Does anyone need a chair? It's sort of late in the day, if anyone's not comfortable. All right. Amy? Yeah? We have these things. I don't know when you wanted them. And we do have more copies of the Genjo Koan and the Fukazazenji. Does anyone need them? So what I wanted to do tonight was begin with any more poems or gathas or anything like that and questions. And then say something about the historical background that produced Dogen and then treat Dogen like as Alan treated the previous ancestors, tell some stories about him and then we could together

[01:20]

something from the Bukha Bazenji and Bigenjo Koan, which are probably his writings that are most familiar to us. So, first of all, did anybody manage to What is the definition of a gatha? A gatha. Well, I don't know what the word means. I think it just means verse. It could be wrong. Which you just recite to keep yourself mindful. Well, this is sort of a Dos Passos-esque The headline says, Where Do Our Bodies Stop?

[02:30]

Where Do They Start? A case from the news. The parents of a baby born without a mid or higher brain wanted to give their child's organs to other children who needed them. A judge would not let them do this. Later, the baby's organs were shared with everybody. Another case from the news. A genetically engineered pig gives milk containing human protein that prevents blood clotting. The pig's life began when two alien genes were injected into a single fertilized pig egg. One of the genes was human, one from a mouse. Are we connected more? Those are really from the news?

[03:32]

Yes. Which news? The Chronicle. That first story was big news. It was big news for several days. Thank you, Charlie. That's a good example. I have a haiku that I did not write, that I read. The man pulling radishes pointed the way with a radish. That's terrific. That will be relevant to tonight's class. It's always relevant. It is relevant to tonight's class. We're going to be talking about mushrooms instead of radishes. It's the same story. Say it again, Joyce. The man pulling radishes pointed the way with a radish.

[04:35]

Does anybody have a question that they are working with that they would like to share? I do. of all the civilizations at that time around India. Why did he go where he went? Why did he go to China? Yeah, that's... You're not expecting an answer. Ross looks like he is. It's like this tree in the garden, right? It's nice to get to the other side. Like what? The cypress tree in the garden. That was in the news, right?

[05:48]

Marion, did you have your hand up? Yes. Keep it... now I'm... yeah. Well, I've simplified what I'm... what my What I'm trying to figure out in my life right now is I'm trying to live in the balance between being compassionate and having idiot compassion. That's sort of the question. See, well let's watch if anything comes up tonight that addresses it. Okay, so I want to begin by talking a little bit about the historical, Dogen's historical background.

[07:06]

that I made a time sheet, which I think was wrong. Books differ somewhat. But Buddhism was introduced in Japan probably in the 6th century, in the 500s, probably about the time that Japanese recorded history begins. And then in the... about the same time that Bodhidharma came to China, Buddhism was probably introduced in Japan, probably from Korea. And then Zen was introduced in Japan by a monk, Dosho, who visited China in the 7th century. So, during the heights of the Tang Dynasty in China, there was some familiarity with what was going on already in Japan. But during the Heian period from 794 to 1192, there was a kind of dormancy in Japanese Buddhism.

[08:23]

And in that time, there were two main powerful schools. One was Tendai and the other was Shingon. And they both were dominated, they both had some meditation, but they also had a lot of magical rites and a lot of philosophical speculation. So, there was a renaissance not only in Japan, but really around the world, when you think of it, in the 11th and 12th, 12th and 13th century. In Japan, in the, there was Honin, who was the teacher of Shinran. Shinran lived in the 12th century and he founded the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land School.

[09:28]

And also in the 12th and 13th century, contemporary with Dogen, as was Shinran, there was Nichiren, who founded the school that bears his name, Nichiren School. And they, of course, are based on devotional recitation of the Lotus Sutra. And it's interesting that in the 13th century in the West, was the century where the great schools, the Cistercians were founded, the Franciscans were founded, and Thomas Aquinas was a contemporary of Dogan. And then, in Asia, Genghis Khan was making this enormous empire that went from Poland As far west as Poland, way over to China, where Kublai Khan was the Mongol ruler for a while in China.

[10:41]

So, whatever was happening in the 13th century was a major happening. And Marco Polo shows up. Yeah, yeah, right. And brings back spaghetti. I think of people going from the west to the east and the east to the west. It's amazing. So, in the 12th century, there's a monk named Isai who said to a father Zen in Japan, Although the establishment of Rinzai Zen was a many-faceted process that took place over a period of generations. And this Isai began as a Tendai monk and then traveled to China in 1187 where he received Rinzai transmission. And he also continued to be a Tendai monk, so he lived and was abbot in a monastery where these two traditions were kept parallel.

[11:58]

His student, Nyozen, was Dogen's first teacher. And Nyozen also combined the two traditions, Tendai and Zen. And it was with Miaozhen that Dogen traveled to China to learn more of the Rinzai tradition. Now also at this time, that is the 12th century, in China, there was a culmination of a school that was later to be called Soto. It was Cao Dong then. And this was the school of silent illumination. And the, a major perhaps the, this was in China. The most revered exponent of this school of silent illumination was Zen master Hongji. H-O-N-Z-G-Z-H-I. Last year, or the year before, this very nice book came out that was written by Taigen Daniel Layton, who was a student at Green Gulch in Tassajara, and occasionally Berkeley.

[13:20]

And it's very beautiful translations of Master Hung Chi. And Zen Master Hung Chi was the abbot of Rujing's monastery. Rujing was the teacher, the Chinese Zen teacher that Dogen got his transmission from. So, this is quite a well-defined lineage. And I would like to read one of the little talks or little paragraphs that comprise this book. The book is made up of very short sections and each section is like a holograph that contains the whole teaching. And the section I'm going to read will be quite familiar in certain ways to you because Alan has already covered it.

[14:25]

And the name of it is The Sixth Ancestor Thoroughly Illuminating When the Buddha ancestors first appeared, there were no monks and lay people, but everybody had their own truth and position. When they intimately experienced and genuinely attained, it was called entering the Buddha mind school, which is the name for the Zen school. Old Lu, the sixth ancestor we named, who penetrated the Dharma source, was a person who sold firewood As soon as he arrived at the fifth ancestor's place, he said, I want to be a Buddha. In the rice-hulling room, ancestor Huining worked pounding rice until his mirror mind transcended worldly impurity and he was thoroughly self-illuminated. He was bequeathed the ancestral robe at midnight and crossed the Dayu Mountains.

[15:31]

With faith in the robe, he set it down. Venerable Hui Meng, with his mighty strength, could not lift it and then knew that each person must intimately experience and authentically realize for himself. I think that's a story that Alan didn't tell. Is Hui Meng the person who competed with the poem and failed? No. No, Hui Meng is someone else. We Ning is Daikan Hino. We Ning is the 16th ancestor in the art tradition. Okay, but this Hui Ming, Ming, Hui Ming, who tried to steal the robe and bow. Oh no, no, that's a different story. That's a different person. I didn't tell that story. What century was this, that this happened? That this was all going on? 7th. 600s, 7th. That's interesting. Yeah, and it was written in the 12th century. What I'm reading is a 12th century account of what happened six centuries before.

[16:32]

But the old story is that when Huining left the fifth ancestor's monastery, taking with him his bowl and his robe, he left because he knew he would be persecuted. And he settled down somewhere with a robe and a bowl, and people, among whom Huining, came after him and tried to steal the robe and the bow, but when he tried and the 6th San Huineng said, fine, take it, but the people couldn't lift it, too heavy to lift. Before you go on, I must make a comment that King Arthur was supposed to have lived around the 6th century, and I found a correlation between that and the people who could not lift Excalibur. Right, right. Interesting, same time period. So with faith in the robe he set it down. Venerable Hui Ming with his mighty strength could not lift it and then knew that each person must intimately experience and authentically realize for himself.

[17:38]

So nowadays please do not acquiesce to sages and exalt their worth instead of realizing it yourself. This is how you should wear the robe and eat your food. When constantly mindful With no distracting considerations, minds do not allow contaminating attachments. Cast off the body of the empty kalpa. Let go from the steep cliff. Comprehend your sense object's facilities, faculties, until they are exhausted from top to bottom. Solitary brightness is the only illumination. Extensive penetration preserves the marvel. Naturally, the mind flowers and radiance shines forth, responding to the visible lands and fields. How could you have ever separated from the various permutations?

[18:40]

Now you can enter among diverse beings and travel the bird's way without hindrance, free at last. So you can certainly see Dogen coming here in many different ways and as we go on to read more Dogen parts of this will come back but the theme of self-illumination is silent illumination is what is very fundamental to our heritage from Dogen and the Japanese line. So, Dogen was born in 1200, which makes him easy to keep in place. Died in 1253.

[19:44]

He was born into a very noble and well-educated family. And he himself was precocious, said that he read his first Chinese poem when he was four. His father died when he was two, and his mother died when he was seven. And these deaths made, of course, a great impression on him. He was raised by an uncle who hoped he would be heir and successor to the family. But when Dogen was 12, which was the age when he was expected to become formally a man, he ran away and entered a Tendai monastery. And in that monastery, with some prescience, he was given the name of Dogen, which means Founder of the Way.

[20:52]

He stayed there some time and then began to travel and entered Myozen's monastery when he was 17, 12, 17. And Myozen was his first teacher. During this time, Dogen's first question arose. And this question has to do with what is the relation between an acquired enlightenment and original enlightenment? What is the relation between practice and enlightenment? If all beings have Buddha nature, why do they need to engage in practice? And this is one of the basic questions, you know, and it comes up not too infrequently in the questions in the Zen Doctor Lectures.

[22:01]

It's hard to understand when on the one hand we have from time to time a very clear idea of what our balance and what our alignment in the universe is, Why do we keep falling off? In 1223, he and Miaozhen traveled together to China to investigate more of the Zen Rinzai roots. And Dogen had for some reason to spend the first three months of that time on shipboard. And here he came to his first Ah, lesson. Encountering a Zen cook who had been sent to buy mushrooms. What date was it that he left?

[23:06]

1223. 1223. Yeah. So he was 23. And so I'm going to read from this quite nice, detailed, but interesting book just about Dogen's formative years in China. There's a lot of scholarship that's beginning to come out, and so we've got very, very detailed accounts now. In the middle of the fifth month of the 16th year, 1223, while Dogen was conversing with the head of the Japanese crew off the coast of Jingyan, an old monk appeared aboard ship. He was the chief cook, Tenzo, at Aiwang Mountain and had come to purchase Japanese mushrooms. Originally from Sichuan province, he had been away from home for 40 years and was now 61 years old. After visiting many monasteries in all corners of China, he eventually came to study under Kuyun of Aiwang Mountain.

[24:08]

He had been appointed chief cook during the summer of the previous year. He had traveled 34 or 35 li to purchase mushrooms from the Japanese ship to use in making gruel. Dogen was deeply impressed with the devotion of the old monk and asked him to stay the night on the ship. The chief cook declined the offer for fear that it might interfere with the normal procedures at his monastery the following day. Dogen wondered why someone else could not prepare the meal in his place. He asked why a monk as senior as this one remained as chief cook and did not instead engage in sitting in meditation in pursuit of the way. The old monk laughed loudly and said to Dogen, my good man, from a foreign land, You still do not comprehend discipline, or bendo. Bendo a word you know? Sometimes the word bendo, which is bendowa, sometimes that word is translated discipline, sometimes it's translated practice.

[25:19]

My good man from a foreign land, you still do not comprehend discipline. You still do not know the word. You still do not know the words." Manji. Dogen was startled by the reply and proceeded to ask him the meaning of discipline and the meaning of words. We're coming around here to Ron's lecture. The old monk said, if you still do not understand them, come to Aiwang Mountain someday and study the meanings of the teaching. Having spoken, he stood up promptly and left before dusk. The Chief Cook's reply disturbed Dogen profoundly. This marked a clear division between his earlier quest for the final answer to the great doubt, that is, why, if we have Buddha nature, do we have to practice, and his renewed aspiration for the attainment of the Way. The Chief Cook opened a wholly new path to enlightenment. It was a radical shift from Dogen's intellectual quest for the recognition

[26:25]

for the centrality of single-minded discipline. That is, his first question in a certain way had an intellectual quality to it, which is very different from a monk's discipline. In the seventh month, in early fall, after a three-month separation, Dogen went to Chengtung Mountain to see Miaozhen. The chief cook, we're going to have another cook story now, of Tien Tung Mountain was a monk named Jung from Chuan. One day after lunch, Dogen saw him drawing mushrooms in front of the Buddha Hall. He was supporting himself with a bamboo staff. Although the sun was hot enough to burn the roof tiles, he wore nothing over his head. Bathed in perspiration, he was exerting himself in drawing the mushrooms and seemed to be in pain. His back was arched like a bow and his eyebrows were as white as a crane. Dogen approached the old monk and asked his age.

[27:29]

68, replied the chief cook. Why don't you use the help of the lay workers, asked Dogen. Others are not. I, said the old monk. You are in accord with the Dharma, but the sun is so scorching. Why do you have to work now? The chief cook answered. If not now, when can I do it? Dogen stood still and could not utter a word. As he walked down the corridor, he deeply realized the importance of physical work. After the intensive summer training, the Sashin, the chief cook whom Dogen had met on the Japanese ship off the coast of China, came to Tiantung Mountain to visit Dogen. The old monk had left Awang Mountain as a chief cook and was on his way back to his home in Sichuan. Dogen records how deeply moved he was by the monk's visit. He started talking about the earlier subject of conversation on the ship, namely discipline and words.

[28:32]

The chief cook said, to study the words is to know the origin of words. To strive and discipline is to probe the origin of discipline. Then Dogen asked, what are the words? One, two, three, four, five, replied the chief cook. Dogen asked again, what is the discipline? The entire universe has never concealed it," the monk replied. Dogen was greatly indebted to the chief cook for his understanding of words and probing the discipline. Later on, when Dogen read the following words of She Tu Hing Sen, he discovered the common identity of the two teachings. Now this first passage is from another Chinese master and the second will be from Dogen. One letter, seven letters or 15 letters can express it. The 10,000 things in the end provide no refuge.

[29:36]

As the night falls, the moon shines and sinks into the vastness of the ocean. Then there is an abundance of the black pearls that have been sought after. And when Dogen read this, he realized, the words I have seen so far are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The words I see today are 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. If the monks of the past and future look at the words everywhere and exert effort in this way, they will attain pure meditation. If not, they will suffer injury from impure meditation and will not be good at preparing meals for monks. This indicates that Dogen had reached an understanding that the old monk's fulfillment in his work as chief cook and his own realization of the meaning of discipline were one and the same.

[30:40]

The encounter with the old chief cook thus remained one of the most critical moments of Dogen's study in China and indeed of his entire life. Is this making any sense? Well, I don't get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Uh-huh. It makes no sense to me. Okay. I don't get it. I mean, I just don't get it. Yeah, yeah. You know, somebody said to me that there's something about this class that she finds very, very frustrating, that she doesn't understand anything. And she looks around and she figures other people are getting it. She's done. you know, we all just have to take shots in the dark. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, these words, you know, today, yesterday I saw 1, 2, 3, 4, tomorrow, today, 5, 6, 7, 8, it's just, you know, words, this is the way I see it, words slip and slide, slip and slide, and if we take them seriously,

[31:54]

If we can just see them as words, then that takes effort everywhere and exert effort in this way, these monks will attain pure meditation. If not, if we do take them as something more than words, they will suffer injury from impure meditation and will not be good at preparing meals for monks. Because words won't be words. They will be, you know, things in themselves. Right, right. Mountains will not be mountains. Rivers will not be rivers. Yeah, yeah, that second one. And then this is very poetic, but more obscure passage above it. One letter, seven letters, or fifteen letters, you know. The ten thousand things in the end provide no refuge. And then this lovely image, as the night falls and the moon shines and sinks into the vastness of the ocean, then there is an abundance of the black pearls that have been sought after.

[33:12]

Maybe is there another version of that story where the Tensei says to Dogen, you don't even know the characters. Instead of the words, you don't even know the characters. He says, what are the characters? And they're A, B, C, D, or. Instead of numbers. Instead of numbers, yeah. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know. Are you remembering one? No, I'm just wondering whether I'm confusing with another story. So, Dogen continued to travel in China until he found his authentic teacher, Lu Jing, who was abbot in this monastery that Han Ji had been abbot two generations before.

[34:33]

And... Excuse me, did you say that Hong Zhi was a teacher of Rui Jing. He's kind of grandfather of Rui Jing. There was a generation in between. There was a generation in between. Yeah, yeah. Dogen refers... Rui Jing refers to Hong Zhi with great reverence, and Dogen also. I can't exactly... I can't remember quite what he says about Rui Jing, about Hong Zhi. But he is very revered. Rujing put great emphasis on single-minded intense sitting, Shikantaza, and that was partly what drew Dogen to him, and also Rujing was a very major teacher with many students. So Rujing said that the discipline of sitting is the core of the authentic Dharma.

[35:39]

Rujing says, to study meditation under a master is to drop body and mind. It is a single-minded intense sitting without burning incense, worshipping, reciting Amitabha's name, practicing repentance of reading sutras. So you can see that Rujing is saying that Zen is Zen and kind of dropping off the Tendai and the other schools. One night in the monastery a monk falls asleep and Rujing strikes him and shouts, when you study under a master you must drop body and mind. What is the use of single-minded intense sleeping? Dogen was enlightened, dropped off body and mind and he went to see his teacher and his enlightenment was confirmed. So this dropping off body and mind, which also is in the passage that I read from Hanshi, is another way of talking about enlightenment.

[36:52]

Dogen stayed for another seven years and then felt it was time to go home. And he returned, I guess he stayed another five years. Anyway, in 1227, when he was 27, he returned home to Japan with, as I said, empty hands. That is, he didn't take sutras and artwork and liturgical objects. He just, he returned with the core of the teaching. And when he got back, he was asked what he had come back with. And he said, eyebrows are horizontal, nose is vertical. That's it. He just came back with the core of the teaching. And quite quickly began to write and to teach in Japanese.

[38:07]

And that was the first time that Zen at least had been taught in Japanese rather than Chinese. So it's interesting as we are in this period of transition ourselves to have that model. He must have thought a great deal about what to bring back and how to bring it back. He was a true missionary. He really wanted people to know. He really wanted them to know. So there had been Zen in Japan before his time? Yeah, for a couple of centuries. But it had been in Chinese? It had been, yeah, yeah, yeah. Japan was the repository of sort of the highest of Chinese culture when it was for various reasons fading in China and it stayed there.

[39:15]

So that was a scholarly language. The scholarly language, the language of educated people. So his use of Japanese was kind of a revolutionary thing to make it more accessible. Right, and he was also, because he was interested in teaching everybody, not just monastics, and that was another somewhat unusual quality. Of course, what he did bring back was form. He brought back the form of zazen, and he brought back the monastic forms that we continue to use. Some years back in Minnesota at Katagiri Roshi's monastery and Zen center, I went back one summer when they had Narasaki Roshi come from the Soto

[40:19]

one of the leading Soto monasteries in Japan, to help us with what was called Bendo-e, practice the Bendo-e, 24 hour a day practice, which was developed by Dogen. So that living in a monastery, everything you do, 24 hours a day, from brushing your teeth, to what side you lie on as you go to sleep and how long you sleep and so on. Everything, everything is prescribed. So you are totally living within the form. So although Dogen didn't take back the material things, he very much took back this spirit of monastic and formal discipline and teaching. How was that for you? Well, that was so incredible.

[41:25]

I mean, we were in Hokyoji, which is a very, then at least, this was five, seven years ago maybe, a very undeveloped kind of Tassahara, where the only buildings were the kitchen and the zendo and everybody else lived in tents. And it's a very dramatic and wild summer setting with drenching rain. And here were this intense and noble-minded bunch of people just really trying to do their best. And every day we'd have a two-hour lecture, maybe. Narasaki Roshi would simply read the Benbele. And it would be translated. It was sort of interminable. Just reading this rule, you know, and then and people really trying to keep up with the new rules about what the Doan did, and how meals were served, and the chanting, and everything new, new, new.

[42:25]

It was, I mean, it was just mind-blowing. It was crazy, that's all. Just to give you an example of Dogen's feeling about this. chant that we do in the morning. And he had never heard the robe chant. And he had never seen the monks offer the robe, offer their kissen, put it on their heads, and do the robe chant, and then put them on.

[43:27]

And he wrote that he sat there and wept with the joy of seeing the Dharma correctly transmitted, and with sadness for all of his Dharma brothers in Japan, who, I mean, he had been putting on the okesa, but they didn't know how, he felt they didn't know how to put on the okesa, they didn't know how to treat it right, they didn't know the verse for putting on the okesa, so he wept with sort of sadness that this had been Since you mentioned that, there's an interesting translation of the robe chant. Here, it's a little different. A little bit... How great the cassock of deliverance, the robe of no characteristic marks that cultivates the field of blessing.

[44:33]

Wearing the garment of Tathagata's teaching, I save all sentient beings throughout the world. I kind of like that, the robe of no characteristic marks. It's a great robe of liberation. It's much like the one they use in San Francisco. A great robe of liberation, feel far beyond form and emptiness. That's Tathagata's teaching for all beings. But this, the robe of no characteristic marks that cultivates the field of blessing, is a slightly different way of thinking of it. Lu Jing tells him about doing qinyan. It's interesting because it shows, you know, we just take it for granted like this has always been done, but it wasn't always done. Yeah, yeah, when you find it. And there is something about this But you can also, Mel refers to it sometimes as Japanese idealism.

[45:57]

You know, this 24 hours, this great emphasis on form. I guess that you saw Eheiji with, yeah, just extreme emphasis on form. So there's something you can, it goes back to the old cooks with their dedication to drying the mushrooms and this kind of discipline. I mean, Bendo means discipline, and this is what the old Tenzo's were teaching him, a certain way. Transmuted. All right, so I thought now we could just begin. I can see that we're not going to get very far along through this passage, but I'd like to I'd like to begin just looking at the book on Zazenji.

[47:04]

The book on Zazenji was the first, when Dogen returned to Japan, he traveled for some time before he came to his home monastery. But he began writing right away, and began what in fact became the Shobogenzo, the transmission of the Dharma, true Dharma, I, the great body of his work. And this Fukan Zazenji was this first writing, there are two drafts of it. One is more sketchy and it's a move in the dewdrop and this is a more complete I think the more... Here's one.

[48:50]

We're at the bottom of the stack. So the first, the way, is basically perfect and all-pervading. You know, if you're going to talk about this whole practice, where do you begin? And the first line, in a certain way, is the very foundation. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. That was Dogen's first take on the whole practice, in a certain way, the basis of his first question. an expression of Dogen's devotional, the devotional quality of Dogen's practice. Dogen was steeped in the Lotus Sutra.

[49:53]

The Lotus Sutra, he said, is the king of the sutras. The other sutras are servants of the Lotus Sutra. So, his understanding and his teaching is faith-based and very devotional. I would like to read a passage from the second, the second fascicle he wrote, the Bendowa, The Practice of the Way. And as I read it, I would like you to be, keep in the back of your mind the passage that I read from the Lotus Sutra. the first passage which is setting the scene, you know, as Buddha is seated and all the myriads of the people and beings from all parts of the world have come to receive the teaching.

[50:56]

Just keep that in the back of your mind. when even for a moment. And also, in the Lotus Sutra, the emphasis that the teaching is everywhere at all times, and the prediction in the Lotus Sutra of universal Buddhahood, that everybody, eventually, everything eventually is going to be part, is part, and will be part of Buddha nature. When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal in the three actions and his body, speech and mind by sitting upright in Samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Because of this, all Buddha Tathagatas as the original source increase their Dharma bliss and renew their magnificence in the awakening of the way.

[51:57]

Furthermore, all beings in the ten directions and the six realms, including the three or low realms, at once obtain pure body and mind, realize the state of great emancipation, and manifest the original face. At this time, all things realize correct awakening. Myriad objects partake of the Buddha body, and sitting upright, a king under the Bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundary of awakening. At this moment you turn the unsurpassably great Dharma wheel and expound the wisdom, profound, ultimate and unconditioned. Because such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, you will in Zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind. cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past and realize essential Buddha Dharma.

[52:59]

Thus you will raise up Buddha activity at innumerable practice places of Buddha Tathagatas everywhere. Cause everyone to have the opportunity of ongoing Buddhahood and vigorously uplift the ongoing Buddha Dharma. Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles and pebbles all engage in Buddha activity. Those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by the Buddha's guidance, splendid and unthinkable, and waken intimately to themselves. Those who receive this water and fire benefits spread the Buddha's guidance based on original awakening. Because of this, all those who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless Buddha virtue and will unroll widely inside and outside of the entire universe the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnameable Buddhadharma.

[54:02]

This being so, the Zazen of even one person at one moment imperceptibly accords with all things and fully resonates through all time. Thus, in the past, future and present of the limitless universe, this Zazen carries on the Buddha's teaching endlessly. Each moment of Zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization. So why don't we know that? Why do we keep forgetting? Because we got a new chance to find it out. So the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization?

[55:07]

The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? Lots of echoes here. It is never apart from one, right where one is. So what is the use of going off here and there to practice? Now one thing about Dogen is that everything can be one way and it also can be the other way. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? Gary Snyder has written a wonderful collection of essays recently called The Practice of the Wild. And this practice, you know, he's a Dogen scholar, and I'm sure this practice is Bendo. It's this sense of practicing, practice of the wild, and the essays are wonderful.

[56:13]

And he reminds us that Dogen and Dogen's contemporaries probably walked thousands of miles in very beautiful country. mountains and rivers walking was the result of years spent on the road. So what is the use of going off here and there to practice? It's all right here, but on the other hand, there was a lot of moving around. Before we go on, I can see that you brought some calligraphy. What did you bring? I thought you asked me what's that. I'm in trouble again. Yeah. [...] Well, why don't we. Yeah. Do you want some human. sho-bo-gen-zo.

[57:30]

And this first character means collect, or she translates as true, and ho means low, and gen is eye, which is in one of the interpretation says so illuminating. Do means treasury and where to store invaluable stuff. So all-inclusive, that's what it means apparently. This is a shobo, means for him apparently, as opposed to all those previous sects where they had all these talks and all. magic and other kinds of stuff. He really wanted to lay down some true law which is just nothing but a scantaza.

[58:33]

So this is the true law to eliminate the treasure. It includes everything. And I, Genjo, I couldn't figure out when I didn't have time to go to the library. We stayed at the library. This means koan, the one next to the street. Ko means public or official. And an means guide, guidance. Yeah. Just very, very beautiful. Yeah. So, the first paragraph from this Fukan Zazenji is essentially Dogen's question.

[59:39]

Why do we have to practice? And then the next paragraph, and yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. People hear echoes in that? From the Shinshin Rin? Yeah. And... Yeah, that's where... The xīn xīn míng is echoing without aging. Yeah. Oh yeah, I wanted to read a slightly different... a different translation. Another way of translating the first paragraph.

[61:14]

Now, when you trace the source of the way, you find that it is universal and absolute. It is unnecessary to distinguish between practice and enlightenment. The supreme teaching is free, so why study the means to attain it? The way is, needless to say, very far from delusion. Why then be concerned about the means of eliminating the latter? The way is completely present where you are, so what is the use of practice and enlightenment and so on? A lot of Chinese poetry, I studied a lot of poetry, so I would think that you would write it pretty artfully. Well, this Zen Master Dogen is by a Japanese person, Yuho Yokai. And so then we get the... Oh, all right.

[62:15]

So I'm going to read the fourth paragraph from this other translation, and you can follow along from what you have. Who's this then? Gilkoys. So, you should therefore cease from practice. You should pay attention to the fact... Wait a minute. I didn't correlate this well enough. I don't even see... Well, let's not do that. You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest.

[63:22]

And so this school of silent illumination, which I don't think, that's a new angle. I mean, I don't think, that doesn't come up for me in the ancestors. It's in the Chinese ancestors, except as it comes up through Zen Master Hongji. It seems to me it's a new kind of Zazen instruction. You mean taking the backward step and turning? Yeah. Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself. body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest.

[64:31]

You want to attain suchness. And then we have the instructions about how to actually sit. The exact form, the exact way of drawing mushrooms, the exact Zazen form. And then, once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, rock your body right and left and settle into a steady and mobile sitting position. Think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of Zazen. So, you know, we have this whole Mahayana teaching of the unity of the universe and the one vehicle. And Dogen has kind of boiled this down and down and down and down till you get finally to this backwards step.

[65:34]

And what do you do with mind? Not thinking. not thinking, non-thinking. So this very intimate instruction is the essence of the whole teaching. It really is quite an incredible, not just personal achievement that Dogen was able to make, he made it very much in a cultural context, but it's quite remarkable. No, it's the evening that I was talking about the Lotus Sutra, someone, I think Rebecca said, but it's so hard, that language, that Baroque language, so difficult to take. And this is equally, is so simple, but in a certain way equally mysterious, but one also feels doable. There's a constant instruction to examine your own mind.

[66:49]

I mean, the same thing as it's not the flag that's moving, but the wind is moving. Yes, it certainly is. This very famous part of the Genjo Koan. To study the Buddha's way is to study oneself. that that's the first most important thing, the first step to study yourself. Or to the father, the son and the father, the lost son has to go back and shovel shit, and the fifth ancestor has to pound rice. They're all the different metaphors, but the enormous business of studying the self is first. And then, to study the self is to forget one's self. And to forget one's self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas.

[67:51]

To be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be free from one's body and mind or those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment is continued forever. So in the next section, the Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharmagate of repose and bliss. Getting back to this faith base. The practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon entering the water, like the tiger entering the mountain.

[68:57]

For you know that just there, in Zazen, the right Dharma is manifesting itself, and that free from the first, dullness and distraction are set aside." So, it's very encouraging. And as Charlie said, moment by moment we have fresh opportunity and each opportunity is in each opportunity in each moment is unlimited and that's the identity of practice and enlightenment that it's not stage-based and then more emphasis on Zazen. Although it is said there are as many minds as there are people, still they all negotiate the way slowly in Zazen.

[70:00]

So I kept thinking about Ron saying that Saturday that he felt that this practice is attention-based. Is that right? And of course we each have our own practice and we each embody the practice in a way that, a particular way that we do. Dandelions and buttercups are not the same. But I would say that the practice is faith-based. That you can't start with attention somehow.

[71:00]

Well, it's Nietzsche. It's thought and action. I don't know. I've never read Nietzsche. Nietzsche says action comes first. Nazi idea. Yeah. And out of that comes thought. Look where it got them. Right. Yeah. So you think that's like it's paying attention first? Well, there's some sort of parallel. I'm not saying you're a Nazi at all, but I think so. Who is this? It strikes me that... Whereas in bodhichitta, you know, they talk about where it comes from. It's just sort of this wellspring of desire for practice. But you could also say, Charlie, that it's attention that makes you aware of faith or bodhichitta.

[72:07]

Yeah. That's right. I didn't hear the lecture, but it strikes me that attention does It strikes me that faith might be your relationship to practice, but attention is the practice. But they're both factors of enlightenment. Right. Yeah. You could enter anywhere. Right. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sick with it. You can try the kitchen door. That's right. Especially for people like us with a little faith in them. But we do each have our leanings. That's right. And the way we lay those out. That's right. The gates that are right there and open and the other gates that you have to bang on. Well, I think that's probably plenty.

[73:10]

and how I'd like to hear your feelings on how that comes up for you and how it parallels Dobie's thoughts on faith. I got sidetracked with Nietzsche. my mind is hard to corral. And I don't know if this is going to respond to what you're saying, but having a talk recently with somebody who was saying that she practiced for quite a long time and she still felt like a beginner. And I said, but, so that's good, but there must be some stability that you feel. And she said yes, a kind of increasing, an increasing trust.

[74:54]

And I think that we do, that this We practice and there's a beginning in practice that's very exciting and romantic and all of that. And then there's some continuing and then it begins to seem very ordinary. You know, three years, five years, so what? And there's a tendency to get, to feel like, well, you know, why am I spending this time in the cushion? Is it worth it? And a certain number of people leave. And something very kind of quiet and seamless is going on. And at a certain point you realize that you have this incredible gift which just that you are able to sit and feel renewed sense of balance and kind of countenance. And

[75:58]

So it seems to me that that's faith. That's the way I feel faith. That's my experience of faith. And that it's kind of like at the beginning you don't know what's there. But it's sort of like a very weak muscle. And then you practice and you train the muscle. and then at some point, oh, it's a muscle. Does that speak to him? Sure does. Thanks. So, that's just, and I'm sure we all have, it's such a mysterious quality, faith, to each of us. Each of us has our own story and relationship that we may be aware of or unaware of, I still don't understand what faith to me is an expectation for something, you know, concrete.

[77:09]

There's all kinds of levels of faith. We talked about that in one of the first things. But what you seem to be talking about is your experience of that experience. Yeah, right. Much like, you know, you use that thing of muscle. Someone goes and works out. I mean, it's not a matter of faith to see the muscle building. I guess when someone starts, they see someone who's worked out and they say, And yet, I can't remember where it was, but in some of the stuff I've read something about practice without the expectation of enlightenment. I mean, you know. That's fine. It's kind of like that faith might get in the way of, if it's not valid, if what you're experiencing isn't valid at that moment, why continue? That's fine. So are you continuing on the expectation that enlightenment will come, or is it self-fulfilling in the moment? Yes. to me. That's experience. This is great.

[78:10]

Okay, well that gets back to Alan's question about the lost son in his father's house. You know, why is that story a story about faith? You know, the son is just there and the father's expecting him. So where's the faith? I agree. Yeah, yeah. So if faith becomes an idea, an expectation, then it's misleading. Right? Yeah. Well, I mean, through this whole discussion, I've been thinking about, well, maybe it's not faith-based, it's doubt-based. I mean, you have to have the doubt, which brings beginner's mind, that you don't know that what's going to happen. But what I could see is the faith and the doubt, right? We're all trying to walk the middle path. And when it's so easy to fall out of this balanced place, And then if you have the faith that you can find it again through sitting Zazen, say, it helps put you back on.

[79:14]

But if you feel like you're on, and if you know you're always going to be on, and you lack that doubt, well, you instantly fall off, because then you're no longer sitting Zazen. That's sort of my twist on things. Yeah, yeah. That's even in the Fuganzo Zenji bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you begin to pride yourself in your accomplishments, question, just an observation, that seems to me, if you're doing something, not experiencing it because you're thinking it's what's in the future for almost observational in me.

[80:32]

can't not know. It's always there, I guess. So is that faith when you know it's there? Yeah, you're working on a methodology or an approach that gets closer to it. But blind faith is this idea of something I've I think that touches very much on what Joyce was... But in many ways, faith is beside the point because the original teacher says, don't believe me, just try it out for yourself.

[82:38]

And that's what we do. We have a practice. We are trying it out for ourselves. It's sort of like some sort of Buddhist laboratory where we're constantly getting this stream of data. Why are you listening to him saying, try it out for yourself? Because I didn't have the idea in my head to begin with. Well, you have some faith in Buddha. Well, I do now, but I didn't know what faith in Buddha was before. But you're still doing it. That's right. So, there was some germ of faith there. Well, that's where the bodhicitta comes in, I think. What is bodhicitta? Thought of enlightenment. I think that the word faith has different levels and different angles to it and it's hard to talk about it unless you really settle down and really want to go into the word and the different implications it has. People can use the word faith and mean different shades of meaning. It's tricky. I like the word trust and I'm thinking of skeptical doubt.

[83:44]

Faith to me has always been That sort of real negative thing that says nothing is any good and this isn't going to work and it's hopeless. Whatever is opposed to that force. I don't use the word faith, I guess, but that's what I think of when you use it. Well, it would be very helpful if you fill out the evaluation forms and put them in Alan's box in the next few days, hopefully. And if you have copies, which you do, of Shobo Gensho Koan, which we already gave out, if you want to think about the koan at the end of the

[84:49]

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