when someone discerns what this dharma of theirs is, he's talking about us,

[17:25]

when we see that this is our dharma and our practice, it brings about nirvana, which is freedom from suffering. Freedom from suffering, I think that he's using nirvana and freedom from suffering as their synonyms, not as when you get to nirvana, you are free from suffering, but to be free from suffering, not to be caught on that, is what he's describing as nirvana. But it's interesting that then in the sentence it says, on the night when our Shakyamuni Buddha entered nirvana, he gave these eight realizations as part of his final teaching. So there's a way in which nirvana is also the word or parinirvana. Nirvana is synonymous with death. So this is very Dogonesque. He's using

[18:27]

the words in two different ways in one sentence after another, but he's not advocating death, he's actually advocating life. So the first is having few desires. What he does is, and I just say we should have a whole course in this actually. It would take, you know, we're just, this is just a sketch. So what he does is he makes a statement and then he uses a section of this, the Buddha's admonition sutra as commentary and then goes on to the next one. So the first is having few desires. What the Buddha called having few desires means not chasing far and wide among the objects of the five senses which one has not yet experienced. So he's not saying no desires. He's saying few desires and not to be caught on

[19:42]

the workings of our senses. So we have five senses, eyes, ears, now I'm not moving my head, but it seems to be cutting in and out. Did you find where there was a bad one? It takes just a second to change it. So we have sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, right? Those are the five senses that he's talking about. And the objects of those are things we see, what we, you know, are the sights that we see. It's the objects of those senses. How about this? Yes? Okay.

[21:00]

So, not being caught by the objects, not chasing after the objects, not chasing for sights, not chasing for tastes, not chasing for smells, and not cultivating the desires. So the desires, uh, uh, there's, there's a list of basic desires that, uh, are traditional. They're the ones you would imagine. Wealth, fame, food, sex, and the last one. Do anyone know what it is? Internet. I heard it over here. No sleep. That's it. And the older you get, the more pressing the desire that seems.

[22:14]

So, um, but when he says a few desires, it means really moderate the desires and it leads right to the next, right to the next, uh, of these awarenesses, which is, uh, being content or knowing how much is enough. Uh, so Dogen says what he called being content means limiting what you take to those things you have that are already available to you. One thing I skipped over, uh, there is right desire and this is some right desire is the desire to wake up along with all beings. That's not going to lead to suffering. It may lead to some discomfort, but this is why we are here. Uh, and so to cultivate right desire is,

[23:18]

uh, uh, something that we aspire to. So how much is enough? This is all, this is, we practiced this this morning. Uh, we had a lovely and straightforward breakfast that was cooked by our cooks and we ate it in our oriochi bowls and roughly translated, uh, oriochi bowl. Oriochi means just enough. Bowls, it's, it's a way of eating that is sufficient for sustaining our life and practice. And we have those, we have what we need laid out in front of us. So it's not doing as the Buddha did in, before he, uh, reached enlightenment, which was practicing austerities and, uh, you know,

[24:28]

having a diet that was reduced to a single grain of rice a day. Uh, it's actually having enough and it's having, as Dogen says, uh, the things that are already available to you. So as we sit here in the zendo, uh, uh, what's available to us is this lovely place to sit. It's quiet atmosphere. And for breakfast, we sit down and, uh, the servers bring us food that's been cooked for us. Just enough. So the third is enjoying serenity or the, the coolness or tranquility of nirvana. Uh, and it means this is settling into our life. Now the text is interesting. Uh,

[25:32]

Dogen says, or the Buddha says, actually, if you seek to be tranquil and quiet, liberated from the insistence of the defiling passions at ease and content, then you should part company with confusion and bustle and dwell at your ease in some solitary place. The person who dwells in quietude continually forsakes what those in the heavens seem so highly amongst themselves. Therefore withdraw from those about you as well as from other crowds and in a place of solitude, apart from them, reflect on the source of the end of your suffering at leisure. So this sounds like, uh, it's not going to work here. You know, uh, I, the trucks are going by, uh, and life is happening. Uh,

[26:38]

and I think that there's, there is some truth in this. We do go to places that are peaceful. Uh, you know, we yearn for them. We enjoy them. We, uh, we consider them precious when we're there and we need to be refreshed that way. And my sense is we need to find those places in ourselves wherever we are. So wherever one is, can you, can I cultivate a sense of quiet within myself? That means that I'm not, uh, harassed by the hustle and bustle of my work and of my life. Uh, I think that's a really important point. And at the end of this, at the end of this section, it's good when the world

[27:44]

binds itself around us, we drown in the suffering of such company. Just as an old elephant sunk down in the mud is unable to drag himself out. Uh, uh, actually what a lot of us do is, you know, uh, we see this elephant who's ourself stuck in the mud and then we throw ourselves in the mud and say, I'm in the mud, I'm in the mud, you know, and neglect to just get up and walk away, which is within our power. Related to that is the next step, which is diligent effort. I can see I'm not going to get through all of this.

[28:47]

Uh, what does this look like in our life? You know, if I think about, I have a view of myself as, uh, kind of lazy. Uh, and it's like, oh, you know, not really doing the practice the way, you know, uh, in the model of the ancestors. Uh, and I've got all, I've got a lot of mental baggage in that direction about, uh, you know, do I, am I living up to this? Am I not living up to this? You know, and then, uh, if I look at myself and include everyone that I know in this room, you know, I realized, wait, I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been coming here and most of

[29:49]

us come here day after day, year after year. That is diligent effort and we can always go farther. So, Dogon is saying, please go further. I think, yeah, the fifth is what he calls not neglecting mindfulness. He says it also, he also called it keeping to right mindfulness. What, no, this is, so let me just read this I'm sorry. Uh, this is Dogon. The fifth is not neglecting mindfulness. He, the Buddha, also called it keeping to right mindfulness. What the Buddha called keeping to the Dharma without losing sight of it means keeping to right mindfulness. It is also called not forgetting to be mindful, which is a very interesting frame for that, not forgetting to

[30:53]

be mindful. And as he describes this, as he goes to the Buddha's description, he's playing with this idea of remembering and forgetting. So, mindfulness, another way, another translation of the word smrti in Sanskrit is remembering. And it's also recollection, recollecting yourself in each moment so that there's this centrifugal force that wants to, where our attention wants to scatter and go outward. And we have to keep making this effort, remember to remember, remember to recollect yourself.

[31:57]

That's the action of mindfulness. And the way the Buddha describes it is when the strength of your mindfulness is constant and vigorous, though the five desires would break in to rob you, they will do no harm. You will be as one who puts on armor before entering a battle and will have nothing to fear. So, you're actually, you're meeting this kind of dispersing energy with your own internal ability, which takes effort to recollect yourself. And this is a constant thing. It's not something that one finally accomplishes. And one has always said, we're always remembering and forgetting. And it's interesting. One way that I think about this also is that

[32:58]

right mindfulness or right remembering means remembering some things and quite systematically forgetting others. You know, it's like forgetting where I think I would rather be, or what I would rather have, or who I would rather be with, but remembering where I am, who I am with, what I am doing. And that's the practice. I'm going to, I want to skip to the last one, which is not to be engaged in hollow discussions, or not playing around with theories and opinions. This is really, this is a tough one for me, because I like words, I like ideas, many of us do. And sometimes they're not hollow, and sometimes they are.

[34:03]

What Dogen writes is, the eighth is not to be engaged in hollow discussions. What the Buddha called not being engaged in hollow discussions means letting go of the dualities and judgmentalism that one may experience. Fully realizing the true nature of all things is what not playing around with theories and opinion means. As then he quotes the Buddha, if your mind plays around with all kinds of theories and opinions, you'll be confused, it will be confused and in disorder. And though you will have left home to become a monk, you will still not have realized liberation. If you wish to enjoy the pleasure that comes from calmness and the extinction of defiling passions, thoroughly eliminate the affliction of playing around in your head.

[35:11]

This is a really interesting one for me. This is like Dogen's last word, and it's like, really? Dogen is saying this? In his life, you could see he took such pleasure in mental discourse, but it was not idle or hollow, I believe. So when these great eight realizations are realized, when each and every great one is equipped with all eight, uh, they are multiplied. They're limitless, and each one of them contains all of the others. And so he says, with wholehearted devotion, always seek to get back on the path.

[36:24]

These were his last words. Everything in the world, whether in motion or not, is insecure and bound to decay. So cease for a moment, and do not ask me to say more, for the time is nigh when I would pass, and I wish for my parinirvana. These are my last teachings and instructions. And Dogen's last, at the end of this, is, uh, that you have encountered and heard these and are studying them is due to the strength of the good roots that you have planted in the past. In your studying them now, in your developing them in life after life, and thereby arriving without fail at the supreme awakening to truth, and in your giving expression to them for the

[37:32]

sake of sentient beings, you may well be the equal of Shakyamuni Buddha. May there be no difference between the two of you. And that's all he wrote. So, uh, I could use another hour, but I'm already, uh, over. How do we live this? How do we live this flowing from our zazen, but flowing from, our zazen flows from all that is constantly arising and decaying in the world? How do we live that? That's the question. And also, how do we help each other live that?

[38:35]

I believe that's what we come here to do. So I'm going to stop and take questions for a few minutes. I don't want to go too long. And I regret there's a lot going on today, so I don't think we'll have a Q&A, but we can talk outside, but open to questions or comments. Sogyal Rishi, is there anything you want to say? Thank you for your talk. I think when Yogin talks about opinions and theories, he's talking about mostly they're about, they don't rise above the level of duality. That's why he's criticizing. That's why he says, Idle chatter is simply in the realm of duality. Yeah. And we're all really, we can be seduced by idle chatter, by gossip, by things like that.

[39:46]

And also, to see through it, I always remember what Paul Disko, one of Suzuki Roshi's students, told us when we went to Japan. He said, so go down to the corner in Sakamoto, down the hill from Rinzoyin, and watch the old ladies. And then, you just watch them. Basically, they come to each other, and they're bowing and bowing, they're asking, you know, how are you? And they're saying, what a nice day. That's not idle chatter. That's non-dual interaction. So, we have to know the difference. Anything else? Someone else? Linda. The ever-questioning Linda.

[40:48]

I hesitated in case anybody else. This is about the quality of contentment, the second one. So, I've been thinking about this, and you've been writing about it, and you've been looking at there's a lot of people in the world that are poor and deprived. So, to recommend contentment to them, especially if we've got a full belly, sounds a little problematic. How do we think about that? Well, I think that that exactly goes to the Mahayana level of these practices. So, for me, the Mahayana level is looking at it through a Mahayana lens. These are not rules. These are not prescriptions. I wouldn't preach being content in that context without somehow making the effort to

[42:09]

share what I have. So, that's where the flip side of that, what's contained within that, is actually generosity. That's my thought. Andrew? I was just going to say another dimension to that is the Buddha's basic teaching that in order to be able to live a dharmic life, one needs food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and I'd say some modicum of security. So, what I mean is to not be threatened for one's life. So, that's the groundwork. So, to say people who are poor, who live in a war zone or don't have enough to eat, they don't have the opportunity to practice. I don't have any idealization of poverty, and I'm sure many of us have had the experience of

[43:18]

going places where it's relatively poor and people can seem, on certain levels, more content than within our society. But, how do we actually live? I mean, the question for us is to be content. How do we live in such a way that we're not living on the efforts of others, of all others, at their expense? Laurie? Also, similar to Andrew, but at the same point, when you were first reading them, I heard, oh yeah, knowing what is not enough, and that also gets to thinking about the other people and whether what they have is not enough. Right, and I think that that's a Mahayana perspective. It's a good thing to hold in mind. All of these teachings are medicine. They are all to bring you back into balance. Tamara, that'll be the last one.

[44:24]

Great. Well, I think, also, we don't want to fall into saying that nirvana is only for situations where we have enough, because we can be very inspired. A few practice periods ago, we studied the text by the French resistance fighter who was blind and was in concentration camps. Do you remember? And there was light. So the point was, this was a person in an extreme situation that really didn't have enough and found some light and found some peace, and I think that's the inspiration of the practices, that it really can't go anywhere with us once it's established. It may be harder to establish it in those circumstances, but I don't think we should say, we should be so sure that it can't be. I think that's a really good place to stop and just enjoy the day.

[45:23]

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