Good evening. Welcome, everyone. So some of you were here last Monday evening when Stephen Hein was here talking about the Mu Koan and whether a dog has Buddha nature and Dogen's responses to that. And he mentioned some of the, well, other sections of Dogen's writing essay about Buddha nature. So I thought I would talk about that some for a little while. I spoke yesterday, a few of you were here, about Buddha nature and temporal conditions. But I want to go back to the basic, the beginning of the essay, the basic quote, and the basic question. And this is an important fundamental question for our practice, for our zazen, for our life, which is, what is this Buddha nature?

[01:01]

So this question is kind of like asking, what's the point of all this practice? What's the point of our lives? What is this Buddha nature? In many ways, it's the foundation of our practice. We sit upright, present, paying attention to our posture and our inhale and exhale and the thoughts and feelings arising and coming and going. as a way of sometimes suddenly, sometimes without our even knowing it, connecting with what we call Buddha nature, this underlying awareness and kindness that we say is the nature of all things. I talked about this a little bit, just the background of Buddha nature, and I've talked about this before, but it's worth talking about again, that initially the idea of Buddha nature was that we all have some potentiality, some capacity to awaken, to express Buddha in our lives, in the world.

[02:23]

And through actually this first section that I want to talk about tonight, we see how Dogen, the founder of Sato Zen in Japan in the 13th century, changed the meaning of this. It had evolved already in China. But he starts with a quote from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the large Mahayana Sutra that talks about Buddha's passing away into Parinirvana. And in the middle of that it says, and this is the conventional reading, all sentient beings without exception have the Buddha nature. Tathagata abides forever without change. Tathagata is the one who comes and goes in suchness. Another name for the Buddha. And actually in early Mahayana Buddhism in India and in China, they thought that some people have the seeds and potentiality of Buddha, can awaken and become Buddha. And some people just, you know, there's just no way.

[03:29]

And maybe you know some people who you might feel that way about that, well, it's just, there's no way they'd ever be Buddha. Really our practice and the practice of Buddha nature is to see Buddha nature in everyone, to see the good qualities in everyone, to see the possibilities in everyone, to see virtues and kindness and awareness in everyone. Sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes Buddha nature is buried deep underneath our habits of greed, hate, and delusion. So we all have some of that. And we also all have this connection to Buddha nature through zazen, this connection to suchness. Buddha nature is a kind of particular way of seeing reality or suchness. In one story about this, Dao Sheng was a great Chinese, early Chinese philosopher and translator and teacher, and was a fairly prominent lecturer and senior person in Chinese Buddhism.

[04:38]

This was before Chan, before Zen came into, before Bodhidharma arrived. And he made the statement that all sentient beings have Buddha nature. And at that time, they thought that there were some that just cannot awaken. So they actually threw him out of the temple. They excommunicated him. They told him, leave. This is heretical. And then fortunately for him, fairly soon thereafter, a translation of this text appeared, which says, all sentient beings without exception have Buddha nature. And I said, oh, we're very sorry, and brought him back. So that's, anyway. Part of the background about how important this question about Buddha nature was, and the question of what is Buddha nature, who is Buddha nature, the founding of Soto Zen in China had to do, the founder's question had to do with whether non-sentient beings can expound the Dharma can expound, can express Buddha nature. And through this debate in China, leading up to Dogen going to China a while before then, eventually the Chinese came to say that all sentient beings, and they included, of course, animals, but even plants, have Buddha nature.

[05:55]

Dogen went on to talk about not just grasses and trees, but fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, expounding Buddha nature. So really, in China before, really before the beginning of Chan, or around the same time as the beginning of Chan, there came to be this understanding of Buddha nature as part of the fabric of reality itself. So I was talking about it yesterday in terms of time and temporal conditions having Buddha nature. So I wanted to look at some of what Dogen says and how he turns and changes this basic statement, all sentient beings without exception have Buddha nature. And then have some time for discussion and talk about what this means in terms of our lives and our practice. So Dogen says, after repeating this phrase, and this reading of it is the traditional reading of it, and he's going to change that, but he says, this is the lion roar of our great teacher, the Buddha, preaching the Dharma.

[06:57]

It's also the head top of all Buddhism ancestors and the pupils of all Buddhism ancestors' eyes. Commitment to its study has continued for 2,190 years. So back then they thought it had been a long, that Buddha had lived quite a bit long earlier than we now think he lived. We don't know so much of the Indian history, but anyway. And Dogen goes on to talk about, and I'm not going to read all of it, but the Buddhas and ancestors in the ten directions of the universe have all steadily maintained this Buddha nature. This seeing that all sentient beings without exception have Buddha nature. And that Tathagata, the Buddha, abides forever without change. That Buddha is here. That Buddha is present. That Buddha is not some thing we will get later on if we you know, practice long enough or read enough dharma books or go to enough dharma talks.

[07:58]

Buddha is already the nature of the reality under a cushion or chair. Sometimes we don't feel it so well. Sometimes we don't express it so well. So I emphasize that Dogen's not talking about some abstract theoretical idea. This is not some philosophy. This is not some abstraction. The point is, how do we express Buddha nature in our lives? How do we share Buddha nature? How do we connect with this possibility of awakening? Even in this really sad, corrupt, violent world that we live in, how do we find something that we can express Buddha, how can Buddha express us? This is our question sitting on our cushions. So Dogen asks, what is the essence of the world-honored one's word?

[09:02]

And then he quotes again, all sentient beings without exception have Buddha nature. It is his utterance of the Dharma teaching. It is his utterance of what is this that thus comes? So that's a Maybe I'll come back to that and tell that story again tonight. But he says, whether you speak of living beings, sentient beings, all classes of living things, or all varieties of living things, it makes no difference. The words entire being means both sentient beings and all being. In other words, entire being is the Buddha nature. I call the whole integral entity of entire beings, sentient beings, just at the very time when things are this, are such. Both inside and outside of sentient beings are as such the entire being of Buddha nature. So this phrase, entire being, is a creative re-reading of the original text by Dogen.

[10:10]

He says, entire being is not only the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, directly transmitted from Bodhidharma to his disciples, for you attain my skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. And he says this to all of you. So what's going on here? There's a kind of pun or a wordplay. What he's calling entire being is, in Japanese, shitsu. It's the middle of this sentence. So first, there's all sentient beings. And then, without exception, have. And then there's buddha nature. This phrase, without exception, have, is one conventional reading of this term, shizu. Dogen re-reads it. And he re-reads it in a way that is legitimate in terms of the Chinese characters involved. So in some ways, the key to this is the word have. So Dōgenri reads this sentence as, all sentient beings, complete being, Buddha nature.

[11:15]

Or all sentient beings completely are Buddha nature. And this word, u, which is the yes that Jājā responded to, does a dog have Buddha nature? It means to have. It also means existence. It also means yes. The point that Dogen is making, the point that's important for us to actually hear in terms of our practice and in terms of our lives, is that Buddha nature is not something that you can have. So to say, without exception, all such as beings have Buddha nature, is actually a misunderstanding. Now, it may be that this was one step in terms of understanding what the Buddha was talking about. So some people thought not everybody had Buddha nature, only certain kinds of people. And eventually it came to, yes, all such as beings have Buddha nature.

[12:20]

And not just all people, but animals, and plants and trees, oceans and rivers and mountains, Buddha nature. Dogen is making this really important point that's important in terms of our practice here in 2010 in America. Buddha nature, this awakened nature, these awakened qualities, are not some thing that you can have or that you can get. all sentient beings, complete being, Buddha nature. Or I could read it, I could reread how Dogen is saying it. All sentient beings in their completeness, in their wholeness, are Buddha nature. When we see each thing as whole, when we see each ourselves and all the strange pieces of ourselves sitting here on our cushions and chair as complete,

[13:25]

Buddha nature is not something that you can have or not have. So the implications of this are really important. There are many traditions of Zen that think that there is something that you have to get. and we can call that buddha nature, and there's other words for it, enlightenment, attention, or whatever. Dogen is saying very clearly, very definitely, all sentient beings, in their wholeness, buddha nature. All sentient beings, complete, are buddha nature, is buddha nature. Buddha nature is not, so this word nature is tricky too. So one of the things that Dogen does in his writing is play with words to show what's underneath them.

[14:26]

Really all of the sutras, all of the Zen koans, all of the teachings are just commentaries on silence. So every time I sit up here on a Monday night or a Sunday morning and start babbling about the Dharma, it's extra, it's a mistake. And yet that's what we do. all sentient beings. And again, this all sentient beings is not just, it's not just people. So one of the biggest, one of the things that Westerners often have the most trouble with about Buddhism is that Western religions are focused on human beings. Now in some sense for us as human beings, that's our focus too. How do we get along in this world? How do we be at peace with all the different people in the world? How do we not just tolerate, but appreciate the diversity of human beings?

[15:32]

But beyond that, Buddhism is about the dolphins and the sea turtles and the pelicans and the grasses and trees and plants all through Chicago and the lake and the sand on the beach. Buddha nature. And this isn't to say nature as in there's a kind of funny bilingual pun which is interesting to play with. We think of nature, when you hear the word nature you might think of being outdoors, being in some woodland or something, or some mountain. This word nature here means the nature of things, the nature of all sentient beings in their completeness. Buddha, Buddha, Buddha. So Dogen is twisting the usual Buddhist understanding. You know, and it's very nice to say all sentient beings have Buddha nature.

[16:35]

That's nice. We appreciate everything has Buddha nature. But Dogen is saying, no, it's not good enough. All sentient beings, completely Buddha nature. All sentient beings in their entire being is the way Noam Chomsky translates it. So Dogen goes on to say, you must understand that the being that the Buddha nature makes whole being is not the being of being and non-beings. This isn't a matter of existence and non-existence. This is our Western philosophical way of thinking about this. It's just whole being. It's not a matter of is or is not. It's hard for us to think this way. It's hard for us to get what he means by entire being, what he means by completeness. Or maybe it's not so hard. We all, you know, when we can sit upright in the middle of the confusion of our lives, amid all of the questions and difficulties and complexities of the things that we have to do through the rest of this week, we can just sit and be pleasant and upright.

[17:49]

not try and get something out of it, but just actually appreciate this space, this body and mind I'm pushing now, and somewhere out of the corner of our ear or something, smell Buddha nature, whole being. So he says, whole being is a Buddha's words, a Buddha's tongue, the pupils of a Buddha ancestor's eyes, the nose holes of a Zen monk. Nor does the term whole being mean emerging being or original fundamental being or mysterious being or anything of the like, much less conditioned being or illusory being. It has nothing to do with such things as mind and object, substance and form. Because it is like this, the self and surrounding environment of sentient beings, whole beings, is not in the least involved in the waxing influences of karma, not bred by illusory causation, does not come into being naturally, and is not practiced to realize through miraculous powers.

[18:53]

Were sentient beings' whole being contingent on the power of karma or on causes or on coming into being naturally, then the realization of all the great Buddhist saints and the enlightenment of all the Buddhas, and the eye pupils of Buddhas and ancestors also are produced in these ways and they are not. So he's saying this is something that is not separate from the causes and conditions that lead each one of us to be here tonight, just as we are. And yet, this whole being It's completely free, he says, of all objective dust. Right here, right now, there's no second person. It's hard for us to not think of a second person. It's hard for us not to, you know, in some ways, of course, we are vast and contained multitudes. Many, many beings are sitting on your cushion or chair right now. we can recognize the complexity of our life.

[19:57]

And yet, Dogen in this section is pointing to the wholeness, the fullness that is also on your cushion or chair. He says, this is not being that is spread by illusory causation, because nothing throughout the whole world has ever been concealed. To say nothing throughout the whole world has ever been concealed certainly does not mean that the world full of being is nothing but being. The idea that the entire world and everything in it are my personal possessions is a false, non-Buddhist teaching. So it's not about me and mine. It's just whole being. Anything we say about it makes it partial. So, you know, I should really just sit up here and remain quiet and enjoy the quiet again. But the point that I want to make is wholeness, all being.

[21:06]

With all of the different causes and conditions that we live in in our karmic world, with all of the greed and anger and confusion in our world, there is this wholeness that is, I was going to say part of, and that would make it not whole. There is this wholeness that runs through everything. And our practice is about accessing that, getting a glimpse of that, allowing it to express itself, allowing whole being to express itself in us. This is what Buddha is and does and expresses. So how do we share this in the world? How do we have this sense of wholeness? And then when we look around and see the problems of our own lives and our friends and family members and of course our corrupt society, how do we share whole being?

[22:09]

How do we express that? So this is a big job. And yet it's not about getting something you don't already have. And it's not about having something that you can have or not have. And it's not about something that exists or does not exist. It's here from before the first Big Bang. It's something that is So, can you taste this wholeness? Can you see that Buddha nature or enlightenment or, you know, that we, Americans particularly like to idealize, you know, perfect masters or great enlightenment or, I don't know, satori or some fancy experience.

[23:14]

Those opening experiences happen, but that's not the point. Right now, right here, all be wholeness. And then our practice is, can we find how to express that just in this body-mind, this life? Can we appreciate the wholeness of our Sangha friends, can we appreciate the wholeness of the people we work with, even the ones who are the most difficult for us? Can we appreciate that someone who gives us a hard time and pushes our buttons maybe is some version of wholeness that is helping us to see wholeness more deeply? This is the challenge of our life in practice. It's not about getting something. It's somewhere else. It's not about becoming somebody other than the whole being on your cushion or chair right now. So, maybe that's enough for me to say about this.

[24:32]

Questions, comments, responses, please, feel free. I caught the meaning of nature, but Buddha nature. Is there an actual definition? I don't want to define it, because that would kind of... If you define or explain something as huge as Buddha nature, you might... I don't want to violate the precept against killing. However, we talk about it. And I'm going to be talking about it and talking about it in terms of these different stories that Dogen brings up about Buddha nature. And does a dog have Buddha nature? No. Does a dog have Buddha nature? Sure. So I'll ask anybody else here want to say, give an utterance for Tom about Buddha nature.

[25:36]

What is Buddha nature? How? Good. Good. How? How? How do we Buddha nature? So I recommend often the mantra, how does it feel to say to yourself in sansara? You could just shorten it to how. How good in nature? How's good in nature? How's your good in nature tonight, Thomas? Perfect. That sort of... Literally, it's just sort of feeling and it's listening to Dogen's words and I'm just looking at the floor and the corner of the robe and the cup.

[26:40]

may extend forever, that sense of nature not being outside or somewhere further away from the city that never stops anymore, actually, but just starting right here, extending out. Yes, Adam. I was just thinking of some of the more horrible things in the world and wondering about, you know, does a drone have Buddha nature? Yeah, it's a good question today. Actually, this wonderful event of the release of these Wikileaks papers about Afghanistan is maybe the most important event in 50 years since Eisenhower first warned us of the military-industrial complex that's sort of out there on paper, transparent, finally.

[27:58]

Yeah, and there are horrible things that are happening in the world. We don't have to go all the way to Afghanistan. We can find it such in Chicago. But does a drone have Buddha nature? Well, a drone certainly doesn't express Buddha nature. It kills Afghan families. So Buddha nature is a kind of way of looking at suchness in reality. It's a kind of perspective. It's a kind of It includes, as I was saying yesterday, it includes the precepts. All causes and conditions, all of reality, Buddha nature in its wholeness. And yet, this human race we're part of has become very skillful at tearing it apart. thinking there's certain people we have to attack and so forth.

[29:04]

So no. The causes and conditions that lead to drones Buddha nature in their wholeness. And that includes learning about them and calling your Congress people maybe if you're so inclined to say, please stop this war and so forth. So I appreciate you bringing that up. This is the question. How do we Buddha nature the world in which there are terrible things happening and whole seas like in the Gulf Coast being destroying it, you know, this is the world we're in and it's challenging. So to be Buddha nature folks, to be Zen people means to have some exposure and awareness of this reality of wholeness that we also have.

[30:06]

And then, okay, what do we do about what's going on in the world? on all levels, in our own hearts and minds, amongst family and friends, and of course in terms of the planet. They're not separate at all. Yes, Douglas. Well, I think that through and through buddhanature, but the challenge for us is that we don't perceive the world as buddhanature or express buddhanature until we have stepped out of attachment and aversion and that feeling that we are cut off from the world and separate from the world. When we drop that off, Then the world, just as it is, we don't necessarily see it as something special and call it Buddha nature, but the world as we perceive it, when we've dropped that off, is Buddha nature in our life, and is an expression of, we express Buddha nature when we do that.

[31:27]

And when we've dropped off, That's when we express an inner desire to help other beings as well. That's sort of the classical expression of that. And I think the magic of it is that it's something we can do moment by moment. It's not a single moment and we realize we're the nature. Yeah, so, yeah, thank you for bringing back the partiality. So, wholeness, the round full moon. And yet, of course, we know we feel separate. We start by feeling separate. Our culture and maybe just being a human being and being intelligent monkeys who separate things.

[32:32]

leads us into a sense of separation and alienation. So part of saying all sentient beings, wholeness, whole being, Buddha nature, is when we can go beyond our sense of separation, when we can see connection rather than estrangement, whole being, Buddha nature. So, this is not something that's... All sentient beings, whole being, Buddha nature is not something that's happening, you know, up on the ceiling or on the wall as we look at it. It's something, it is something that we, each of us, are responsible for. As we bring wholeness to our life, whole being, Buddha nature. This is Buddha's work. Not reaching some higher state or getting some some particular understanding or experience, but just wholeness. How do we find wholeness, togetherness? It's something we do together. Yes, Adam?

[33:38]

What are we expressing? St. Douglas was saying when you drop off perversion and attachment that you express, what are you expressing when you're not? dropping off those things. Well, then just greed or anger or hatred. And wholeness is right there, but we don't see it, and we're not expressing it. We're not making it whole. So it's up to us, each of us and us collectively, and it's right here. but we see separation. We see things out there, so-called, that we think we have to grab. We see things out there that we need to push away or protect ourselves from. Well, on some level that may be so, but how do we do it from wholeness? How do we engage? So this is the challenge of actual practice in the world, of our being in the world in the midst of causes and conditions, in the midst of greed and aversion and confusion, how do we, rather than just criticizing that, how do we find our own wholeness to bring to that situation in some way?

[35:02]

This is the work of many lifetimes. This is not something that This is something that is here right now. And how we apply it in each situation is another challenge. And in the midst of it, we have to be willing to be present with and face our fears and our sadness and our loss and our confusion and our own greed and our own aversion. So how do we actually breathe into this reality of wholeness in the midst of seeing things separate. How do we say whole being to each situation and problem? And it's not, sometimes we just have to practice this most important practice of patience. Not passively, but paying attention.

[36:06]

How can I bring wholeness in this situation? Well, I don't know, but I keep paying attention. Maybe something might appear that I can respond to. Maybe I can find something to hold out a hand to. All being Buddha nature, how do we express our wholeness to those around us who give us a hard time or who we give a hard time to, people we feel critical of. So one way again, you know, there's this wonderful Tibetan practice of seeing this Tibetan idea that we've had so many past lifetimes that everybody you see, everybody in this room was your mother in some past lifetime. All beings are are give birth to us.

[37:12]

That's a different turn on it, but this idea of all beings good in nature, in their wholeness. And then the people who are busy building drones and destroying the planet for their profit, well, they're caught up in some system that doesn't allow them to see their own wholeness. It's very sad. I don't know how we get them to see how we change the way things are organized so that they aren't drawn towards causing separation and so forth instead of opponents. Other comments? Donna, any responses? I guess I'm talking a lot.

[38:32]

I was thinking... In the last several months I realized how much time I spent trying to be right. And in some ways this practice can be very scientific. You see, well, Douglas and I have a disagreement and I keep pushing back and that's going to take my energy. then maybe it's going to go on for days or weeks or where there's some residue from. And so having this realization maybe there's another choice there. As you were saying about the wholeness and in the midst of, well, he puts something out, says something that I could disagree with, or anybody does, in that moment, maybe I don't have to pursue trying to be right, which I often do.

[39:40]

And then, not travel down the, wherever that would lead. And really enjoying, actually, being able to come back to breathing or whatever it is. I would say, though, that trying to be right might be better than trying to be wrong. Maybe. But I agree that it's really hard to do. It's something like being able to disagree. It's hard to do. But again, you know, as you were saying, Adam, part of this wholeness and the practice of wholeness is that we start to see that it's not a matter of right or wrong, has or has not, yes or no, that we start to see that there are many sides.

[40:54]

Wholeness is, you know, not just partial. So we can listen to each other. or we have more of a capacity, too. Here are their options. Last comments. Again, this is coming back to something that's coming up for me today, and it relates to some of the other points that are coming up. But I think that sometimes we can't know when our greed, or our screed, or aversion, or attachments, or whatever we might label them, but we don't know necessarily if those are part of a larger pattern or wholeness. I know some stuff is coming up for me, that looks kind of ugly on the one hand, but is very helpful on the other hand.

[41:55]

Sometimes maybe you react in a situation and it seems skillful and yet it leads to, you know, you react and you try to be right, which is maybe better than trying to be wrong. it ends up, I don't know, sometimes you just don't know it's part of this larger. So I guess my feeling is like, today, very personally, it's like, okay, not rejecting those parts and seeing how they're part of this larger wholeness of my own being. Yes, because we're limited, we can't see all of wholeness. So each situation of difficulty, Maybe even all of the horrible things in the world. If, you know, when, I'll say, peace and justice and kindness break out in the world, you know, we'll see that this was part of the process of wholeness. May it be so.

[42:55]

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