Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming out in the Chicago winter, cold and snow. I want to talk today about some basic teachings of Eihei Dogen, the founder of what we now call Soto Zen, who brought that lineage, our lineage, from China to Japan. Last week was his birthday. I've seen different dates than 19th or the 26th, anyway, sometime last week was his birthday. He was born in 1200, lived till 1253, went to China, was already a Japanese Tendai monk from a young age, but when he was 23 went to China and studied for four years and brought back the Saodong or Soto lineage to Japan, taught in Kyoto from, well, he came back in

[01:03]

1227, but he established a temple in Kyoto at 1233, and in 1243 moved his whole congregation abruptly up into the remote mountains and founded what was called Eiheiji. Anyway, I want to talk about a few basic teachings. I've translated numbers of Dogen's teachings and written some books about commenting on them. I want to start with the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, and you're welcome to use or not use the chant book, but it's on ... Self-Fulfillment Samadhi is ... Yeah, thank you, page 22. This is from a writing called Bendowa, Discourse on Practicing the Way, and is really one of

[02:09]

his earliest writings, maybe his earliest, and really sets the meaning of Zazen, this practice we've just been doing. So he kind of proclaims rather than tries to prove or explain what Zazen means, this practice we're doing. So in the second paragraph, when one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this Samadhi, even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world becomes Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely awakens or completely becomes enlightenment. This is an incredibly radical statement, that just from our sitting while displaying the

[03:10]

Buddha mudra, the Buddha position, the Buddha posture, with our whole body and mind sitting upright in this settled concentration practice, even for a short time, everything in the whole phenomenal world becomes this Buddha mudra, this Buddha posture, awareness, and all space, which is to say all reality, and later on he talks about this as all time as well, becomes awakened. So what does it mean for space or reality itself to be awakened? This goes back to teachings of Buddha nature in China, but this is a really radical proclamation that I've been considering for decades, and it's impossible really to get our heads around it, but that's what he says. Later on, next to the last paragraph, he says, even if only one person sits for a short time,

[04:17]

because this Sazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all time, it performs everlasting Buddha guidance within the inexhaustible dharma world, means the whole phenomenal world, in the past, present, and future. So just to sit for a little while, Dogen says, awakens everything. What does that mean? Well, one part of it at least is a really radical kind of environmental statement. So towards the end of the first page, he says, at this time, well, this practice widely influences practitioners who are going beyond Buddha, and I'll come back to that towards the end, thereby vigorously exalting the dharma that goes beyond Buddha at this time, because

[05:19]

earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in every direction in the whole universe carry out the Buddha work, so everyone receives the benefit of this movement, this wind and water movement, he says, caused by this functioning, and all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and incomprehensible influence of Buddha to actualize the awakening at hand. So our sitting benefits not just everybody else in the room, not just all the people you know or whose awareness of may arise during a period of sitting, all the people you know, or people you've encountered this past week, or whatever, but actually is intimately connected, Dogen says, with earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, even man-made things, tiles

[06:23]

and pebbles, the whole phenomenal universe. And then he talks about this inconceivable mutual guidance. So this is an incredibly radical statement of what Arsazan's about, very far from a mere self-help practice. So this statement by Dogen, in some ways the rest of his voluminous writings are commentaries on, but as we sit, we can recognize in doing this practice regularly, which I encourage, if not every day, several times a week at least, you can do this at home, you don't have to sit for 30 or 40 minutes, even 20 minutes, 15 minutes, just to stop and face the wall and face yourself and face all beings and just be present and feel what it feels

[07:25]

like to be this body-mind on your seat. Not about, and I'll say more about how Dogen talks about this, it's not about if you practice long enough then you will have some special experience or understanding. It's about our display of Buddha mudra on our seats in Arsazan and how this affects the whole world. This is not, you know, this doesn't seem reasonable in terms of our usual Western logic or way of thinking about things, but we are connected. Everybody you've ever known is part of what's happening on your seat. So how do we appreciate that we're connected with the earth, grasses and trees, the lakes

[08:28]

and avenues, the skyscrapers, when we are willing to be present and not hold back from just fully expressing Buddha on our seat? So nobody can tell you how to be Buddha, but Buddha is available. That includes all, you know, when we do service we talk about our ancient twisted karma. So of course we acknowledge our own greed, anger and confusion and we see how that's connected to all of the causes of distress in the world. But in some ways to awaken to that is when we are willing to settle into this self-awareness,

[09:30]

self-fulfillment, self-enjoyment, just be the person on our seat, it has some relationship to all of the phenomenal world, the whole environment, and all of space and all of time. I want to look next at a little bit of another early and major writing, Genjo Kōan, in Kāz Tanahashi's translation, actualizing the fundamental point. So the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi is, in part of Bendawa, I translated with Shōhaku Okamura in a book called The Wholehearted Way, which has Shōhaku's teacher Ujiyama Roshi's commentary on it, and it's available in the library. Genjo Kōan, there are many different translations, but I'll use this from my friend Kāz Tanahashi

[10:36]

whose paintings are all around our temple. So the second paragraph, this is on page 16 and 17, and 18 actually, but I'm just going to pick out a few passages to talk about, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things as delusion, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening. So this is a really concise, brilliant, helpful definition of what is delusion and what is enlightenment or awakening. When we carry ourselves forward to experience the myriad things, that's delusion. And that's our usual way of being in the world. We project our own view of ourself and of the world onto our experience. And this is what Dōgen calls delusion. On the other hand, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening.

[11:39]

When awakening, enlightenment is to see that everything is arising right now, and that includes us, so that's not something out there. But when everything, including all of the sinews in our body and all of our thoughts and feelings and all of those from everybody else in the room and from all the people between here and Lake Michigan, when all of that arises and experiences themselves, that's awakening. To see that everything is arising right now. That creation or codependent origination, dependent co-arising of various Buddhist technical terms, that everything is just arising right now. That's what Dōgen calls awakening. Now he doesn't say that we should get rid of delusion and get awakening. Delusion is how we got here. This is our life.

[12:41]

So the point is just to recognize both sides of this. He says right after that, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. So Buddhas are the ones who see, fully study their own delusions. And that of the world, of course. So to be fully aware of delusion, to realize delusion is what Buddha is. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. So deluded beings have all kinds of ideas about enlightenment and awakening. So this is a definition of Buddhas and deluded beings. Deluded beings have all kinds of ideas of what enlightenment might be. Enlightened beings just study their delusions or the delusions of the world.

[13:44]

I'm talking about lots of different teachings from Dōgen, but those few sentences are worth spending a lifetime studying. He says when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on actualizing Buddha. So Buddhas don't walk down the street thinking, oh, I'm Buddha. They just don't necessarily realize even that they're Buddhas. He says a couple paragraphs later, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. So that's a wonderful Zazen instruction. Just to study the self. Study doesn't mean to think about, define, it's not about psychoanalysis, it's just to yogically study what is this happening on my seat.

[14:50]

To study the Buddha way is to study the self, to not run away from ourselves, to really look and see what's going on here, this body, this mind, and to keep doing that. Then he says to study the self is to forget the self. So this doesn't mean we should try and forget the self. This is a problem when reading this that many Zen students will try and jump to forgetting the self. Studying the self, really looking at the self is itself letting go of the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by all the myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of some great enlightenment or realization remains. This no trace continues endlessly. So this body and mind dropping away is another famous phrase of Dogen's.

[16:00]

Just to let go of, you know, we could say our attachment to body and mind. It doesn't mean self-mutilation. It doesn't mean lobotomy. It doesn't mean stop thinking or get rid of your thinking. It means that just our attachments, our ideas, our views of this body-mind, they drop away when we are really thoroughly studying the self. Just a few more passages I thought I'd, you know, focus on in Genjo Koan. One of my favorites is in the middle of the next page, 17. When Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. So when you're not fully soaked in the Dharma, in the teaching, in reality, you might think

[17:06]

that, oh, I know enough of the Dharma. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. So this something is missing is, you know, there's lots of ways to consider that. Something is missing. And so this in some ways leads to the bodhisattva idea that we are working not just for personal liberation, not just projecting ourself onto things, but that we are connected, as the self-fulfillment samadhi says, to everything. And when we feel that, when we are willing to face that, then we realize something is missing. Things are not as they might be.

[18:10]

Not everyone acts like a Buddha. There is harmful activity in the world, and we are capable of harmful activity ourselves. Something is missing. And even if at some point everything in the whole universe is just tingling with perfection, then in the next moment there will be some problem. So this is in space and time. Something is missing. And that's okay that something is missing, but that impels our practice. So it's a way of thinking about going beyond Buddha, which I'll talk about a little bit. Something's missing. Maybe a couple more things in this. These are both the self-fulfillment samadhi and the Ginja Koan.

[19:12]

We occasionally chant, but because they're long we don't chant them so often. But at the bottom of 17, a fish swims in the ocean. No matter how far it swims, there's no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there's no end to the air. So we occupy our place as humans on top of the earth, not inside the earth, stepping on the earth, walking on the earth. At the bottom of the atmosphere, in terms of, well, maybe the atmosphere permeates under the earth. They've just discovered their whole new classes of creatures living deep under the earth. So I don't know, maybe they don't need the same atmosphere we do, but there's so much

[20:18]

we don't know. And that's part of what Dogen is talking about too. Actually, just to mention that, on the previous paragraph, when you sail out in the boat in the midst of an ocean, or in the midst of Lake Michigan, wherever, where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way, but the ocean is neither round nor square, its features are infinite in variety. So the details of the coastline, of the shore around Lake Michigan, when you're in the center of it, you can't see that, you can't see the details. And our life is like that too, and our realization is like that too. So going back to the part in the bottom, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences

[21:19]

its realm. Dogen also calls this dharma position. So we each occupy and abide in our dharma position. And sometimes it gets larger when the need is large, the field is large. Sometimes it gets smaller when our need is small, the field is small. So the range of our awareness, the range of our practice, the range of our impact on the world can open up or close down. So there are many other things in this Genjo Koan, Shohaku Okamura wrote a fine book that's in our library about commenting on Genjo Koan. One other sentence I like in the middle of the last page, here is the place, here the way unfolds. So right here now is the place where we practice. So all of, so I will at the end talk about studying Dogen, because many people have difficulty

[22:21]

with Dogen, rightly so. But here is the place, here the way unfolds. All of our study of the dharma, study of the Zen stories and writing, study of the sutras are not about learning some doctrine, but they're about how to, we study these to encourage our own practice. Here's the place to encourage us to take this on right here now. So the last writing of Dogen's that I want to talk about a little bit is called Gyobutsu Igi. I translated it with Kaz Tanahashi and it's, we translated it as the awesome presence of active Buddhas. It's not in the chant book, but it has a number of phrases that are important and that elaborate on what I've already talked about.

[23:24]

So Yeah, so I wrote about this and about Genjo Koan in my book Zen Questions. So, one thing he says in that Gyobutsu Igi, these are all considered parts of Dogen's,

[24:30]

one of Dogen's two huge books, Shobo Genzo, True Dharma, High Treasury. And one of the first things that Dogen says in that essay, which could be read as the dignified manner or the decorous manner of active Buddhas, we said awesome presence to make it more flamboyant, but anyway. He says, know that Buddhas in the Buddha way do not wait for awakening. This is really important and important especially for American Buddhism where people think that if you practice or study for a good while, eventually there'll be some enlightenment, some awakening. Dogen says Buddhas in the Buddha way do not wait for awakening. Awakening is not something that will happen later or in the future.

[25:34]

Awakening is what was happening during Zazen this morning right now and also right now because Dogen also elsewhere says that Buddhas don't just sit up in the front of the room and talk. Buddhas sit all around and listen. So you're not listening, you don't come to listen to Dharma talks to eventually understand, have some understanding and eventually become enlightened. That's not the point. Buddhas do not wait for awakening. It's right, it's again, here's the place, here the way unfolds. So one of my favorite sentences in all of Dogen's writing comes right after that. He says, active Buddhas just fully experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. Active Buddhas just fully experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha.

[26:36]

So this Zazen is a kind of vital process. It's a kind of alchemical organic event. We may feel like our practice is stale or boring or painful or whatever. What's actually happening in Zazen is something you don't necessarily recognize or realize. Of course our judgmental mind makes judgments about, oh that was a great period of Zazen, oh that was a lousy period of Zazen, I was really sleepy or my mind was racing. It's easy to do that, that happens, but what Dogen says that active practicing Buddhas do is just fully experience the vital process on the path. So just allow yourself to settle into this practice of Zazen, which he calls going beyond Buddha.

[27:36]

This is very important. There's a reference to it in the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi and in Genjo Koan too. Going beyond Buddha is about not being stuck in some version of Buddha. So you may have some deep experience or understanding of what Buddha is, that's possible. But Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. We have an image of Buddha in the center of the room and we express Buddha through our Zazen taking on Buddha's mudra in our own way, in our own body mind. But this going beyond Buddha is that awakening is not something that happens just once.

[28:37]

So Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, and Dogen himself and some of us have had dramatic experiences of realizing something, but that's not the end, that's the beginning. Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. So Shakyamuni Buddha, after he became the Buddha, when he saw the morning star and had great realization, didn't stop practicing. He continued in fact for 45 years, sitting every day and awakening every day and trying to express it in different ways to different people. So Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. Don't get stuck in some idea of Buddha. So just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. And one last excerpt I'll read from this Gyobutsu Igi essay.

[29:39]

This is to abandon your body for Dharma. To abandon Dharma for your body. This is to give up holding back your life, to hold on fully to your life. The awesome presence or dignified manner of Buddha is not only let's go of Dharma for the sake of Dharma, but also let's go of Dharma for the sake of mind. Do not forget that this letting go is immeasurable. So two phrases in that I want to focus on. Give up holding back your life in order to hold on fully to your life. So of course in many ways we can fall into or become conditioned to hold back our life. So whatever it is you want to give to your life, to really hold on fully to your life, you have to give up holding back from your life. Don't run away from yourself. Don't hold back.

[30:43]

Then he says, let go of Dharma for the sake of mind. Let go of Dharma for the sake of the Dharma. Do not forget that this letting go is immeasurable. So letting go is kind of, Dogen says in one of his other essays that we sometimes chant, beyond thinking, not thinking, not not thinking is the essential art of Zazen. I would say letting go is the essential art of Zazen. How do we hold on fully to our life and let go of our ideas about Buddha, our ideas about the world, our ideas about the self, to open up to not holding back is to open up to not knowing all the answers, not knowing, not holding on to some idea of what we think we know.

[31:47]

So I've been trying to understand Dogen for, I don't know, at least 45 years of this life. Dogen is difficult. So Japanese people can't sit down and read Dogen in the original Japanese because it's, he wrote in the 1200s, it's a different form of Japanese. It's like our reading Chaucer or Beowulf. And Dogen is difficult. He refers to various Buddhist ideas. He refers to various ideas in East Asian culture and literature. He was very well read. It's well known. So he's challenging and he plays with words a lot. He puns a lot.

[32:48]

So, but there's lots of decent or even good Dogen translations around now. So I encourage you to try reading Dogen, not to get some understanding, but just to encourage and deepen your own expression of your Zazen and your awareness of it. So we have many books by and about Dogen in the library. I would, to start with, I'd encourage, I'd mention a few. Norman Waddell and Marcel Oppie's The Heart of Dogen, Shobo Genzo has a selection of, there's like 95 essays in what's now considered Shobo Genzo, True Dharma, I, Treasury. There were different versions earlier in history. But that book has a good selection of them with good introductions. The Heart of Dogen, Shobo Genzo by Waddell and Oppie.

[33:53]

Another one is Tom Cleary's Shobo Genzo Zen Essays by Dogen, which has another selection of some of the same and some other essays by Dogen with some helpful introductory material. And Dogen's very challenging to translate, having done a number of translations myself. It's always good, if you can, find a couple of two or three decent translations to read them together. And read them slowly. And don't try and understand what Dogen means. Don't worry about understanding it. Just soak in it. Just let it encourage your practice. And if you find something that is particularly striking or puzzling or inspiring, you know, come back and just, you know, read it through, read the essay through, and then come back and focus on particular passages. Another good introductory book is my own book, Zen Questions, which has a few sections about Dogen.

[34:54]

So anyway, I'll stop. But I would love to get questions or comments. And again, just to say happy birthday to Dogen. So comments, please. Questions, feel free. Responses. And I mentioned a number of passages, some in our chant book, which is on our website. You can access online. And almost any one of those passages, I could have spent a whole talk on. But I wanted to kind of give a range of things. Dylan. That sentence about when one person sits in a curse for a time, all those days of time, we can discover, that phrase,

[35:55]

reminds me of, or it might be related to something that the first ancestor of Hawaiian said in one of his commentaries that, basically, the ocean, the wave is the ocean. The ocean is the wave. The wave is the wave, and the ocean is the ocean. Yeah. Yeah. So each one of us on our own seat, in our own body, mind, not just in formal Zazen, Dogen emphasizes also, which I didn't say, the expression of Zazen in our lives. So that's, I could say more about that. But yeah, each one of us is like a wave on the ocean. Each one of us is a particular aspect or quality of Buddha, the Buddha-ness of all space and time.

[36:57]

So yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, Danny. Thank you very much for the talk. I greatly appreciate it. I was thinking, while listening, that there's a certain suffering that, it's one of the paradoxes that I wrestle with. There's a suffering that comes from awakening, as well. A resolution of some sort. There's a suffering that can get resolved somewhat, if one is aware of attachments and delusions and so on. But I think if we open our eyes and become attuned to those undermining sources of suffering, and we cause suffering to ourselves and others, there's also a great deal of dissatisfaction also, which accompanies that kind of awareness, as well. And it's not as though one's suffering, at least in my case,

[37:59]

I've found that the suffering from that, necessarily, reduces, necessarily. It doesn't mean one can appreciate everything, you know, all the wonderful things about life, as well as experiencing the negative aspects. But it's not as though suffering is reduced, necessarily. But I continue to practice, and find a lot of value in the practice, but maybe I don't have the practice of Dharma for me. I don't know, it's one of those things that I wrestle with. Good, good, good. Yeah, that's right. So, Dogen says, when Dharma fills your body and mind, you realize something is missing. You see the dissatisfactory quality of the phenomenal world, as it appears to us. So part of what a Buddha is, is that a Buddha sees that everything is awake.

[39:01]

But part of seeing that is also not denying the conventional world and all the suffering of it. So Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, once said in a talk that, you know, you might get enlightened and not like it. So, you know, often, sometimes, people have these experiences and then get in a lot of trouble. Anyway, yes, to what you said, our bodhisattva practice is to, and Dogen talks about this too, our vow to relieve suffering and bring joy. Awakening also brings a sense of wonder, a sense of deep joy. But that doesn't deny all the people in distress, all the beings in distress, all the difficulties

[40:05]

of the conventional world. They're not separate, actually. So in early Buddhism, the goal was nirvana as a way of escaping from samsara, escaping from the world of suffering and fame and gain and gain and loss and all that, the rat race. So nirvana was an escape. And literally, nirvana means cessation. So one doesn't really enter nirvana until one dies. But in the Mahayana, in the bodhisattva way, which Dogen comes out of, we find nirvana right in samsara, right in the suffering, so right amid the suffering. So when one awakens and realizes that something is missing, then the bodhisattva life is to address that and to try and be helpful and to try and relieve suffering and bring joy. So thank you. Are there comments or responses or questions?

[41:06]

So I do encourage you all to try and study Dogen, but don't worry about whether or not you understand. Any other comments? Yes, Ashen? You said something about running away from life. Yeah. And I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how you could help people who are doing that. Yeah, Dogen says to not hold back from life, to fully hold on to your life. So when you get caught up in, part of what's difficult about sasana is not getting your legs in some position or avoiding the physical pain, but just that we do see, if we sit long enough and regularly enough, we do see our own, as I said, our own greed, anger, and confusion. We see how our habitual patterns are reacting. So one way to think of zazen is that it's a positive addiction

[42:14]

instead of the various addictions that are available from heroin to the internet. Anyway, just to develop the habit of being present and being aware and sitting and facing yourself. And then, at times, what's difficult about zazen is that we do see our own patterns of reacting in ways that are harmful to ourselves or others. And we might not want to look at that. We might get up and run away from our seat. So just to find your way of calmly settling into a space where you're willing to face the difficulties of what is missing in your life or in the world, that's the point. And if you see yourself trying to avoid

[43:16]

considering some aspects of your situation or your own patterns, that would be running away from life. But you don't have to, the reverse isn't. That doesn't mean you should rush into wallowing in it. Just be open to sit calmly. And the more we become familiar with our own patterns of greed, anger, and confusion, the more we don't have to act on them or react to them. We can respond in some way that is in accord with the precepts, is in accord with being helpful rather than harmful. So yeah, it's easy to run away from our life. In fact, we're trained to do that by all of the distractions in our culture. But we can actually stop and sit and face the wall and face ourselves and face all beings. And it's OK. So thank you for the question.

[44:16]

Any other questions or responses? Oh, yes, hi, Belinda. Thank you. Hi, Belinda. I can't see it on this side. Thank you, Belinda. I've heard a lot about your study of Buddha way. Yeah. And I think when we study the self, it's really studying the self. Yeah. Because I'm thinking who I am now, today, right now, is from so many factors. I have a piece of every life, here and now. My parents teach this, and then tomorrow, I'll be a different me because of the different conditions that I'm in. So studying the self seems to me is studying everything.

[45:20]

And because of that, studying everything, therefore, the next sentence of getting the self comes naturally. Good. Well, not easily, but it should come naturally as you contemplate that and practice it. So yeah, when we study the self in the way you're talking about, we give up projecting the self on the myriad things, which is delusion. And we can feel all the things coming up, including that are our self, or that is this ultimate self. That's right. Yeah, when kind of looking back to the first article, you read that the sentence about awakening, even in the short sitting of sunset, everything awakens. Yes. If we don't have that self in there, thinking how can that, how can me, this shape here, sitting here, even everything else is awakened. But if we realize that it's really everything that we're studying,

[46:22]

then dropping that self, that makes more, makes it more make sense to be like this, trying to contemplate that. Yeah, yeah. So we don't, again, it's not about getting rid of our self, it's about seeing, as you say, how fully our self is immersed in everything, and vice versa. So, good, thank you. Yes, Bo. So, you know, just to kind of, because sometimes I get caught up in thinking, in practice, like the self is bad, you know what I mean? But in the way that you guys were just discussing, it's like the self is kind of this gift, which you kind of see. Yes. You know, and I don't know, that's helpful to me, because I think the struggle with the self and the fighting with it, you're trying to put it to the side and so forth, but it's the portal through which, it's the thing through which you

[47:23]

have this experience, which is, makes it very ultimately valuable, you know? So, that's helpful, I think. Yes, exactly, the karmic qualities of this self is what allowed each of us to come to practice, to come to the possibility of realizing awakening. And that also applies to what you were saying, Danny, that all of the difficulties, not just of our self, but of the world around us, that's the opportunity, that's the portal, that's a good word, I like that, that's the portal through which we come to see this possibility of practice realization. So, there's lots more to say about Dogen and his many, many writings, and I encourage you to try to study Dogen without getting caught up in,

[48:26]

you know, thinking you have to figure out what he's saying. So, thank you all very much for listening.

[48:32]

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