Whole-Hearted Practice

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chile

area

thank you russ
ah
so good morning
money
hum
the cold a beautiful saturday morning
and i always liked to come here on saturdays and the schedule
it's our sabbath

so today i went to speak about the or
the bid ndola which is an early text of dogan
and there's a translation
with the commentary by a hoochie roshi to call the whole hearted way if you haven't seen it we have it in the library
i'm
and this is our his first
writing
after he came back from china to japan
and he was trying to sort out what his approach to
buddhism would be and how he he would communicate that to the local culture in japan
and he had been practicing
when he was seventeen
we didn't have much of an adolescence
and so it's different than shaggy mooney you know who had already lived quite a life before he he started practicing
you know he was he had a a life of indulgence in the palace
and his father pot partially indulged him so that he would be kept away from fulfilling his destiny
as a teacher because his father wanted him to be a warrior
and i a king but king had to be a warrior
and
so instead he ah he had a spiritual aspirations so eventually he tried the path of hedonism
ah and then he tried the path of asceticism the opposite and then he settled in the middle way
which is what we practice

and dogan started practicing when he was seventeen
ah and he was practicing the rinzai schools in it their tendai schools there were a primal it at that time in japan
and he practiced that for five years
and then he went to china
and practice in china for five years
and he received dharma transmission after five years
which is not unusual that's usually what happens in japan as far as i understand people go to the monastery in practice or five years and then they get dharma transmission and then they pair
go to her a community a temple

when he he came back he came back to the same place where he had been practicing before he left
which is called kinji
and but can enjoy wasn't such a good place for him because he was a rinzai temple
and he wanted to transmit the soto teaching that he had received in china and actually a apparently he was forced to leave he was asked to leave shown the door so to speak
so he stated a small temple which now called khashoggi and he sat there by himself
and eventually founded a monastery when he was thirty three
pretty young
but he died when he was fifty so he died young
ah
so there at the or khashoggi he wrote the window and the ginger corn
and the ginger call and is more his kind of main central teaching the beginning of it at least the beginning of the show again so
it was the window was more sophie his dialogue interaction with the rest of buddhism at that time in japan
and basically a when he was at tom
that khashoggi that's when agile came to see him an edger was his first student
but agile actually was identified with the rest of the other schools of buddhism in in japan at that time so he was a kind of good spokes person for the various schools and so the gondola is eighteen questions that
that echo poses to dogan
and actually challenging him why why do you think your
doing anything different than what we've been doing here all along
so you know he was a little controversial
and use
that
because he wanted to differentiate a soto
the the practice of zazen from the the practices that were being practiced in japan at that time
i think they even at some point later they've been burned down his monastery
so they were actual factions with armed soldiers and whatnot
ah we don't have that problem anymore
i thank goodness so there's been some progress some people are now saying that you know sometimes we say well as so as the same problem is just as circle me
so it's a repetition that goes in a circle
so we have the same problems over and over and over again individually or collectively
but actually the the dharma wheel disrupts that repetition
and produces something
different
the repetition with a difference
so apparently now we have less even though we live in a pretty violent well world compared to the violence before
it's less violence so
now we we settle our differences in different ways
and hopefully that's the the direction of the future

so uh the window was last for four hundred years four hundred years
nobody knew anything about it and ah
i think that's the same for the entire shop again so which was basically kept by his family
well as a family treasure so it's a and of dharma treasure dharma family but then his actual ah
blood family kept ah the shop again some for japan for four hundred years and
and then in the seventeen hundreds it reappeared again
in seventeen hundreds of the beginning of the the western enlightenment
around the same time
so window a means to a so what has been no i mean the title ah to distinguish the true from the false
the practice whole heartedly
and a teaching about how to walk the path
it has those three different meanings
so what is this distinguishing the true from the false
ah because he also mentions that we shouldn't engage who is shouldn't engage a buddhist practitioners shouldn't engage in arguing about the superiority or inferiority of one teaching or another one school or another that's really a he he wants to discuss
courage that
we're not discriminate between the superficial and the profound
ah but so what he means by that is just how to know the difference between
but how to know where the practice is actually genuine or false
cause the whole emphasis is gonna fall in his teaching on on the practice
ongoing continuous practice of zazen
which is what we have here
the other way of understanding the true from the false is this a question of delusion and enlightenment
so ah he he points out from the beginning that our practice is not to eliminate or false delusions
ultimately illusion of enlightenment or not one not too
but rather what it means is to become aware of the fact that we're deluded
since enlightenment can't be known if we try to ah
express enlightenment as a form of knowledge
then that becomes delusion
so the only thing actually that we can know is our delusion
and that we should know
each ah
a personal delusion that we all mean is similar themes but we are all deluded in different kinds of ways
and we all have character flaws
so a buddha is one
ha that knows a delusion
or can take responsibility for their delusions or the character flaws
so we have to kind of study is part of studying self is to study our character and how we act and respond
and then let reality teach us that when we act in a certain kind of way and then the certain hopefully the responses are swift so have you made a mistake when you said something that was not on target
then the response should be swift meaning the karma
if you like you you'll experience that right away afterwards and i will teach you
to to speak differently next time
today we recognize our delusion
by the feeling that we have we have a feeling of of regret afterwards
or we left angry you know
for a while
then we have to own this anger and anger is one of the poisons
and we live in a very angry world
for various reasons people are angry
upset and there are lots of valid reasons to be angry about especially politically
but a the anger can be skillful but mostly
it's not and can lead to delusion
that's why we consider it a poison
but we can't we can't swallow it and we can't spit it out
so if you spit it out you act it out you will regret it
sooner or later and if you don't worry if you don't regret it and you're a little bit like as a psychopath then you know ah
that's that's even more series
of we're proud of our ignorance so proud of our delusions
early questioned back there my friend

i don't think they know that's the kind of a deep ignorance and if they know than there are no longer psychopath and that moment
like my son sometimes tells me and all i'm it's like a bath you know because you know he does doesn't want to listen to me or does something else you know or or steal some money from me or something like that you know small amounts not not not big house six now all i'm oh dad i'm a psychopath
and actually i don't i don't get worried about it you know if he didn't say that then i would i would be worried
ah

so this is being aware of our delusions that is also how
it's related how we deal with with criticism
ah is not easy to i mean it's a lot easier to give criticism
than to receive criticism
ah criticism
lots of thanks to be critical about
and we do have an impulse to critique
and some of it is is wholesome and some of it is unwholesome so we have to monitor that when we giving criticism you know that's why here in our practice where where we have a kind of form for doing that so it does doesn't become a kind of you know
at an wholesome form of criticism
so ah you know for example the cook you know cooks in the kitchen
and then we eat a meal and afterwards the cook forum is for the cook to go to sojourn know the doshi and ask for feedback

and
and and sojourn as a teacher is very detail you know
what's the behavior of each grain of rice syrup
and that but
it it's not always easy to receive that especially after you beat
cooking all day you exhausted and you put your you know ah
sweat blood and tears left all that in the kitchen
and it's non-stop you know and your back hurts in
and you have to work with a team and all of that you
so you can of and sensitive and it's not always easy to receive the the criticism
but it's good practice you know because when we get to criticize we tend to close down
and feel hurt
and and then we can complain
i'm so just do
open at the point of receiving criticism and so it helps that we have a form for it
sometimes people take the form and make it informal
and that's that creates problems you know because people start criticizing each other and getting into fights about you know how you saying or how you do this a webform what's the right way to do the form of the wrong way to do the form and
so it's best not the not to be motivated not have a fault find not to be bought motivated by fault-finding
and on the other side of that well as like okay doesn't matter in whatever ah
and that that can also be problematic is then you don't pay attention to things that you should pay attention to
ah
to that's part of how to of working with delusion
and with the poisons emotional poisons
ah
okay so the main point that logan wants to make is that
and these are his words there's an unsurpassable on fabricated wondrous method
this that doesn't
this wondrous dharma which has been transmitted only from buddha to buddha with thou deviation has it's it's criterion juju juju semi that's the mahdi
so wondrous dharma is something that we can't it's wondrous because we can totally grasp it with the intellect or is incomprehensible
and he himself is incomprehensible when
ah
well
was that criticism
in for more criticism
so far is it comprehensible yes okay

so it's not fabricated
so it's not a construction nowadays we'd like to talk about constructions and constructivism in yeah and so on but zazen is not a construction not a fabrication
not is not made up
it's part of the natural order of things
oh it's already there so we don't have to fabricated
the body is already there has already given
ah
so even though where we are we all are
born with this inheritance of the buddha dharma the wondrous dharma we're all born with this noble inheritance
but we do not know it
so we ignore it
so the same with the wonders dharma
ah we experienced it but we know nothing of it with our knowledge

so is as good use some eyes the gate of repose and bliss
that uncovers the self that is shared with all things
so you should set the self making the self into the self that's usually how his trance laid it
and i would add self making the self into the self of all things
the self of all things
that's the and fabricated method
so it's not just is the foundation for all experience
but we don't necessarily know it that that's what we're experiencing
and it's also something that's at work in all things
yeah all beings not just in human beings that's why they're famous calling about the the dog does the dog have buddha-nature
that's because also in chinese culture
there was a big difference between animal nature and human nature
even though they also worship nature in some way
and the same is true in the
i'm in the judeo-christian tradition the big difference between animals and human beings
but buddhism always dresses the equality of all things

and we have a
we have sweet pea and sang i think somebody said adding the work meeting today the sweetest a cat
a be pretty beaten up
beaten knob you know
i was asking ross today isn't be as a big big foot left for the small effort but actually was because his leg was broken so the leg became part of the foot
ah
so pretty beaten up cat but he's so sweet

so he says juju samadi is like to do on the grass
you have to go further than that
and then todd you some i is how we help others realize this samadi sometimes people think osama is just selfish you know it's just people trying yeah
hold on to enlightenment in feel good and drunk realizations that the the rinzai critique of soto you guys i just you know clinging to samadhi
but actually is is the nature of all things
so this self
i'm
that is established in samadhi is the phone all things is not the small self but sometimes people interpreted as the small self
because if you were doing something selfish for yourself instead of actually when you and actualizing the fundamental point you're turning something for everybody
so g gee gee is a my and
todd you use a my are not one not too
so it's beyond the self other distinction so the whole idea of dropping body and mind when we drop think he says that and again a coin when you drop body and mind you also drop the body and mind of others

so all buddhas are dwelling in and maintaining this or does use am i sitting together with all the buddhas so that that's what we do we sit in the center together with all the buddhas
but he says boot as never perceive samadi
what does that mean buddha's never perceive somebody
ah the consciousness of somebody doesn't exist
i could say it's unconscious not quite is an awareness without subject and object
it's different than consciousness
so it can't be an objectified
the buddha's are always letting go not of samadhi but of the perception of samadi
turning it into some kind of object

okay so those a kind of basic introductory points and then i wanna read or some of the questions that agile asked
dogan
if that's okay

so i'm not
will you tell me maybe ten minutes five or ten minutes before so we have some time for questions
ah given that a lot of this text or question and answer
now we have heard that the virtue of this the question one so a jew asks now we have heard that the virtue of the season is immense
stupid people may question this by asking they use the word stupid a lot you know in the in the text i don't know what the japanese
it would be a
or a homeowner
okay
is it the same work does it mean the same thing
almost the same okay
ah
ah so stupid people may question this by asking there are many gays to the buddha dharma weide only recommend zazen
any response it is because this the true gate to buddha dharma
okay
i'll just continue questioned to
follows from the first why is this alone the true gate where do you saved this alone is a true gate
than the answer is great teacher shakyamuni correctly transmitted the wondrous method for attaining the way and the target as of the three times past president future also all attain the way through zazen for this reason thousand has been conveyed from one person
to another as the true gate
not only that but all the ancestors of india and china attained the way through zazen therefore i am now showing the true gate to human and celestial beings
fair enough
edges gonna push further
ah
ah
push him further to to say more about what's true about it
so question three relying on either the correct transmitting of the wondrous method of the target as or following the tracks of the ancestral teachers is truly beyond our ordinary thinking
however
reading sutras or chanting numbered so
naturally can become a cause of satori that's what people believed
have you can you know
to achieve enlightened by chanting the boot so and reading sutras or why do you say this is the true gate
and he says how can just sitting calmly without doing anything you just sitting there you know accumulating does doing nothing
how can that be a means for attaining enlightenment
and the he replies that you now consider the samadhi of the buddha's the unsurpassed great dharma as vainly sitting doing nothing is slandering the mahayana
he's taking the not doing enough in adored satisfying
he could have taken it in a non dual sense but that wasn't the was called for this point is that this is very deep delusion as if saying that there's no water even well being in the middle of the great ocean thankfully doing zazen is already sitting peacefully in the did you some i have the buddha
is doesn't this manifest extensive virtue
it is pitiful that your eyes had not yet open and your mind is still drunk
this on the whole the buddha realm is incomprehensible unreachable unreachable through discrimination much less can it be known with no faith in inferior insight only people have great capacity and true faith are able to enter people without fail
faith have difficulty accepting even when taught even at vulture peak there was a group of people whom buddha said it is good that they live
generally if true faith arises in your heart you should practice and study it if it does not you should give it up for a while and regret not having the blessing of dharma from long ago
so ah so it's not for everybody
but there's a thin thin line between saying that in a kind of
the elitism
so how do you help somebody practice
and
with with the forms of the practice
and yet at the same time at some point you know you make the person may not be ready
so the compassionate thing may be to say well maybe you're you're not ready for this practice yet or maybe this is not the right practice for you
maybe you find you need to find a different practice
ah
so i think that's the point about the the buddha say it is good that some people got up and left in rejection of his teaching

furthermore do you really know the virtue to be gained by working at such practices as reading sutras are chanting named boots so the notion that merely merely making sounds by moving your tongue leads to the virtue of the buddha work is completely meaningless that's pretty tough
it's kind of fighting words in some way
ha
i think to suit you well she would say something more like well there's a gate the gate for everybody you know so they're different gates and are you have to find the right gate for you
hum
and settled down to practice and just practice and not focus so much in the all the controversies
ah

also as for opening the sutras if you clearly understand what buddha has taught as the principle of sudden and gradual practice and practice in accord with their teaching you will certainly accomplish enlightenment vainly wasting your thinking and discrimination does not compare to the virtue of gaining a body
body body
so
he sang you know that
the sutra studies not an alternative to zazen
right i mean if you if you practices in a new study the sutures that's good
so long as you don't try to understand it
if you are intellectually only
which is kind of the western the western enlightenment is to try to understand things intellectually and it has yielded a lot of fruits mean the greek tradition that's the with the greek tradition is
ah but it doesn't have the
these the
deportment beyond
right or wrong

there's reading literature while ignoring the way of practice is like a person reading a prescription but forgetting to take the medicine what is the benefit
so as as reading literature while ignoring the way of practice
so he's not setting a duality between reading literature and practice and saying if you think that is enough to just read the sutras while you're mistaken because the fundamental point is practice

and then a question for the tin chi and qigong teachings which have been transmitted now in our country
we have many forms of buddhism in our country now too
are both the most sublime teachings of the mahayana
moreover the shingon teaching was intense intimately transmitted from viral china togheter to varsha saatva from teach it to disciple without deviation it's principal is that mind itself is buddha or this mind becomes buddha
ah with sort of sounds mean there's a famous calling about
mind is buddha or a a on know mind is buddha
turn it either way
which propounds a true awakening of the five buddha's at the instant of sitting without passing through many copies of practice
so none none is from this point of view was necessary to practice for so long for so intensely
it's a kind of instantaneous realization in a way it's like the you know that that book the power of now
ah of edward talk years ago
right so it's that kind of similar idea that already existed at that time in japan
ah
is as this must be called the pinnacle of buddha dharma in spite of that what superior features in the practice you are now speaking about cause you to recommend this only and set aside those others
and dog says the words the mine itself is buddha or like the moon reflected in the water the principal at the instant of sitting becoming buddha is also a reflection within a mirror don't be caught up in the
skillfulness of words
hum
so the idea of it's not like a mirror with reflections that refers to to the language or interaction
so dog is thinking that this is just an idea
ah about the mine itself being buddha
i'm or
it might not be that i mean i remember when i i i went to the the paris and of of tyson the tomorrow
where i sat there for the the first time is it time
ah i had a great awakening experience just the first time
i'm really deep
and so in a way you could say won't
the mine itself is buddha
ah
and you just realize it instantaneously in this moment
am
but so the question is do you need to cultivate that are not
and the answer that though it is given yes you have to cultivated ongoing continuous practice
without making any difference further on he will ask the question well
you do people what about once you're enlightened do you still have to continue practicing why would you practice after that if you already got it i didn't so and their dog and response precisely because this is ongoing practice it is no distinction between practice
and enlightenment
so practice is the same as enlightenment so so you have to cultivate
ah
ah buddha mind
so we go we go from the zendo to our ordinary life
i'm
and and in ordinary life we get caught in all kinds of things in all kinds of delusions and in a way that it's an inevitable
meaning that you have to sort of forget all about enlightenment at that point and just be deluded within delusion
ah but then we have to keep coming back to the practice
and eventually it pervades our ah
our entire life
the more we practice the deeper our daily life or the ginger call the corner every day life becomes
oh
so that's why the the the essential point is that this is ongoing practice not a practice just to attain something
and then go do something else
okay so i'm gonna stop here in open to questions john
a
say
the way
yesterday i had some
my question is
if we don't have faith
we know
if we don't have faith
where the next step
then we are ready now
we already know
no we're not
make the mine
so when recalling they don't have
seems to me
that's right
hello
while the the faith in
something incomprehensible in our nature that we we approached through faith or not knowing
not saturated
not not completely defining
our experience
through what we already know
so it's a faith or you could say not knowing
yes

hulu

oh

oh

hmm
well it seems there's progress in the sense you know i was listening to a talk the other day and this person was saying well you know the statistics show that oh we kill a lot less people than we used to
right so where were less murderers but now we kill ourselves to a much greater extent so that's a lot of progress
so it the progress is relative
so i mean it is a kind of progress but at the same time would you call the higher rates of suicide i supposed to on the site progress me

ah
well that's yeah so that's the question like the about the sudden and the gradual
so it's like a it's like a stairway
as long as you as as long as you understand that the that the entire stairways in each step
so each step of the stairway is the entire
stairway
if

objectifying defines and ideas it
well we objectify a zazen without thinking
so we we citizens in and we follow our breathing and the thoughts ah keep coming and going
and we go back to our breath
so we don't we let go of the thinking that we have about and or what are zazi news or where we ought to know saws and or whatever thinking may arise in relationship to the practice and just returned to her a breath
so that's the kind of pure awareness
and then we take up thinking you know at some point we take up thinking again but in zazen with i go thinking

ah
just wanna give sojourn roshi an opportunity to to say something which would you like to say something so

the platform gaming platform sutra
ah

can i follow up on that one so there's that mean that
that it's enough just to sit thousand and so the sutras are ah
extra

oh

oh

right but though
right but some people say in our like me if you do sometimes if you open the bible just you there's a luminosity that arises or is invoked
right so it but it's not just about because the the thing itself
can also be is also there if you have the practice than you realize that the thing itself is or it is there it's

but that but i but my point also was that we have a form for that that's part of the form
right

but you can personal you know you're not motivated to criticize somebody

oh
right
right but even when it's done according to form it's hard to or receive sometimes
it's hard to receive that we have to practice being open to receiving it yes

do you think was important for dug into right to provide everything you wrote
but for for buddhism for the practice

time

and he studied quite a bit too

okay thing we have some hands up a computer wanted to say something a while back know
yes

yes

oh that would i didn't say that the dogan says that
that's a good question or do we do we believe in celestial
beings
right well i mean buddhism has the the realm of the gods
well but the gods are in in a small small g godson like like the
like the greek gods a little bit
and so i think that's what he means by celestial beings
i'm
ah
yeah did you have it any
thoughts on that

who
hmm
yeah

says

so
oh
oh
oh

hmm
oh
oh

oh
i say
there's a hand in the back there
hey

yes

well i just meant generally the the the enlightenment that's promise by science is in an intellectual former enlightenment
and it improves i mean we live much longer now i mean dog died when he was fifty
and people used to die although shagging when he died when he was eighty but people used to die much younger now people live longer because we know things such as blood pressure in and
we have different forms of understanding and and medicines to help people with various kinds of illnesses
so people live longer
fundamental question of of birth and death
because you may live longer but how you relate to death is a different question
the fact that you are able to live longer doesn't mean that you'll be able to earn
ah
understand a
ah death as the undying
which is the under the understanding that we have within buddhism birth and death
ah
they will we are born there's something unborn were not born and when we die there's something and i we don't die
and we realize that from from practice not from learning or understanding knowledge
but knowledge is helpful in other ways
so it's information is so gentle always says if it's not it's it's meaningful i mean like i've mentioned before you know the fact that newton or einstein understood stood basic laws of the universe help us you know
travel in space and go to the moon and so on and so forth but
that's not the same as practice
so we human beings need both why we need both intuition and the intellect
and both can be dual or an annual
both can help or be a hindrance in some way
not zazen being a hindrance but ah you know there's there's a there were several send teachers were really upset at the time of the modern more modernization of japan and didn't want universities in japan
and if they were in accept university cities that thought it was a waste of time for people to go to university they should just be sitting zazen
sort of what we had in the middle ages
which is the time of dogan was the middle ages say the twelve hundred
so i think that's that's where this kind of fanaticism about intuition
can lead to this kind of his radical position of rejecting or any kind of learning or any kind of science for that matter and then that becomes a kind of darken dogmatism
which is not really true to the spirit of of buddhism lemmy the buddha had started everything that there was to study at the time he had been taught and raised by by a tutors the king he was tutored by all the indian sages
of the time
and so all the knowledge that was available at that time is something that shakyamuni with a familiar with
okay
thank you very much