Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? So some of you were here yesterday morning when Peter Coyote gave a talk about vernacular Zen for American householder Zen practitioners, which is basically American Zen. And this is kind of complementing that, although I'm going to dive deep into the core of traditional Sokyo Zen teaching. But, you know, this is what we're doing. We're not practicing as monastics, we're practicing in the world. So if you did not hear Peter's talk yesterday, I recommend it when it gets posted online. What I want to talk about tonight is just a few passages from this Self-Fulfillment Samadhi that we just chatted. And this is kind of a compliment to the Fukunzazengi that Kogetsu has been opening up for everyone on Thursday morning, the Universal Instructions for Zazen.

[01:15]

This goes into that in a different way, talking about the inner meaning of Zazen. So I just want to focus on a few passages. And just to mention, at the end of the first paragraph, Zogia says, from the time you begin practicing with a teacher, the practices of incense burning, bowing, menbutsu, repentance, and reading sutras are not at all essential. Just sit, dropping off body and mind. So that's our basic practice. Just sit. Letting go, dropping off body and mind, dropping off thoughts and feelings and all of that, letting it go, just letting it go. But he doesn't say, some people have interpreted this as he should not burn incense out

[02:21]

chant names of Buddha, practice repentance, or read sutras. That's not what this says. It just says that that's, you know, those are all the kinds of adornments of the way of awakening, as he says later. So all of these forms, and Peter was talking about this yesterday, maybe let it go of some forms, but also these forms are not something special. These are just ways that we express our gratitude for this basic teaching, for this basic teaching of just sitting. This fundamental, just sitting, dropping off body and mind. And then... What I would say is the most important sentence in Sato Zen, and some might argue about that, but Dōken says, when one displays the buddha-mūja, which is to sit upright like Buddha, with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in this samadhi, in this meditation, even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world

[03:32]

becomes and all space in the universe completely becomes awakened. This is an incredibly radical, inconceivable statement. And yet, I think it's the truth. Can you say that one more time? I sure will. When one displays the Buddha Mudra with one's whole body and mind, the Buddha Mudra being just to sit upright like Buddha, with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in this samadhi, in this meditation, in this awareness, even for a short time, everything in the entire Dharma world, the whole environment, everything, becomes Buddha Mudra. And all space in the universe completely await us. Should I say it again? No, I got it. Good. So, you know, this is, this short teaching, the self-proclaimed Samadhi we just chanted, is, I think, a statement about the meaning of Samadhi.

[04:44]

I mean, it's in a writing, a longer writing than he did after the first version of Foucault's Samadhi, called Bédouin, the All-Hearing Way, And this is a section from that writing, where he goes into the meaning of zazen, this whole section at the end of it about questions and answers. Anyway, but, well, he says, this enables the Buddhas to increase the dharma joy of their own original grounds and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. So this is what each of us has been doing tonight, is doing tonight. Increasing the dark joy of our own original grounds and renewing the adornments of the way of awakening. We are all, we are each in our city adorning the way of awakening. And, you know, I'll say just personally, when I first had my first Zazen instruction and first set Zazen, I was 24, and somehow I experienced this.

[06:01]

I don't know, you know, how that happened, but I just felt, oh, it's okay. It's okay to be me, to be in this world, to be here, this body-mind. And all its problems is just here we are. Now, I'll come back to all the difficulties that happen after we see that and all the practical issues that Peter was talking about yesterday. How do we express this? How do we share this? How does this fit into our world? But just to sit and feel this wholeness. And when I experienced that with my first teacher, a Japanese Sato priest in the Upper West Side of New York, you know, he was talking about Dogen. So I wanted to know who this Dogen character was and where did this come from? So all the studies I've done since have been about finding the background for Dogen.

[07:05]

But here in this essay, it says, At that time, all things together awaken to supreme awakening and utilize the Buddha body, this body of awakening. Immediately go beyond the culmination of awakening and sit upright under the regal Bodhi tree. Again, that tells us a few passages, but it's in the chant book and it's on the website. The Zazen person, without fail, drops off body and mind, cuts away previous stainted views and thoughts, awakens genuine Buddha-dharma, universally helps the Buddha work in each place. His movements is added to their Buddha, the Tathagata's teaching and practice, and widely influences practitioners who are Buddha, beyond Buddha. They are vigorously exalted in the Dharma that goes beyond Buddha.

[08:08]

This phrase Togon uses a lot. in his writings, Buddha going beyond Buddha. So I think many of us, when we first come to practice, think that there's this thing called enlightenment, Buddha, that we have to figure out or get to, or, you know, the loss of Zazen and the next one will be there. But Dogen talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha. It's not about reaching some particular state of being or state of mind or sense of awakening. It's about keeping on, going on, going beyond Buddha. And, you know, so I've talked to, some of you have heard me talk about all this before, but anyway, when Buddha awakened 2,500 years ago or a little less in what's now northeastern India or Nepal,

[09:09]

He kept practicing every day for the rest of his life. And he kept awakening, I would say, every day for the rest of his life. He had this great awakening experience. But going beyond Buddha is what Buddha does, is what Buddha is. It's not enough to say, oh, yeah, I had this great tensho experience, or I had this great I've studied and I understand this sutra or that sutra or whatever. It's this going beyond. It's this continuing. It's this, you know, coming back to just being here. So, Brett, I don't know if, I can't see you, but I don't know if you heard the rain outside our Lincoln Square Center tonight. No, but I heard it here. Watch that. You know, it doesn't, I don't think it's raining right now, but it would rain around us, as you said.

[10:12]

Don't bring up any poems about the rain on the roof of this Ash Tutter, a little Zendo. The rain brings us back to this going beyond. So he talks about carrying out the Buddha work, and I talked about that, I think it was last week, that our practice is to, as Bodhisattva practitioners, to do the Buddha work, to continue deepening our own experience, and to help others to awaken to this deep experience of just being here. just being ourselves and unfolding that. And going beyond Buddha, so it's not static. And he talks about this in terms of the relationship to our environment.

[11:23]

The grass, trees, and areas affected by the dysfunctioning of Zaza. Together radiate my brilliance, and endlessly expound the deep wondrous genre. Grasses and trees, fences and walls, demonstrate and exalt it for the sake of living beings, both ordinary and sage." And part of this, I just want to get . He talks about the mutual influence. Mutual guidance. Between the person sitting and. Everything. In our environment, the main. Questions were seats we sit on. Carpet. Trees outside everything.

[12:30]

Oh yeah, here it is. All things in every direction in the universe carry out Buddha work. So everyone receives the benefit of wind and water movement caused by this functioning and all are imperceptibly helped by the oneness and comprehensible influence of Buddha to actualize the enlightenment of him. So this imperceptible help is this mutual guidance is, I hadn't heard that concept, that idea, that phrase when I was studying Zen in America before I went to Japan, but when translating this with Shirakawa Kimura, the mutual guidance, the inconceivable, unperceptible help between the person sitting, and everything in the world.

[13:34]

In Japanese, noshi, this wondrous guidance. It's an important concept, and start to say anything about it. But, a lot of sutra talks about bodhisattvas under the ground, springing forth and emerging when They are needed to help spread the Buddha word. We might feel like this is naive or something in these days when there are so many difficulties. I know people who live in Maui and horrible situation there, the private fires, devastating. This is a difficult world. So, the point I want to make, I want to go back to what Piti Kaili was talking about.

[14:36]

This background, this kind of ultimate background of this deep wholeness and kindness and mutual guidance, these adornments of the way of awakening that we express in Zazen, that we start to feel in Zazen when we keep sitting, keep sitting every day for a little while, are a great resource in the practical difficulties. How do we apply this Zazen wisdom that is not some idea, it's in our bodies, it's physical. How do we apply that to the difficulties in our situation, personally and in the world. How do we practice your anger? How do we practice patience? How do we practice listening, deep listening to all our friends and all beings and people we have trouble with and go beyond?

[15:46]

go beyond awakening, go beyond our opinions. Of course, we all have opinions about things. Some of us, I know myself, can be very opinionated in such, you know, to go beyond that and to settle into something deeper. And this self-fulfilling samadhi is a kind of touchstone for that reality of displaying with Buddha-Muja, the Buddha position, the Buddha posture, with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this awareness, even for a short time. When we do this, Dogen says, everything in the entire Dharma world becomes Buddha-Muja. All space in the universe completely awakens. So the practical applications of that

[16:50]

to practicing with anger, to practicing patience, to practicing dialogue, to practicing listening, is the heart of our practice. This is the Buddha work that we do in our Haudenosaunee as householders, as Peter was saying yesterday. But this background, this touchstone, this Buddha, when he first Totally awakened. There was this challenge. How can you say you're the Buddha? And he just touched the ground. So how do we, so we sit on the ground. Those of us sitting in chairs were on the floor. And how do we feel the way this resonates with everything? Then how do we express that in all the difficulties and everything?

[17:55]

How do we come back to that as nourishment? And we feel that sometimes, and then our practice is to go beyond that, to deepen our sense of connection with everything. So maybe I'll stop there, but I would love to hear comments, questions, responses. At one point in your talk, it was something that I heard Warner Earhart say once, which was enlightenment is the booby prize because it's really not finished.

[19:00]

As you said, it keeps going beyond Buddha. And that was one thing. I love sitting in this room with you people. And I just feel so grateful when I'm here. It's so comfortable. It feels like home. Thank you. We're so blessed. Amen. But I, so when I sat down, I was kind of all over the place. Then I really started to experience beauty. Like, I just felt this overwhelming sense of the way You know, just being beautiful and the trees outside. I just I was really feeling the beauty and the beauty of this group and of life.

[20:05]

And even in the city where horrible crimes are probably happening right now, there is always beauty in Ukraine. They're farming. They feed the continent of Africa, you know. Still, you know, it's like they're growing things, and there's beauty there, even in the midst of hell. And so it was sort of like this theme came from, like, there's a garden even in hell. Yeah. And there is just beauty, even in the worst possible situation, because they're... That is the truth. How do I bring this into the world? I've really been having practice just facing my reality. Because many of you know I'm in a challenging situation. It's just all I can do is just face what's happening.

[21:10]

And try to do the next thing, even though, and it's a lot like shame where you're just like, oh my God, why am I here? You know, I don't want to be here. You know, that's what I feel like. It feels like a lot for me now. It's like, I do not want to do this, but I just have to face. What's that? Again and again and again. Not easy. But I learned that in Zaza, you know, facing the wall. facing my mother, facing her shit, you know, her heart attack, my white supremacist sister, you know, it's like, it's difficult, but there's no other choice but to just, so thank you for your time. Thank you, Stingrell.

[22:12]

Yeah, facing the wall is facing the light. Facing the whole world. And as it says, renewing the adornments of the way of the light. So our practice is just to renew the adornments. To renew the... Which is, you know, when we hear the sound of the rain, to just appreciate that, well, the trees are being nourished. Dramarain. Falling equally on everything. And, yeah. And, of course, we know about Ukraine. We know about the climate fires in Bali and all the climate devastation everywhere. You know, if you go on and on, all the climate refugees struggling to find some place to live. And so, our practice doing the work involves doing whatever we each can in our own situation, in our own way, to be helpful.

[23:19]

But part of that is coming back to this posture, to the wall in front of us, to facing our life, and allowing that to deepen, flower, or flow, however you want to say it, and then having the help. And yeah, what you said about enlightenment at the beginning, this is a trap. I've been in the texts that were translated previously, including by myself, where the word enlightenment appears. But at the top, trying to think of this as an awakening rather than enlightenment. Enlightenment is now. It comes from. philosophy or the ancient enlightenment, which is something else. And what happened to Buddha?

[24:21]

Buddha just means the awakening. Bodhi means awakening. Bodhisattvas are awakening beings. So, yeah, how do we awaken to all of our own difficulties and challenges and to results and also against this inconceivable guidance that the world is offering us. I connect with that. Yeah. One other thing I just wrote away and it's Saga. Yeah. It's just crucial to experience magic. Yes, yeah, so three jewels, the Buddha breaking Dharma, the truth or tuition and saga. How we do this together? Yes, thank you. Other comments or responses, I mean. Hey, it's certainly just said thinking of words.

[25:25]

Enlightenment. Is not a waking with technically the germ. It's a it's a verb that becomes a noun, you know, or an adjective. It's describing something. So it's something that it is. Continue in like like Duggan said, going beyond, you know that it's constantly evolving constantly. Growing in that sense. Thank you for saying that about the way the human being is enlightened. It also just doesn't know what that is. It's a growing, becoming, unfolding. Yeah, I like Jared's because there's a kind of activity, but it's not static. The comments. What is beyond Buddha?

[26:38]

Yes, what is beyond Buddha? Nicholas facing his mother. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. How is that beyond Buddha and not just Buddha? Buddha is beyond Buddha. Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. Going beyond is what Buddha is. Buddha is not a noun either. Buddha is a chair under, I don't know, a foot. It's awakening. Yeah. Facing our own deep pain. Deep karma. allowing that to be there, and then how do we take it on and avow ancient twisted karma. So that's the actual practice of . So this is the kind of background that, you know, this thing about all space and the universe completely awakening, that's kind of the ground.

[27:53]

And then how do we take care of the particular spaces that we are karmically enmeshed in? But having such sense of that, having touched that ground is great nourishment and support and help. And we keep coming back to success. Any other last comments? Something that you said when I'm thinking about it is that, speaking directly to you, it's really, it's a process. It's almost like the universe is ever expanding. You know, it started at one, and it's still expanding.

[28:56]

It's still expanding. That's what came to me, that this is a whole process. And it just keeps expanding and expanding and expanding. So, in a sense, Buddha was maybe a spark for that. But it's still expanding. It's still expanding. Does that make sense? I hope not. I hope it doesn't make too much sense. And also, flowers open. Flowers fall. So we shouldn't turn away from the sadness, the difficulties in our lives. And that doesn't disavow or litigate this false-based awakening. But in the midst of that awakening, it's always, you know, it's always.

[30:00]

Does going beyond Buddha have something to do with non-identification? That's a really tricky practice question. I'm not sure what you mean by non-identification. Well, like, Buddha is a something, you know. And so, you know, like, whenever we consider ourselves, it gets problematic, right? So going beyond Buddha... is free from identification. And also we can't deny identification. We don't ignore men, women, all of our ethnic identities, our location in Chicago, I guess everybody. You're still here in Chicago, right? Yeah.

[31:03]

Yeah. So, yeah. We are all have our own particular identities. And that's and that needs to be worked out. So, you know, and so I said that this is, of course, but developing that there's the inter relating this deep ultimate with each particular phenomenal expression. Dealing with your mother, dealing with partners, dealing with children, dealing with siblings, dealing with neighbors, dealing with our coworkers, dealing with our summer friends. Each of those things has its particular So we don't get rid of that. We don't, you know, it's not spiritual bypasses. Both seeing this deep, deep, deep reality and then, as Peter Petty was talking about yesterday, how do we deal with that in this challenging world?

[32:10]

And how does that support each other? So that's a deep process. And we don't ignore it. We can celebrate. These are all the adornments. Kevin? I It's only just friends on the weekend, and they are involved in this coming week at the Council for World Religions, which is going on here. No, it's probably the Parliament of World Religions. It's happening at the corporate place. It's going there tomorrow. Oh, you are? Yeah. Well, what was interesting to me, these are friends that I've met at 8,000, I don't know exactly what they would call their religions now, and I don't talk to them enough about it to know that. But they were getting at that there are universal things that all religions are about, and that it's amazing how much we have in common.

[33:21]

Yes. And that there's, it gets lost in the blessedness. But, yeah, I'll be interested to hear what they will experience there. But just talking about this, you know, it's like there's something beyond even this practice. Sure, that is universal, that people are trying to get out possibly in different ways. That just struck me. Yes, so this is, you know, all this language that I've been using tonight and these descriptions of our spiritual process and so forth, you know, is one way of talking about it. There are many great spiritual traditions. So part of the problem of all religions is, oh, so there will be very terrible Christian Buddhist style of panels. There's a lot of thinking thoughts about that.

[34:21]

ceremony being given by Druids. There's all kinds of gorgeous flavors and spiritual flavors. And my sense being grounded and so forth, I learned a lot through dialogue and through experience and other ways of invoking deep truths. So yes, thank you.

[34:50]

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