Good morning. On Sundays, we usually study Shobo Genzo Zui Monki of Ryogen Zenjutsu Darumato. But because today is my teacher, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi's memorial day, So, I'd like to talk about my teacher. Well, Uchiyama Roshi died March 13th, 1998. So, exactly seven years ago. At that time, I lived in Los Angeles. But I visited Portland, Oregon to lead a weekend session.

[01:11]

And then I went back to Los Angeles. I found a message on my message machine. And that was from a friend of mine. And he said, Kuchiyamurase died. And when I called a friend back, he said that his funeral was over. So, unfortunately, I was not there when he died. And when I knew about his death, his funeral was over. And I had the same experience when my mother died. When my mother died, I was in Massachusetts. And I received not a phone call, but maybe a letter from my sister.

[02:20]

She said, my mother had a stroke. And I called her. She said, my mother died. I tried to go back to Japan to attend the funeral, and I went, but when I arrived at my house, my home, the funeral was just over. mother and my teacher, I had the same experience. And so, part of myself, I still don't believe it. And, of course, you know, I didn't meet both my mother and my teacher for a long time before their death. So, somehow, in part of myself, they are still alive. I'm not sure it's good or not good.

[03:22]

But that is my experience. Uchiyama Roshi was born in 1912 and died in 1998, so he lived for 86 years. His father was quite a successful businessman in Tokyo. So, he is from a rich family and when he was a teenager he had, he made aspiration or determination that he wanted to live based on the truth. And he said he didn't know what is truth. So his first step was to find the truth, the fattest truth.

[04:26]

And in order to search the truth, he studied Western philosophy. At his university, undergraduate and graduate school, he studied Western philosophy. While he was a student, a university student, he married. So, he was very young. He was 21 or 2, with a very beautiful woman from a high class family. Actually, until the end of World War II in Japan, we had a so-called aristocrats. And Uchiyama Roshi's first wife was kind of an aristocrat family. But his first wife had TB.

[05:33]

And she died three or four years later. So Uchiyama Roshi was still a student. And he... Uchiyama transmitted TB from his first wife. The rest of his life he lived with TB. So he was physically very weak. And after he finished graduate school, he became a teacher at a Catholic seminary in Japan. And he taught Western philosophy and mathematics. And he also studied Catholic theology at the seminary. But after six months, not six years, six months, he found that he couldn't be a Catholic because of the institutionalism.

[06:45]

So he quit. the job after six months. And later he said that six months was the only time he had a regular job and regular income. And he went back to Tokyo and he married again. But his second wife died, I think, one and a half year after their wedding. While she was pregnant, she was sick only a few days, and she suddenly died. Uchamaru said that was his experience of impermanence, and he decided to become a

[07:47]

Buddhist monk. And his father tried to find a good teacher, because, you know, Uchenboro, he was very kind of an intellectual person, and also critical and miserious intellectually. So, his teacher and his father thought, And he found a really great teacher. Uchiyama-shi couldn't continue to be a monk. And he found Sawakiroshi. At that time, Sawakiroshi was a godo or a teacher at Soji-ji. Soji-ji is one of the two main monasteries of Japanese sort of Zen. So, I think Uchiyama Roshi was 28 or 29.

[08:58]

He participated in Sawaki Roshi's Sesshin at Soji-ji. He found, I mean, Uchiyama Roshi found Sawaki Roshi was really his teacher because he didn't want to be... he didn't... basically, he didn't like religion and Uchiyama-roshi. He didn't want to accept or believe some kind of doctrine or theory already fixed. And when he listened to Sawakiryo's teaching and also Togenden's teaching, Dogenben said, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. So, he found that is what he was looking for.

[10:00]

Instead of, you know, accepting some kind of system of belief, he wanted to find the truth and truth of the self, not truth already fixed in the past. And so he made a decision to become Sawakiroshi's disciple. And he was ordained December 8th, that was Buddha's Enlightenment Day, in the year of 1941. He was 29 years old. And December 8, 1941, was Pearl Harbor Day. Pearl Harbor Day in this country is December 7, but that is December 8 in Japan. Anyway, so the day he was ordained, the war happened.

[11:07]

So Saki Roshi's disciples had a kind of a practice place, not so far from Tokyo, but in the mountains. And Saki Roshi sent Uchamaru to that temple. And during World War II, Saki Roshi's disciples lived together at that temple. practice together, and they had two sessions a month. One session with Sawakiroshi. Sawakiroshi was always traveling around Japan, so he... Sawakiroshi never lived in a certain fixed place. He was always traveling, and he visited that temple only once a month to lead a five-day session, I think. And when Sawakiroshi was there, they had, you know, of course, a lesson, and a service, and a lecture, and probably a work period, too.

[12:20]

But they had another session without a teacher. just sat with that teacher. So, no lecture, no service, no work period, no nothing, but they really just sat. And they called that san-nai sesshin. San-nai means within temple. So it's not open for public. Only resident practitioners sat by themselves with that teacher and with that visitors. And their schedule was really extreme. They started to sit at two in the morning. And they sat for 15 minutes at Pyariad and 10 minutes at Kihin. And they had three meals a day, and a little short break after each meal.

[13:27]

And they took turns to walk holding a kyo-saku, a waking stick, until midnight and twelve. And only two hours, from midnight to two in the morning, they don't have a person walking around with kyo-saku. That means they could sleep only two hours, and yet they slept on the cushion. So, basically, they slept 24 hours a day, except while they are eating hot meals, and also, in turn, to walk around, holding kyo-saku, and also when they go to bathroom.

[14:34]

That was, Uchiyama Roshi practiced in that way for three years. That was kind of an origin of That's the thing we had at that time. So, while Sawaki Roshi was alive, Uchiyama Roshi practiced following Sawaki Roshi's style. But, Sawaki Roshi died in 1965. So, from 1941 to 1965, about 25 years, Uchiyama Roshi practiced with Sawaki Roshi. And when Sawakiroshi died, people asked him to become the Abbot of Antaishi. So he became the teacher. And yet, because he had TB, he thought to be a teacher at Antaishi only for 10 years.

[15:51]

And when he became the Abbot of Antaishi, he kind of modified That's the scene he had at the first temple. He thought to sit 24 hours a day is too much. He thought we human beings have a certain amount of sleep. So he decided to sleep 7 hours from 9 in the evening until four in the morning. And if we sleep, you know, four hours, we have no excuse to sleep during the day. And he stopped using kyo-saku. That means each one of us had a responsibility to keep awake. You know, if you sleep seven hours a day, that must be sufficient.

[16:56]

So we have to take care of ourselves to wake up. So we cannot rely on the kyo-saku to wake up. And the rest of the session is the same. We just continue sitting and walking three minutes a day. That's how we practice. That was his kind of modification of his first sesshin he experienced right after he became a monk. practiced that kind of Sesshin ten times a year for ten years until 1975. When he became the Abbot of Antaiji, as I said, he declared that he will be the Abbot only for ten years and he will retire.

[18:08]

So he retired from Antaiji in 1975. I was ordained in 1970, so I practiced with him the second half of his while he was the abbot of Antaiji. When he retired, he was 63 years old. The teacher, he was very young, but because of his physical condition, he couldn't continue that kind of teaching. That's why he quit. And when he retired from Antais, he said, after retirement from Antais, his practice was facing life and death.

[19:25]

After he retired from Antais, he gave a Dharma talk or a teisho only once a month at a temple in Kyoto. And when he was about 70 years old, he was quite sick. And probably he himself expected he was dying. And we also almost expected he was dying. And around that time he wrote, he made a collection of poems. about life and death. And I'd like to introduce one of his poems. And this collection, small collection of his poems on life and death, was translated by Tom Wright and myself.

[20:30]

and it's on the website of the Shinsengen community. So if you are interested, you can read all those poems. The poem I'd like to introduce today is very short. The title of the poem is Samādhi, Samādhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light. This Samādhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light is a translation of Kōmyō Zō Zanmai. Zanmai is Samādhi. And Kōmyō is radiant light.

[21:34]

And this light, of course, is a symbol of Buddha's wisdom and compassion. And Zō means treasury, same Zō in Shōbōgen Zō. Shōbōgen Zō is treasury of true Dharma, Ai. And Kōmyō Zō is treasury of radiant light. And this light is the same light of the true Dharma. So basically, Konyo-Zo and Shobo-Gen-Zo is the same thing. But his, Uchamara's interpretation is our life. We are born and live and die. His birth, living, and death, or dying, is taking place within this Buddha's samadhi of radiant light.

[22:39]

So our life is happening within Buddha's samadhi. His poem is something like this, not something, but as follows. Though poor, though poor, never poor. Though sick, never sick. Though aging, never aging. Though dying, never dying. Reality prior to division, reality prior to division, Herein lies unlimited depth. Let me read it again. Though poor, never poor.

[23:40]

Though sick, never sick. Though aging, never aging. Though dying, never dying. Reality prior to division. Herein lies Unlimited depth. That's it. As I said, he had a regular job only six months out of his, you know, 86 years of life. So, he was really poor. I mean, he wrote many books. More than 20 books were published. But when those books were published, he received copies of books instead of money and sent those books, copies of books, to people, his students.

[24:48]

So he didn't make money by writing books. And, you know, before he, you know, became famous, a well-known teacher, you know, he was, of course, poor, because he was just a monk, and Antaji had no family supporters, family members, so there's no... Antaji had no regular income, so he had to... live on takuhatsu or begging. Especially right after World War II, you know, almost all Japanese were almost starving. So it was really difficult to beg in the city.

[25:50]

People were starving. So his life was very difficult. And since he had a master's degree, if he wanted, he could teach at a university or college or high school, but he never done such a thing. He really focused on Zazen practice, and only practiced with Sawaki Roshi. He never practiced at an official monastery. Anyway, so he was really poor. His family was rich, but when he left home and he became a Buddhist monk, he was really poor.

[27:00]

But he said, never poor. And when he wrote this book, he was really sick. You know, we expect him, he was dying, so he was really sick. But he said, never sick. And though aging, you know, he was around 70s, so he was aging, really. But he said, never aging. And though dying, never dying. So, you know, the first half of each line and the second half of each line are contradicted. These are two kinds of plurals. As reality as an individual person, he was poor, he was sick, he was aging, and he was dying.

[28:10]

but as the reality, or the absolute reality. You know, he, since he was a teenager, he tried to find the truth and tried, wanted to live, you know, based on that truth. And he really lived on that truth. After he found the truth by the Buddhist or Dogen Zenjutsu or Sakya's teaching, he really focused on that truth and practiced and taught younger generations. So his life was really focused on that truth and searching the truth. And after he found the truth, he practiced and transmitted that truth to other people.

[29:13]

That was the only thing he did. And I think the truth or reality he found was this reality. You know, we are, as an individual, when we are facing Death, we are poor. No matter how much money we may own conventionally, when we are facing death, we cannot use that money. So that money is not, you know, my position. So when we are dying sick and dying, aging, the money doesn't work. So everyone is poor when we are dying. And yet he said, he was never poor.

[30:15]

That means the reality he found is, as Buddha taught, we are living together with all beings. So there is no so-called individual self. And no possession or wealth. So we really share everything with all beings. So on that aspect, we are never poor. And even though he was sick, he said he never sick. And he was aging, he was never aging. And he was really, actually dying, but he said, I never die. You know, this is really interesting to me.

[31:19]

You know, last month we celebrate, kind of celebrated Buddha's, Shakyamuni Buddha's death. That was January 15th. You know, when Buddha, left home, left his palace. Buddha's biography said he met a sick person, aged person, dead person, and a religious practitioner. And he found life is death, and life is suffering. And in order to find a path of cessation of those suffering, he left home and practiced. And after 13 years of practice, he attained so-called enlightenment, and he became Buddha. And according to the biography of Buddha, it said he kind of transcended, or overcome, or conquered those sufferings.

[32:30]

But as I read, you know, The sutra of Buddha's Parinirvana, when he was dying, he was sick and he had pain. He said, I had pain and I couldn't move. So he had pain, he was sick, he was in pain, he was aging, and he was dying. So, what's the difference between those people Buddha saw when he was young and strong, and when he was 80 years old? What happened when attain so-called enlightenment? If, you know, when he died, you know, he had pain, he was sick, he was aging, he was dying, and he died actually.

[33:33]

I think this is a very interesting point. The meaning of, you know, conquering or transcending the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and dying. You know, Buddha's enlightenment didn't work as a painkiller. I'm pretty sure. He had pain when he died. So enlightenment is not a painkiller. And it's not a tranquilizer, I think, either. But I think Buddha found same reality as Uchamaru Shizuaki here.

[34:37]

Even though he was sick, he was never sick. Even though he was aging, he was not aging. Even though he died, he never died. This, you know, kind of a reality of although we are arising and perishing, or being born and die, appear and disappear. And within the process of between arising and perishing, we have to experience all different changes. But still, this birth, living, and death is taking place within the reality We generally say it's reality prior division, or separation, or discrimination.

[35:38]

And this reality prior separation or division is division between to be poor and not to be poor, or sickness and not sickness, or healthy condition, or aging and not aging. or life and death. You know, we make separation or division into two. And we think this part is positive, that part is negative. And we cling to this part and try to escape from that part. And we, you know, start to chase after something and try to be in that part. and escaped from this path. And usually, as a Buddhist term, this is called sansara, and this is called nirvana. But if we understand sansara and nirvana, or suffering and cessation of suffering, as something positive and negative, then our practice itself

[36:57]

You know, chasing after a cessation of suffering and escaping from suffering. This way of life itself is suffering. And when we stop doing such a thing, chasing after something or escaping from something, we find the reality prior to those divisions. Then, even though we are poor, sick, aging and dying, still, the reality of life in which we are being born, living, and dying is really prior the division between those things or discrimination. I think that's how we can really settle down within impermanence. That means we can experience a session of suffering within suffering. And the final line of this poem is, herein lies unlimited depth.

[38:10]

That means, you know, depending upon how deep our understanding and how deep we can, how can I say, experience that reality. not only understanding. You know, this samadhi, this samadhi of radiant light might be shallow or deep. So our practice is not gaining something positive, but our practice is how deep we can go through within this reality beyond or before or prior separation of something positive and negative, something we like and dislike.

[39:14]

And our practice of Zazen is really about deepening our awakening and experience and understanding of this reality prior to any discrimination or separation between something we want or desirable or something we don't want. We letting go of those both kind of desire to gain something or to escape from something and really settle down at this moment. That means we need to accept that condition and wake up to that reality before separation.

[40:19]

He wrote this poem around when he was 70, but he didn't die. He lived almost 15 years more. Right? Yes. And he died when he was 86. And it's his wife, Uchimura's wife, he married again. So, he married three times. The last marriage, well, I think he married right a few years after he became Ryotoban Taiji. That means he was about 55. And the rest of his life, you know, he had He lived with his wife. After he retired from Antares, he lived with his wife.

[41:32]

And her name was Keiko-san. And Keiko-san wrote The Final Day of Uchamaroshi in the book published after his death. The book, a collection of Uchamaroshi essays, written in his final days, mainly about life and death. In that book, Keiko-san wrote about the last day of his life. He was in bed almost until noon, He was very weak, of course, but he could take a walk.

[42:34]

In the temple ground where they lived, there was a small shrine hall in which Jizo Bosatsu was enshrined. And, you know, when he was aged, he couldn't sit. So his practice was to kind of bowing to that Jizo Bodhisattva. So his final day, he visited that Bodhisattva and bowed. And he took a short walk and came back. and he had supper and after supper he tried to brush his teeth and while he was brushing his teeth his wife heard some noise and she went to that bathroom

[43:50]

Uchiyama, she fell down. And she called a doctor and one of my Dharma brothers lived near there. And she was alive, I think, one or two hours. When the doctor came, he had still consciousness, but he died very quietly, peacefully. It seems difficult to tell when he died. That was in a lunar calendar. 15th day of second month in lunar calendar. That is February 15th.

[44:56]

That was exactly Shakyamuni Buddha's Parinibbana day. And 15th day of each month is a full moon day. So, one of my friends, who visited Roshi's house right after his death, in the midnight. He found he was lying down, and there was a really beautiful full moon shining on his face, and his death face was really peaceful. And later his wife Keiko-san found his writing on the day he died.

[46:00]

And in his diary he said he couldn't sleep the night before when he died. because he had some problem with his legs, so he slept only few hours. And he could, you know, visited the Jido Bodhisattva to make homage. And he said, I finally could write a poem about bowing, or bowing or making prostration in the most kind of complete way. That means he has been trying to write a poem about bowing.

[47:06]

or bowing with gassho and lower our head to something or someone venerable. So until his final day he was trying to, how can I say, express the true meaning of his practice. Until his final day, he was trying to express the truth he found. And he wrote that poem. And the poem is, his last poem is part of this book, so you can read in this book what I'd like to just introduce today. The title of the poem is Just Bow.

[48:14]

Bow? Instead of just sitting. You know, he couldn't sit. So, Just Bow became his practice. Putting my right and left hands together as one. So, this is a gassho. to putting my right and left hands together as one. So, two sides become one. Two sides into separation. Then, I just bow, just bow to become one with Buddha and God. He said Buddha and God. Just bow to become one with everything I encounter. Just bow to become one with all the myriad things, everything in this world.

[49:18]

Just bow as life becomes life. So, within this practice of just bow, it's not a matter of he, Uchiyama Roshi bowed to something else, something outside, but what he wanted to say is his life. Bow to the life itself in order to become the life. So, you know, the individual person, independent person, named Kosho Uchiyama, somehow, Not disappeared, it's there, but it becomes transparent. It's there, but it's not there. Completely free from self-clinging. But life, his life becomes life itself. I think that was the reality he finally

[50:32]

He found this reality, you know, when he was much younger. And he had been practicing it and trying to express it with, you know, many different ways. And he wrote many books. And finally, when he, the day he died, he said, I finally, completely, express that truth. Last week, last Sunday, a friend of mine visited and gave a Dharma talk to us. His name was Gwansun. He talked about the Heart Sutra, and he kind of summarized what the Heart Sutra says within his own life or way of life or experiences as loneliness.

[51:52]

I really appreciate his kind of you know, the expression loneliness. When we really see the reality of emptiness, we feel loneliness. And as a part, you know, as a part in Uchiyama's poem, as a part of first half of each poem, poor, sick, aging, and dying, as individual, I think when we really see the reality of impermanence, I think loneliness is the other thing we feel as a feeling and emotion. And I think it's really important to find that loneliness. That means as an individual, we are completely alone. But at the same time, we are

[52:59]

There's no such thing as an independent person or an individual person who are alone. Because we are living together with all beings. So, I think in Uchiyama Roshi's final poem, the loneliness also disappears and becomes really transparent. And only this, you know, life, manifest the life itself. And yet his body is there, his mind is there, and he's trying to express this reality. At the very time, he was dying, and he was disappearing. And as an individual, you know, body and mind, he really disappeared.

[54:02]

So he's not here anymore in this world. But his life, the life he lived, and also the reality or truth he found and he tried to express and transmit to us, is still here, I think. And especially when I sit facing the wall, I feel I'm living the same life as he lived. So I'm really grateful to have a teacher like him. He never said, I'm a enlightened person. I'm a true teacher and I never made a mistake. But he said, don't rely on me.

[55:07]

So, I have to, I have been, I have, how can I say, I have been practicing for my own, with my own body and mind, but I found that I'm living the same life with my teacher, because that is the only thing he tried to teach or transmit to me. So he gained nothing, but he lost nothing. It's all there. And I think our practice is the same practice. Our practice of zazen is the same practice. Within zazen we are like a cloud. Somehow we appear and stay for a while and disappear. You know, we experience everything in our zazen.

[56:13]

All different kinds of thoughts or emotions, feelings come up, stay for a while and disappear. And we, ourselves, are the same as our thoughts in our present. Somehow we appear, stay for a while, and disappear. And that's all. At least that is what I learned from my teacher. And I really appreciate his teaching. Not only teachings he wrote in his book, but his life itself, I think, is his teaching. This is what I have to say today. Today is his memorial day.

[57:16]

After this lecture, we'd like to have a memorial service. And today, because we don't have English translation of echo or dedication, we decide to chant Sandokai in Japanese. And Shotai is going to recite the echo in Japanese. So please try to chant with us in Japanese as much as possible. And I have one announcement. Not announcement. But we plan to have an open house in May, end of May. Saturday? Sunday? Saturday. Final Saturday, that is 28th. And, you know, we are trying to make plans and organize things and I think we need many volunteers who could join and help us.

[58:25]

So, who is the best person? Shota-san and Carol or other, whoever. Please, if you can help us or join us, please. I think we have, we need many people. Okay, thank you.

[58:51]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ