one in as much detail, but I just wanted you to experience a little of the world that Dogon's coming from. So my next book is going to be about this, about the worldview of Dogon and how he expresses it in the Lotus Sutra, and the magical practices that were just assumed as part of the world of Dogon. a dharma hall discourse that Dogen gave in the year 1250, a few years before he died, not as a rain dance, but to end the rain that was falling. So I'll just read it through quickly. Last year and this year, through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, below the heavens the rains have fallen without cease. The whole populace laments as the five grains do not ripen. Now Elder Ehe, for the sake of saving our land from lamentation, will again make supplications by lifting up the Dharma Hall discourse, praying for clear skies that was given me by my late teacher, Chantang Rujing, when he resided.

[01:12]

It was given by my late teacher, not given to Dogen, when he resided at Xingliang Temple. What is the reason? What can we do if the Buddha Dharma does not relieve the suffering of human and heavenly beings? Do you understand A.A. 's intention? So, basically, Dogon is saying that Buddhadharma is worthless if it doesn't actually relieve the suffering of human beings. So, we don't practice just for ourselves, we don't practice just as a kind of therapeutic tool, we don't practice just because it's so much fun. We practice for the sake of suffering beings and relieving their suffering. and actually relieving their suffering. So this is a dharma hall discourse that Dogen gave to clear, to end the rains that were flooding the area. But what he does is really interesting, because, well, I'll keep going.

[02:14]

When my late teacher, so he's talking about a dharma hall discourse that his teacher, Rujing in China had given. When my late teacher had not yet given a dharma hall discourse, all Buddhists and ancestors had not yet given a dharma hall discourse. So this is the world Dogen lives in. Before his teacher gave a Jodo, nobody had, even though great teachers like Zhaozhou and Mazu and Yunmen and on and on, have recorded sayings in which they have dharma hall discourses and they lived before Rujing. Dogen says, and this is true, Before Rujing had given a Dharma discourse, all the Buddhists and ancestors had not yet given a Dharma hall discourse. When my late teacher gave a Dharma hall discourse, all Buddhas of the three times, the ancestral teachers of the six generations, and all nostrils and the 10,000 eyeballs of all teachers at the same time all gave a Dharma hall discourse. So if you listen, you can hear Dogen speaking.

[03:17]

They could not have been an hour earlier or half an hour later. Today's Dharma Hall discourse by Ehe is also like this. And then Dogen paused. And everything he says after the pause is an exact quote of the Dharma Hall discourse that Tiantang Rujing gave to clear the rains at Qingyang Temple. So Dogen is doing this, and probably you weren't aware that in Soto Zen, we do ceremonies to change the weather. We do ceremonies. In fact, it's part of the standards for the Zed community that every day the farm or field manager makes offerings to the deity of the fields and of the ground and of the land and to other similar spirits. So this is the world that Dogon is speaking from. It's very different from the world we're in, in lots and lots and lots of ways. But anyway, I wanted to mention this one because it's so different from how we usually see the world.

[04:25]

But this is the world that Arsazeg comes from. So Dogon paused and then he just quoted this Dharamhala discourse. Everything that follows is from Chantam. Without ceasing, one, two, and three raindrops, drop after drop, fall continuously, morning to night, transformed into torrents so that we can do nothing. The winds and waves overflow throughout the mountains, rivers, and the great earth. Then, Rujing sneezed once and said, before one sneeze of this patra monk is finished, the clouds part and the sun appears. Then, Rujing raised his whisk. I don't have my whisk with me, but I'll use my fan. and said, great assembly, look here. The bright clear sky swallows the eight directions. If the waters continue to fall as before, all the houses will float away to the country of demons. Make prostrations to Shakyamuni, take refuge in Maitreya. Capable of saving the world from its sufferings, wondrous wisdom power of Avalokiteshvara, I call on you.

[05:29]

So Dogen recites this. Now, we don't have any record of whether actually the rains stopped in the sixth month of 1250 after Dogen gave this discourse. He certainly intended to give this discourse, not just because it was cute, but because he wanted to stop the rain and relieve the suffering of human and heavenly beings. We might imagine that when Chiantang Rujing gave this discourse, and when he sneezed, the rains did stop at Qingyang Temple, because Dogen quotes it. So anyway, this is not how most of you think about Zen practice usually. So that's why I wanted to read it. Comments or questions? It sounds like prayer to the other. I mean, it sounds like something that would... Is a sneeze a prayer to the other? Which other is the other that you think it's the other of?

[06:32]

I mean, I know it's not, but it's how it sounds. And it's a confusing thing for me, which is why I bring it up. Good. It says, make prostrations to shock and take refuge in my train, as if there is something to doubt after something to take refuge in, that is, other than myself. Is Shakyamuni other than yourself? Well... You imagine so. Yes and no. I mean, yes, I imagine so. You do. Confess it, that you do imagine that Shakyamuni lived 2,500 years ago. You do imagine that he was a man and you're a woman. You do imagine that he lived in India and you live in America. I imagine, I imagine that you imagine all those things. Yes, I do. Okay. Good. But I think they're true. They're not factual, are they, huh? Factual? Did he not live? I mean, I don't know. What do you think, Phoebe? Did Chuckie Mooney live? Yes.

[07:35]

Good answer. Great laugh. Does that solve anything? Phoebe laughed and she slapped her leg. Good answer. I mean, I like that whole thing of how we, the relative. So he says, when my late teacher, Chantang Rujing, had not yet given a dharma hall discourse, all Buddhas and ancestors had not yet given a dharma hall discourse. Do you think he's excluding Shakyamuni when he says that? When he talks about all Buddhas and ancestors? So before Chantang Rujing gave a dharma hall discourse, Shakyamuni Buddha never gave a dharma hall discourse. Because? There's no moment but now. Is there a now? Good question. Yes? Yes? The thing about linear time, I guess, is this. I don't know.

[08:35]

I hope that you are all driven to question by this dharma hall discourse. But please don't forget that Dogen says, What can we do if the Buddhadharma does not relieve the suffering of human and heavenly beings? I could look at despair, because I personally don't see it doing a very good job. You don't? No. On a mass level. I'm sort of a step, you know, I'm sort of disappointed. If he's capable of stopping the rain, he can't do this. It looks like the sky is clear out there, so we did something right. Oh, you need some rain?

[09:53]

I said we could ask the question, are we not okay if it continues to rain? Anyway, I think we have a problem. This is... The founder of Soto Zen in Japan thought this way. He did. This is what he says. He wasn't kidding. So, this is... So our practice, actually, not the practice we think we're doing, not the practice based on how we think the world is, not the practice based on what we see of how the world is, or how we see our practice affecting the world, Beyond all that, anyway, here we are. So, Tuesday night at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center I'm going to talk about the Bodhisattva figures and how they are not other than us or separate from us.

[10:59]

And how they are not other than other than us and separate from us. So they are in the world. So Maitreya is in the world. There's a guy in London who says he's Maitreya. Maybe he is. There are beings in the world who manifest Avalokiteshvara, and yet they're not separate from Susan, that is Avalokiteshvara. And Maitreya asks the same questions that you asked. That's what Maitreya is, is to worry about the future and wonder how she will become the next Buddha. So anyway, I'll be talking more about that Tuesday night. But yes, this is a question. How do we see self and other? How do we see our separation from the world? How do we relieve the suffering of human beings? How do we care about all the beings in Iraq who don't have electricity or water or can't walk out on the streets safely because of all the chaos there?

[12:05]

How do we care about beings in Cleveland and New York and Detroit who don't have electricity? Well, I guess they have it back now for a little while, don't they? But anyway, so this is a really different world. Not only did they do ceremonies to end the rain, but they did not have electric fans. And they did not have microphones. And they did not even have electric lights to stay up late studying the sutras with. And they didn't even have email. So it's really important that we see that our zazen comes from such a world without even email. That doesn't mean that we can't use email or enjoy the electric fans and the breeze or turn on electric lights. or speak into the microphone.

[13:07]

But still, before my teacher gave a discourse, a Dharma discourse, all the Buddhas and ancestors had not yet given a Dharma discourse. I'll say that too. So how do we enter this world? This is actually what our Zazen is about. This is what Dogen is saying. So please do not disdain to bow down to Shakyamuni or Avalokiteshvara or Maitreya, in yourself or others. And sometimes we, I don't know, we bow to the statues on the altar. But the statues on the altar are not just the statues on the altar. We don't just bow down to the statues on the altar. So thank you very much for your question. Anybody else? And my confusion is similar.

[14:09]

The issue of not... that no tarmac talk had occurred before your teacher spoke to me is about non-duality, or at least that's how I hear it. But don't imagine that all that it's about is non-duality. And I think that's where I'm going next, in that the praying that the storm ends He wasn't praying the storm ends. He was giving a dharma hall discourse so that the storm would end. It's a little different. He wasn't praying to somebody else. He was calling on... He was making prostrations to Shakyamuni and taking refuge in Maitreya and calling on the wondrous wisdom of Balvala Kutishvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. But it's not just I'm going to ring up somebody in the sky who's going to stop the rain from falling.

[15:20]

Something much, much more is going on. Yes? I'm going to make a stab at this. The other thing is that it's not... I was saying this to you before, that the point of these teachings is not that you understand them. Okay, go ahead. Okay, good. I can do this. The point is... Thank you. Very good question. Did you hear? She asked, what is the point? The point is Or what is the reason? What's the point of doing, of practicing the Buddhadharma if it does not relieve the suffering of human and heavenly beings? That's the point. Sir? This has just got to do with some little insight I had the other day that I can hardly put words to, but... Oh, good. Yeah, but there's... Somehow, when all these things are invoked, and when one is entirely present in, you know,

[16:21]

all that, every movement, everything takes on a great deal of impact. Yes. This is the second Noble Truth. That everything that happens has a cause. That everything we do has an effect. and it's always been so. So it doesn't mean that we can trace the intricate web of causation of everything in the whole world, in the whole universe, in the past and the future that allows me to hold this up right now. But by doing that affects everything else. So as I was saying last night, each inhale you take completely depends on every other inhale you've taken.

[17:25]

If you had not taken one of those inhales, you would not be able to take another inhale. And if you decided now to take a break from inhaling for the next, oh, just 10 or 20 or 40 minutes, then you will never take another inhale, probably. So, anyway. And is this just extending that kind of cause-effect experience that we can more directly see into this larger universal... It means that... Last night I was talking about Zazen as performance art. It means that we actually perform the act of Zazen, of asking questions, of sitting upright, of taking another step, of taking another breath. So this is the esoteric or tantric aspect of Sutta Zen that I was referring to.

[18:30]

But we actually enact the Dharma and we enact the saving of all sentient beings in a sneeze sometimes. So can anyone explain a sneeze? Well, you know, maybe, that was good. So, yeah, anyway, you were going to say something? Well, as you were talking, I flashed on the trust which you hold in your hand. Good. So it feels to me like the calling to Maitreya and the vowing to Shakyamuni can be done in the spirit of we're co-creating. It is us and we are it. And so in a sense, it's acting out of that confidence. It feels like it's a call. A call, that's good. That's pretty much all it is. It's a call. So some language explains things. Some language is about something else.

[19:31]

But can you tell me what the meaning is of, hello? Goodbye? Thank you. please. So this is a kind of language that actually performs some action. And you'll notice that he doesn't say that he's going to take refuge in Maitreya and prostrate to Shakyamuni in order to clear the sky. First he sneezes in right, and he says, before this sneeze is finished, the clouds part and the sun appears. Later on, after that, he says, take refuge in Maitreya, make prostrations to Shakyamuni. So this is not like a petitionary prayer that we're used to from Abrahamic religions. But he is calling on Avalokiteshvara also.

[20:36]

So let's look at 483, which is also related to this in some way. Say it again? It was in the news that the Pope just recently asked all Catholics to pray the hymn of the Eve in Europe. Yes. Well, I think all Buddhas should pray for that too. Good. So, 483. In discussing this affair, all Buddhas in the ten directions are not without practice, realisation, and all ancestral teachers cannot defile it. So I told that story last night. Should I tell it again? OK, so this refers to a story which we're going to come across again today, if we keep talking long enough, which is about a student who arrived at the Sixth Ancestor's place. And this student, actually, they give the name of the story because he later became a great teacher named Nanyue, one of the great disciples of the Sixth Ancestor.

[21:45]

And he arrived and went to meet the abbot, the Sixth Ancestor. The sixth ancestor said, where have you come from? And he said, oh, I was at the national teachers. And then the sixth ancestor said, what is this that thus comes? And Nanua didn't know what to say. And he went and he sat and considered this question for eight years. So sometimes in these koans and these stories of teachers and students, it looks like they're going back and forth really fast, but it doesn't mention that there are other people standing around watching Maybe the student goes away for a couple of days or a couple of months, three years, and comes back. In this story, it says he went away for eight years. And I considered this question, what is this that thus comes? So I have been recommending that as a koan or mantra to use in zazen. It's a very good one. And after eight years, Nanyue went back and said, I can answer that question that you greeted me with eight years ago.

[22:50]

And the sixth ancestor said, what was the question? So I don't know if he remembered it or not, but Nanyue said, eight years ago, you asked me, what is this that thus comes? Now I can say, anything I say will miss the mark. So it took him eight years to realize that. He became a great Zen teacher. So Dogen, commenting on that story, sort of says, we should laugh at these efforts of Nanyue. But then the sixth ancestor asked, then is there practice realization or not? So I was talking last night about the oneness of practice realization and the oneness of practice realization and expression, because our practice is a very expressive practice. And anyway, when the sixth ancestor asked, is there practice realization or not? And Nanyue proved that he hadn't wasted his eight years by saying, it's not that there's no practice realization, only that it cannot be defiled.

[23:51]

And the Sixth Ancestor said, exactly this is what all the Buddhas and ancestors take care of. You are thus and I am thus too. And so here, Dogen starts out, in discussing this affair, all Buddhas in the ten directions are not without practice realization and all ancestral teachers cannot defile it. So this should be very encouraging to you, if you consider it. Therefore, among the hundred million people at Vulture Peak, only Mahakasyapa was able to abide and maintain it. Among the 700 eminent monks at Mount Guangmei, where the fifth ancestor selected only one lay worker to receive transmission of the Dharma. How can this be attained by the mediocre or common? Those who are not common or mediocre are called true home leavers. Those who are true home leavers must maintain the commitment to strength and intense determination and should erect the banner of diligence and fierce courage.

[24:54]

Finally, they must hold forth the key of Buddha ancestors, open the barrier of going beyond, which I talked about, and carry out their own family property to benefit and relieve all the abandoned and destitute. At this very time, we first requite our gratitude for the blessings and virtues of the Buddhas. And then Dogen got down from his seat. So again, this is about the point of this practice, which is for home leavers, their practice is to relieve the homeless. So you know that Manjushri sometimes masquerades as a homeless person. This is very traditional. So when you see such a person, it might be Manjushri. We don't know. Anyway, this is also the point of our practice, to benefit and relieve all the abandoned and destitute.

[25:55]

So he doesn't say how you do that exactly, but that's what we do in our practice. So how our practice benefits beings, you might feel disappointed in your practice or in the effects of practice in the world that you see around us. And yet, don't rely only on your eyes. We don't know the effects of our practice. If you think the effects of your practice are only what you think they are, then you might get disappointed. So, please consider the possibilities of relieving the abandoned and destitute. So, to further elucidate that, please look at

[26:58]

The one just above it, 434. So these three sort of go together. And after this, I am going to go to another one where we'll go into it more line by line, but I wanted to kind of present these together. So Dogen said, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. Well, there you go. Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. Cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself within the ten thousand forms. Even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So once you have first aroused the vow to save all living beings, removing suffering and providing joy. Once you have decided to benefit and relieve of the abandoned and destitute, how do we practice?

[28:16]

In the lofty mountains we see the moon for a long time. So some people actually go up into the mountains and look and see clearly the reality of this life of practice. and some beings spend a long time up there. And some do it in the mountains and some do it even though it's much more difficult right in the city. But anyway, when you have aroused this vow, he says, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So the abandoned and destitute are not just out there. Home leaving also means we're leaving the suffering of these abandoned and destitute. So, comments on this 434? There's a lot in this one. Yes? Just a beautiful image of the moonlight cascading down over the 10,000 floors.

[29:19]

I got this picture of it almost coming down the mountain, just tumbling down the road. And that juxtaposed with the in care of yourself as spiritual power, that both standing within yourself and completely falling out, falling on the mountain. So yeah, there's the pictures of Shakyamuni coming down the mountain. And there's the picture of Hotei emptying during the marketplace with shining hands. I'm curious about the phrase, climbing up the bird's path. This is a reference to Dongshan, Toussaint. The book after next I'm going to write is about Dongshan. And he talks about the bird's path. So have any of you ever seen the tracks of the birds in the sky?

[30:22]

Tell us about them, Tom. Say something, whatever. What? Cataracts. Good, good cataracts. Anyway, so Dongshan talks about following the bird's path in the sky. So, you know, we don't usually see the bird's path, but yet, you know, birds can migrate thousands of miles and follow the path they followed the year before and centuries before that. So I don't know what it is that birds see.

[31:25]

Do birds see the traces? We can see a little bit the path of fish in the water, but we don't see the currents in the ocean. So sometimes this is an image for following the Buddha ancestors, following the path of the Buddha ancestors in the sky, in emptiness. But even then, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. Now, when I understood that conventionally, I'm pretty sure I'm getting onto some conventional ground and perhaps missing something. What do you think is meant by taking good care of yourself? I'll ask the assembly. Can anyone say what is taking good care of yourself?

[32:26]

There's lots of answers. Taking a bath, putting on clothes, exercising, sleeping. Anybody else? That's taking good care of yourself, yeah. Metaphorically. You don't need to do a whole lot of me time. Other answers? What is taking good care of yourself? When you're hungry, eat. What? When you're hungry, eat. And when you're sleepy, sleep. OK. When you hurt somebody, apologize. Good. When you hurt somebody, apologize. So following the precepts is taking good care of yourself.

[33:33]

Trying not to cause harm. Letting go of yourself. Good. Letting go of yourself. Letting go of our attachments to ourself. So letting go of dropping body and mind, letting go of self, doesn't mean harming self. It doesn't mean taking bad care of self. It means just taking care of yourself. Good. Yeah, so say more about what it means to practice in the mountains. This isn't so obvious actually.

[34:43]

Say some more about what you feel about that. Very good, yes, thank you. Yeah, so, you know, you can take it literally, and it is wonderful being up in the mountains, but also, what does it mean to practice alone and what does it mean to practice together?

[35:46]

So in some ways, Only you can take care of what's going on on your Zabaton. Somebody might come around and hit you with a stick if you're sleeping, but still. Nobody else is going to allow you to enjoy Dogen's writing. Nobody else is going to take the next inhale for you. This is, as you say Jerry, this is seeing the moon for a long time in the lofty mountains. And so we don't know, but then again we do that together. So when we sit together, we're sharing the moonlight with people on the next sabbatons, or on the sabbatons across the hall. So we have to do both.

[36:52]

In fact, we do both. That's our practice. Even if you're sitting alone as a hermit on the mountains, literally, that may affect lots of things. So this is one of the things I'm going to talk about tomorrow. But following the precepts and trying to respond to the calamities of the world, you know, there are many ways. There's not one right way to do it. It might be calling your congressperson or writing letters to the editor, or going to a demonstration, and it also might be meditating and wishing kindness for all beings, that all beings may be happy. And for each one of us, at any given time, many of these actions, or many different actions, may be the right way to benefit and relieve the abandoned and destitute. There's not one right way, ever. And it's always changing. But this pattern, in the lofty mountains we see the moon for a long time.

[37:56]

As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. So we could have actually translated that, the same character is used for sky and space and emptiness. So in the Heart Sutra, do you ever chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese here? So, shikifu-i-ku, ku-fu-i-shiki. Chiki is forms, Ku is emptiness. It also means sky. It's used, the same character that's used here for sky. But since he's talking about these images of clouds and sky, we translate it to sky, and that's what he means. But as clouds clear, we first recognize emptiness. As our obstructions clear, as we sit alone, facing the wall, being willing to just let go of body and mind and be ourselves, without attachment to ourselves. without attachment to non-attachment to ourselves, then we start to recognize something. So please don't try to read Dogon to understand him, but please enjoy it when you recognize something in your practice.

[39:06]

Or please get out of the way of the Zazen person who's also on your cushion, who can recognize something when they read Dogon. don't hamper their enjoyment of recognizing whatever they can recognize when they see the empty sky. Cast loose down the precipice. The moonlight does share itself within the 10,000 forms, within all things. So our awareness makes a difference in the world on many levels. There's no question about it. Now, is it going to prevent the nuclear war that some people in power in our country want or seem to be trying to make? Well, I don't know. We don't know. Still, our awareness makes a difference. I don't think it's hopeless. In fact, I'm sure it's not. We don't know what will happen in the next moment. It could be a blackout. It could be an earthquake.

[40:07]

Well, I don't know. You don't have that here so much. We have it in California. Do you have earthquakes here? Yeah, lots of them. They're very small. Small. Yeah, we have lots of small ones too. Occasionally we have big ones. It can be kind of dramatic. You have tornadoes? We don't have tornadoes in California. Hardly ever. So anyway, who knows what's going to happen in the next breath. Each inhale might be the very last one. Especially if you don't exhale. But if you exhale, then maybe you can have another inhale. So we don't know. But still. Our effort makes a big difference. In fact, when we see the emptiness of the sky, this light flows down into the 10,000 forms, and vice versa. So it's not just that my practice is helpful to the world, but I know that Susan's practice is helpful to me. It has to be so, I'm sure of it.

[41:10]

whether or not you ever thought that anything that you ever did was helpful or not. It doesn't matter. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much for all of your practice. Even though we've never met before today that I remember. Other comments on 434? The metaphor of a mountain and the sky is always a very popular one. I used to climb mountains. Oh, great. So you can tell us about it. The moon is evident for a very long time. When you're on top of a mountain and the interesting thing is oftentimes the rest of the world is invisible to you because the clouds are below you. And you can be still in short breath because there's not enough oxygen.

[42:18]

So to me, you know, the scenes and skies and moons are really beautiful imagery and real imagery. Yes, thank you. Yeah, so this is what this teaching is all about, and practice, and expression. So this refers, of course, to what's sometimes called bodhicitta, the mind of the way, our first impulse to practice. So somebody asked me how I came to practice.

[43:22]

And, you know, it's a good question to remind yourself of what possibly could have possessed you to come do this weird thing. You know, what was it that led you to come and try and sit still for 40 minutes or whatever? cross your legs in this funny way and all of this stuff. So, you know, and I think there's lots of different answers, you know, maybe they all have to do with some problem or some suffering or some, you know, thinking it would be therapeutic or I don't know, whatever, but we each have our own version of awakening to the First Noble Truth and we each have our own version of what led us to consider something as wild as saving all sentient beings. What led us to caring about the world? So, there are lots of people in the world, and I might name some of them, but I don't want to slander anyone, but we can look at what they do and wonder if they care at all about other beings, or maybe other beings besides their family and

[44:39]

buddies or whatever. So it almost seems like there are people who have not aroused the vow, who don't care about the well-being of beings. In some ways, conventionally, it looks like that. But Mahayana teaching also says that all beings are Buddha nature. So even those beings who seem most hopeless, who most seem like evildoers or whatever, you know, can have a change of heart. So there's lots of stories about that too. Do you all know about the song Amazing Grace? Have you heard that song? I've heard that song, but I don't know about it. Does anybody know about the person who wrote it? You don't know that story? The guy who wrote it was a guy who had been a former slave trader, captain of a ship that brought lots of Africans to America to become slaves, and he had a change of heart.

[45:53]

He had a change of heart. So when he said, to save a wretch like me, he was a wretch. Other comments on 434? Oh, yes. Stevie? In general, if you can't hear, would you please ask us to speak up? Sorry. Oh, about the state of all things, I'm really suffering inside, so I, um, I've been kind of contemplating since last night our discussion about fate and what fate is, and, oh, and it's related to... You know, we're, we really know how we're living, and, and, um, just like we know, um, that when we step forward and think that everybody kind of comes forth and be there, it's not just, um,

[47:03]

It's not just believing. It's actually like I'm knowing. I'm knowing about experience. And this, when we say, vow to save all living beings, I've heard some people, you know, the vow can make, when we say the vow, some people will say that we can't vow to save all living beings, because that's not possible. So how can I make this vow? And we don't say, I hope to save all living beings, or I try to save all living beings. that I vow to say all kinds of things. And we say that with our whole heart and faith, that yes, I'm vowing to say all kinds of things. And my practice is from there. Yes. We've been puzzling some over how could Dogen talk about clearing the sky just with a sneeze, or how could Dogen talk about Buddha not having given a discourse until Chiantang Rujing did, or am I saying the same thing about my teacher?

[48:06]

So there's this realm of the inconceivable. So on some ways I was talking about it in terms of Vajrayana or esoteric Buddhism as the foundation of Japanese Buddhism, but it's just also plain Mahayana, vowing to save all beings. So this inconceivable quality of our practice is inconceivable, which means we can't get our head around it. There's no way That you can understand this in terms of your usual limited human faculties and ideas and conceptualizations. And yet we seem to be such weird monkeys. We want to try and get a hold of it and grasp it, you know. get it all written down in outline form and put a frame around it and put it on the wall. We want to get something, you know? We live in a consumerist society where we're taught to acquire and consume. So we think that saving all living beings is something like that.

[49:08]

Or even just clearing the sky. So saving all living beings, you know, a lot of you are having trouble just imagining that we could actually stop the rain. You know, if you can't even stop the rain, how are you going to save all the living beings? I mean, so, you know, okay, think, okay, let's break it, you want to make it simpler, you want to make it easier, you want to make it more comprehensible? Let's just say, what about if we save all the living beings who are now in the city of St. Paul? That's a much, much smaller subset than all sentient beings. It's much smaller, much more manageable. So, is that easier? Do you think you could do that? Steph doesn't think she could do it. She doesn't have much faith, but. We're not talking about all sentient beings now.

[50:14]

We're talking about just the sentient beings who are in St. Paul today. Well, I don't know. I don't know St. Paul as well as the rest of you. Maybe they don't need to be saved. Maybe only the ones in Minneapolis need to be saved. Okay, let's make it easier. Forget about St. Paul. That's too many people. What about just all the Zen practitioners in St. Paul and Minneapolis? What about saving all of them? Would that be easier? Smaller? No, let's not get personal. What about, okay, each of you, imagine just your immediate family. Spouses, children, parents, siblings, just that small subset of people.

[51:14]

I mean, it's a limited number of people. It's three or four or five, depending on how many siblings and how many ex-wives or whatever you have. Anyway, think about those beings and what it would mean, really, to relieve their, to remove their suffering and provide joy for all those beings. Let's stop and think about that. Just those, maybe some of you have no immediate family, or, but you all have parents. So even if they're dead, think about, you know, how could you help them? Let's think about that. How does it feel to consider removing suffering and providing joy for those beings?

[52:50]

Feels possible? Well, good. Yeah, so if you bring it down to a small subset, we might actually be able to you know, help our brother and sister with some of their addictions or bad habits or confusion, you know, we might actually be able to help a little. Or maybe it's just that wishing, may all beings be happy, or may all the beings in my immediate family be happy, makes you feel better. And maybe that helps. Anyway, I think even how we do that, even if we feel like we can actually get our heads around thinking about our immediate family still, this removing suffering and providing joy, it's kind of beyond our grasp. It's something we can't do based on our controlling.

[54:05]

the thoughts and feelings of our siblings and parents and spouses and children and so forth. But we can make that vow. So I don't know. I don't know how we save all sentient beings, but anyway, that's our practice. I just thought of the Diamond Sutra. Bodhisattva vows to save all living beings, but doesn't have any thoughts of living beings. Yeah. Doesn't produce, doesn't have thoughts of living beings. Bodhisattva vows to save all living beings, but Bodhisattva doesn't have a thought or a concept Yeah, better way of saying it. So even having a concept of just our immediate family is kind of a problem. So, you know, if you think of your brother or sister and who they are, we know them.

[55:16]

I've known my sister since she was born. And yet, I don't know everything about her. I don't know what it's like for her to sit satsang. I don't know if she's ever sat satsang. But anyway, for her, you know, we don't know what it's, we can't smell what somebody else's nose. But we can't even do that for ourself. So remember the one about taking care, it was the same one, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. How are you going to remove suffering and provide joy for yourself? That's also kind of inconceivable. You know, just, Taigen is a much smaller subset than all sentient beings, but I don't know. I don't know what to do about Taigen. It's a problem sometimes. So we don't, so our idea, so as you say, Brent, our idea of who all sentient beings is,

[56:17]

our idea of who our brother or sister is, our idea of... Our idea of separate, but even our idea of ourself. We're not vowing to save our ideas of all sentient beings. Or we're not vowing to save the sentient beings who we think are sentient beings. So I could vow to save this fly on my finger. And so maybe I won't try and get it off my finger. But anyway, this is the realm that our practice actually is on. So, again, it's not about figuring it out. It's not about having some method. It's not about having some plan. It's not even about having some roadmap. It's about how do we meet our experience right now? So I think we're ready for the pregnant pillage now.

[57:22]

But I don't want to, if anybody else has something to say about any of that. The one thing I found interesting is your family style. You talked about the translation of the dream, the family style, all of it. All of this family style was impossible. Uh-huh. That's literally what it says, and it kind of, it's a Zen slang for... It means, so they talk about the family style of Buddhas, so they talk about Buddhas, disciples as the sons and daughters of good family. This is the family business, so this is kind of a convention in Zen. Yeah. So it means, so it refers, it's referring to the style of, you could say the style of the house.

[58:29]

It's referring to a lineage. Sometimes it's referring to a specific lineage. Sometimes it's referring just to the lineage of Buddhas. And that's the feeling here. But I just want to check the character. Yeah, literally it's house wind. When you could translate the two characters, it's a very common expression. But wind also means style or flavor or culture. So it's the house wind of the Buddhas and ancestors, even before they had electric fans. So it wouldn't be referred to like parents and children in the Indian system? Not in this case, because it's not the family style of personal family.

[59:32]

So it's used in various contexts. It could be used for a style of teaching in tea ceremony or martial arts, too. Any other questions, comments, responses? Okay, let's try the pregnant pillars. It's the next one after the relieving and eating. So we're going to talk more about body and mind dropped off. So before he said body and mind dropped off is good practice, here he says body and mind dropped off is the beginning of our effort. But when a temple pillar becomes pregnant, how do we discern their absence? The thick cloud matting spread over the mountain peaks is still. And above the heights, the round moon shines in all directions.

[60:37]

More mountains and moonlight. It stands alone, eminent, not relying on anything. The lofty Buddha body does not fall into various kinds. Therefore, an ancient worthy said, The sage empties out his heart. The 10,000 things are nothing other than my own production. Only a sage can understand the 10,000 things and make them into oneself. At this very moment, how is it? Do you want to understand this clearly? After a pause, Doug and Sam. The moon moves following the boat with the ocean vast. Spring turns following the sun with the sunflowers red. Would you like a copy of the text? So.

[61:47]

Before we start, from the beginning, comments, questions, responses? Right off the bat, I'm like, what does he mean by, how do we discern their absence? Okay, so we have like, mind. It's like pregnancy. What's that? Sounds like pregnancy. Oh, so yeah, I think it's got the same, vagueness in the original too, but I don't think he's referring to the temple pillars going on leave when they become pregnant. I think he's referring to, although, you know, if that happened, I don't know if the ceiling would come down. But I don't know if these temple pillars are pregnant, I'll have to ask you. But anyway, but they may well be. But I think it just grammatically refers back to How do we discern the absence of body and mind? So, body and mind dropped off is the beginning of our effort.

[62:53]

We're poor science students. It's like you said, becoming a priest is when training really begins. Becoming a Buddha is when training really begins. Receiving Dharma transmission is when training really begins. But I said that I... Before training begins is when training begins. Yes, yes, yes. So anyway, I have a different approach than Dosho sensei. I just think, you know, you're all Buddhas already. Let's just start from there. But I think it's nice that he provides you with all these different levels and steps and so forth. That's a nice tool. Anyway. Still, no matter where you are in your practice, no matter what color robe you're wearing, it's just the beginning of your effort. Thank you.

[64:07]

You want to see the Chinese character for a second? Are you Chinese? I think so. Ah, well. You're not turning Japanese? So I'm just driving through a microphone.

[65:26]

I can take it off. We don't have a blackboard. Do you want to come up here or should I go there? My calligraphy is very bad. Can any of you write Chinese characters better than me? It's two characters. So why are you asking? I'm curious. Okay. It seems like a very rich word. It's a very pregnant word. And the two characters, I don't have a dictionary with me, but I think it means together, cherishing, separately, cherishing the womb. Here, I didn't write it big enough. Cherishing the womb?

[66:28]

Yeah, cherished in the womb, maybe. Anyway, it means, but as a compound it means pregnant. So, it's okay, I have the solution. Okay, so, other questions? Oh, we have red sunflowers sometimes in California, too. There are different colors of sunflowers. I'd wondered about that, too, actually, because usually sunflowers are yellow, but there are red sunflowers. There's some on Center Avenue in San Anselmo in California. Okay, body and mind dropped off as the beginning of our effort. But when a temple pillar becomes pregnant, how do we discern their absence?

[67:31]

So Yunmen talks about somebody asked him something. Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And he said, ask the temple pillars. And where is it? Somewhere in another dharma hall discourse, Dogen, I think it's maybe one of the earlier ones that you already had. Dogen says, I'm not going to talk about this anymore, but I'll leave it to the temple pillars to tell you, something like that. Anyway, you've got four temple pillars here. No, there'll be five. Anyway. Yes, so that's probably the one about Yun-Man, yeah. So it's not, it's not, most of, almost nothing in Dogen is something that he made up himself for the first time. Just like Bob Dylan steals, you know, things for his songs that Dogen took from all kinds of other songs for his.

[68:47]

So, but what about this? What is it like when the temple pillars become pregnant? They're alive. Why, how? How do the temple pillars become pregnant? They do give birth to Buddhas. But how do they get impregnated? How do we plant the seed of Buddhas when we're in the temple? Practice. OK. Into the vow to save all beings we plant the seed. Uh-huh. By holding the precepts. Uh-huh. Rows in the Bodhi mind.

[69:51]

Rows in the Bodhi mind. Physically, how does it happen? Zazen. Zazen. So how many years has there been zazen in this room? So I'll need to ask the temple pillars. Have any of the temple pillars told you anything? Any of you? A lot of sitting next to them, under them. Uh-huh. What have you heard? Nothing.

[70:52]

Oh, good. Good. Anyway, so we don't know how this works. This is not the human realm. So elsewhere, Dogen says that the Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a sentient being. So I do know, though, that when I lived in between the cemeteries that... Something, did something shake there? Did something move? Aha. Maybe, maybe a burst. Water breaks. Ah. Next to the pillars?

[71:55]

Even down the pillars. Well, there you go. During Sashin, okay. The fire has also arisen here, from the floor. The fire's here? Locally, up through a hole in the floor. Yeah, so I was starting to talk about the temples in Kyoto. I lived in between these two huge cemeteries, each connected with large buildings and pagodas. One of them was the pagoda that had the relics of Manjushri in it. It was really cool. But anyway, if you walk around a place where it's been practiced for a thousand years, you can feel it. Have any of you been to old temples in India or China or Japan? So sometimes you can feel it best if you walk around late at night when all the lights are out, when it's dark.

[72:58]

So I liked walking around those cemeteries Mike mentioned. The Japanese people wouldn't do it, but I loved walking around through the cemeteries at night, late at night. And those temple pillars are pregnant, anyway. So, Dogen says in Bendowa that when we sit, even for a little while, that all space becomes enlightened. Fences and walls and tiles and pebbles, and even temple pillars. So, body and mind dropped off is the beginning of our effort. But when a temple pillar becomes pregnant, how do we discern their absence? When the temple pillars become pregnant, can we see that body and mind have been dropped off?

[74:04]

No? You think we can't discern their absence? So, then, if that's the case, then maybe body and mind come forth. When they're dropped off, they come forth from the pregnant temple boys. The body and mind of practice. The body and mind of relieving suffering and providing joy for all beings. So we're not talking about trying to figure out what this means in literal sense here, okay? Maybe. No, we're not talking about this in terms of... We're just playing with the images here. And this playing with the images, this feeling for our sense of what goes on with body and mind dropped off?

[75:17]

What goes on with... the arousing of vow, what goes on with trying to save all sentient beings, what goes on with the temple pillars becoming pregnant. This is why I was talking about imagination last night. This is the play of our body and mind dropped off. When our body and mind is dropped off and we can let go of our usual idea of who we are and what the world is and what the temple pillars are, And our usual idea of body and mind dropped off. Our conventional idea about body and mind dropped off. So we can have conventional ideas about unconventional things. We can even have conventional ideas about inconceivable things. But when we allow from inside our zazen, our recognition of what happens to the body and mind dropped off when the temple pilgrims become pregnant.

[76:17]

This is the realm in which Dogen is talking to his monks, who later went out and spread Soto Zen amongst Japanese peasants. Do you have something, Rick? I feel better. Still vomiting. OK. Let's stop and have some gestation. But anyone who has something to say, please feel free to speak it as we sit. Good.

[77:47]

Yes. So, Pregnant is something that's in motion, evolving, not still.

[79:19]

Good. Yes. Give birth to pregnancy. When I think about cherished in the womb, what comes up for me is prashna paramita, the mother of all women of the soul.

[80:38]

What do you think of my body and mind, girlfriend? Good. Pillar is everything that we're not. I was thinking of coming to London. I think the Polaris have the capacity to save all human beings. Yes, they do.

[81:38]

The Buddha's mother was much pregnant. So this image of the pregnant temple pillar is a very pregnant image, but it's also related to a whole set of other images in Zen talk. Can anybody give me another one? Yeah, I can pick one. The stone woman, the barren stone woman becoming pregnant. The stone woman gives birth to a child at night. Yeah. Dogen once wrote an essay about a saying by Zhao Shan, Dong Shan's disciple.

[83:03]

A dragon howls in a withered tree. And there's another one that might be in here. I don't know if I included it. Number 213, would you turn to 213, please? This is for Enlightenment Day, commemorating the Buddha's enlightenment in 1246.

[83:37]

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