Good morning, everyone. So I want to talk this morning about Dharmakaya practice and spiritual bypass. During the Rojasu Sashin we did a month ago, with Obitsu and I, that we were talking about the Samadhi of the Treasury of Radiance, which is an important early Sato Zen teaching from Dobin's study book, Koronejo. And there was a lot of resistance that came up. And so I want to talk about Dharmakaya teachings, and practice. This is foundational to Sato Zen. Dharmakaya is the reality body of Buddha, the body of Buddha who is simultaneous with the whole universe. So this is about seeing the whole universe as awakened.

[01:08]

And many of our basic teachings are foundational to Soto Zen are from this context. So teaching the Buddha nature, that all sentient being is Buddha nature, is of the nature of awakening. The self-fulfillment samadhi that I've talked about a lot, where Dogi and our founder in Japan said that when one person displays Buddha Hojo expresses Buddha with their whole body and mind, all the whole environment, the whole universe, completely awakened. This is totally strange to our usual way of thinking. And yet this is the starting point of our Sojo Zen practice, the Amitamsaka, Flower Ornament Sutra, which we chant monthly. first Friday evening of the month, is one great source of this.

[02:12]

So this is about recognizing wholeness. What I felt the very first time I had Zazen instruction. This sense of everything is okay. This sense of openness. This sense of immediate awakening. Our first thought of awakening. For yeshita. Making a mind. This is all. Tamakaya practice. The. Context. Of our practice. In which. Everything is right here. Everything everywhere. All at once right here. And it's called. Perfect. Just as it is. This is inconceivable teaching. It's beyond our conceptualization.

[03:13]

This is the teaching where we hear that zazen, just sitting, is an expression of awakening. It's not a method to attain some fancy experience, some so-called enlightenment, sometime in the future. Everything is right here, now. This, again, is foundational to our Sato Zen practice. Just to express Buddha. In this body, mind, in this place, in this time, in this body is our practice. However, When we talked about this, numbers of people were expressed resistance, strong resistance.

[04:22]

And Asian, who I see is here online, asked, what about spiritual bypass? Wonderful question. So spiritual bypass is, I don't know, a current term for using spiritual practice, using awareness, awakening, whether it's some experience of all this thematic or just every day, or whether it's some understanding of it, using that as an excuse to ignore our own karmic suffering, our own ancient twisted karma, and the difficulties of the world around us, of our family and friends and believers, and in the world, and in the world at large. So Dharmakaya practice is not spiritual bypass.

[05:27]

But I need to say more about that. And this kind of practice around us Dogen called it just sitting. A century before China, Hongzhi called it serene illumination. Many names for it. Again, the samadhi of self-fulfillment, or self-expression. The samadhi of the treasury of radiance. Many, many words for this. And the words, the many words, none of them actually captures it. This is inconceivable teaching. beyond our conceptualization. And yet this is what Zazen actually is, what our Zazen actually is. We express awakening here this morning in the cold of Chicago.

[06:29]

This body, this mind, these problems, And going back in history, it's been criticized. The term spiritual bypass is a modern psychological term, but this practice was criticized as quietistic by other teachers in China, school teachers who were criticizing Hongzhi's disciples. So how do we express this dharmakaya practice, this practice of, this inconceivable practice of fullness and reality and enjoyment of our lives without ignoring our ancient twisted karma, without ignoring the suffering of the world?

[07:38]

This is the question. Suzuki Roshi. So this issue of dharmakaya practice goes all through the history of Sato Zen. Shon who wrote with Jewel and Marriage Samadhi is credited with it. But up to Suzuki Roshi who said that our practice is constantly losing our balance against the background of perfect balance. You actually said we're perfect just as we are, just as we is. And yet we need to do a lot of work. So this inconceivable Dhammakaya practice is wonderful. I mean, really, to just sit and be fully present and just as best we can in this limited body, this limited mind, express everything, express all of movement.

[08:43]

This is a wonderful practice. And I know that all of you have some taste in it or else you wouldn't be here. So the sozen is an expression of awakening, but not some technique to achieve some special experience in the future. This dharmakaya expression of practice is the source of our creative energy. And the genius of sotozen is that it is a tradition in which we Experience and appreciate this wholeness, this Tathagataya practice. And at the same time, one of the things is it is a source for responding to the problems of our life and the problems of our world. I'm going to give some examples of that.

[09:48]

So Hongzhou, who was a century before Dogen in China, the most important Taoist and Chinese teacher before Dogen, said, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. We need to purify it. brush away tendencies we have fabricated into apparent habits and then reside in the clear circle of brightness. But he also talks about then how do we use this awareness to express kindness and caring, compassion, support for suffering beings. So It says, totally let go, washed clean and ground to a fine polish, respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of the other, or the moon.

[11:10]

Stanton's died. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. Even if you do not recognize your face, still, nothing can hide it. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their open source, 1,000 or 10,000 stages are no more than footprints on the trail. In wonder, return to the journey, avail yourself of the path, and walk ahead. And while there's darkness, where it operates, no traces remain. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Only that sentence again. With a hundred grass tips. In other words, all phenomena, all beings. In the busy marketplace. mundane world.

[12:12]

Graciously share yourself. Wide open and accessible, walking along, casual and not the sounds and the straddle of colors while you transcend listening to past fortune. So graciously share yourself. This is also the heart of Sathya Sathya practice and the genius of Sathya Sathya practice. From this experience we taste or glimpse or have some rough sense of Zazen, and it develops as we sustain, continue Zazen practice. Jump in that place, graciously share yourself. So, in a couple months, late March to late May, I'll be leading a practice commitment period again, here at Ancient Dragon, focusing on Hakucho. So we'll talk more about Hakucho's teaching. I also wanted to give an example of this sense of our practice from Dogen.

[13:19]

This is from Keiko Oku's sense of record. The family style of all Buddhas and ancestors, so he doesn't limit it to our sort of language. The true family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is first aroused the vow to save all living beings. By removing suffering and providing joy, this is the point of our practice. This is the point of Dhanukaya practice. We vow. To vow. To vow is so important. Two, three, already beings of suffering. Remove suffering and provide joy. There's joy available in this practice. Only this family style is an exhaustively bright and clear. We first recognize, oh, in the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time.

[14:27]

So this is literally true, but it's also a metaphor for our extended practice, the practice, practice, practice, commitment, period of practice, but just even sitting this morning together, here in the cults that know and online. We see the moon, and when we continue this practice, we see the moon grow up. And the moon is the signage of wholeness, perfection, the dharmakaya, tradition one. And he says, as clouds clear, we first recognize the sky, the openness, the emptiness, the vastness of reality, the vastness of the dharmakaya. which we are one, each of us, in our own particular way, is one piece of. Then Dogen says, cast loose down the precipice. Moonlight shares itself with the temples.

[15:30]

When we let go, when we... It's not exactly when we get up from Zazen and go out into the world, but you might see that metaphorically. It's when we... return to engage with all suffering beings, family, friends, co-workers, the people in Israel and Gaza, people in the Ukraine, all the people who are suffering now in various ways, in South Chicago and maybe even in North Chicago. So how do we respond to the world's suffering? How do we use the nourishment of Dharmakaya practice? Where we also, same time, everything, everywhere, all at once, we feel the possibility and the reality of all this.

[16:31]

Of enjoying my breathing. It's okay to be who you are with all your problems, with all my problems. It's okay. Here we are. And yet, we respond to the world's suffering. This is also, again, this is the genius of Sartre said, we engage, we deeply feel this Ramakaya reality. And We don't hide from the suffering of the world. No spiritual bypass. Engaging dharmakaya does not mean that we ignore suffering, even in ourselves.

[17:35]

Dogen at the end of that passage I read says, even when climbing up the bird's path, find free. Taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So we use this experience and this understanding of wholeness that we inconceivable. We can't get our head around the inconceivable. That's our definition. We can't conceive of it. We don't know what it is. And yet we commune with it in Zaza. We commune with it in Samra and working to support each other, taking care of each other. So how do we respond to the world suffering? Next week, I'm going to talk next Sunday about Martin Luther King Day. And here I talk about Dr. King and the problems of this world. And I'll talk about it in personal terms in terms of my own practice journey.

[18:39]

But you know, there's... I can name it, and we all know it, the rise of fascism in this country and the world, politics and cruelty, so many people oppressed and marginalized, mass militarization of our country and the world, and the American war on Gaza now. It's been cleansing and genocidal. At the same time that I sympathize with the of the people of Israel. So I'll talk about that more next week. But I wanted to add that one of the greatest scholars of Dr. King, especially from a Zen perspective, is my good friend, Alan Sanaki, who is in the ICU now. And he had a recent cardiac arrest. But he's been in a coma. But the last few days, And some of the time they were with the citizens are now awake.

[19:46]

It makes eye contact with the spend on exclusive but hands. So there's coke. Being after very near death and it may be a long time before this back functioning is added to the center. Anyway, I haven't quoted. Oh sure, and they'll get I want to. quote my friend and mentor, Joanna Macy, talking about the world now. She says, this is a dark time filled with suffering and uncertainty, like living cells in a larger body. It is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. Don't be afraid of the anguish you feel. or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depths of our caring and the truth of our interconnectedness with all beings.

[20:58]

We're not separate. We're not separate from women and those of us who are men, separate from the oppression of women, the oppression of black people and other indigenous people, and of LGBT people. It was happening as part of the politics of . This is the truth of our interconnectedness with all beings. Join the continuous action Isn't it a burden to be hoisted up and lugged around on our shoulders? This response is something we ought. The work we have to do can be seen as a kind of coming alive, more than some moral imperative.

[22:01]

It's an awakening. to our true nature, a releasing of our gifts. And each of us has our own special gifts and our own special way, a particular way of responding and being helpful in the world. And it's so important. My friend Jane Hirshfield is a great poet and a Zen practitioner trained at Masahara in Greenwich, recently talked about how we need to feel the grief of our situation. We need to feel the grief and fear and breathe before finding hope. So this is a difficult time. And yet we have this nourishment, this support from dharmakaya practice, from just glimpsing, communing with the wholeness of reality that is still here.

[23:21]

so we can enjoy the wholeness teaching. Teaching of the Samadhi of the Treasury of Radiance. This is support and nourishment for how we can each respond appropriately. To help them meet suffering. And provide joy. For each other. And ourselves. And. Those. In trouble. Problems in the world. We can act. Helpful. In trouble. In trouble of our world. Yeah. So we can act helpfully to, in our own lives, in our own particular limited body mind, to help the damaged world, to help heal the world.

[24:43]

To heal the world. This is our bodhisattva practice. So I can keep babbling about all of this. And, you know, just to say again, how wonderful it is to be alive. Maybe all the people who come to Ancient Dragon are relatively privileged and not victims of act of cruelty and oppression. There's so many. of our fellow beings, not just human suffering, but also we can respond, try and respond helpfully. We can feel not just the possibility, but the reality of the nature of awakeness all around us.

[25:48]

So we have a little bit of time. comments, questions, responses, people online too. And people under comments, questions, responses. I see Asian on my screen here, and I wonder if this helps with your question or your wonderful question about spiritual bypass. Yes, it does. Tegan, thank you. Thank you for a really helpful talk. I actually didn't know you were going to be talking about this today, but my thoughts were turning to Zen and healing earlier.

[26:55]

And I wonder if you could say anything more about how we can be with what, you know, the causes and conditions that are here and also maybe, you know, use our energy to help with transformation and healing? Thank you. Yes, that's the question. What do we do? So the word healing is interesting. I think it has etymology that goes back also to the root of wholeness, to make whole, to heal, to repair injury. How do we do that? So there's a whole other talk I could give on skillful means and the practice of skillful means and what we saw in the past. And it's not about having the perfect answer to solve, to fix.

[27:55]

Our consumerist culture, we get caught up in fixing things. making everything, making everything, everything is perfect. And also when we see all the damage, how do we fix all of that? And I don't think that's exactly the point. It's not problem solving. It's just, it's more immediate than that. So how do we feel, as Jan Herschel said, and grieve for the trouble in the world? and the trouble in our lives and the trouble with our friends. And then what can we do? And again, there's not one right formula or instruction manual. It's each one of us has our own, each one of us has ways in which we can respond and they merit a word difference.

[29:03]

And it's not about doing it perfectly. It's trial and error. We make mistakes. It's important to make mistakes. Try and make good mistakes rather than wrong mistakes. Try and make mistakes that don't make things too much worse. But we're going to make mistakes. That's also our life. And that's included in Dharmakaya. So we each do what we are moved to do to help out in each in our own way. And so many people in our Sangha are doing helpful work in various different ways. So I see Dr. Chris Cadman, who's part of our Sangha, as I said, helps as a doctor with people in hospice. Chris, you have a question? Yes, can you hear me okay?

[30:09]

Yes, I can. In listening to your talk, my struggle is really, I think, with the word healing and the sense of Healing is not necessarily, actually to me, is not making whole or perfect. Okay. It's, you know, reducing suffering is a form of healing, but it's not making perfect. It's not making whole. And the other kind of related question is, is that joy? Is reducing suffering joy? necessarily joy so that makes sense at all yes yes thank you for that so again it's not fixing it's not making things perfect they're already perfect including all of the difficulties so that's so your work your profession helping helping people

[31:25]

who are in hospice or dying, using your medical profession to do that. Healing doesn't mean that you fix everything, right? It's our effort, our response, our working to be kind. Compassion is not about fixing everything. It's about just expressing compassion in the world. And that seems to be contagious, the sport of self-compassion. So our efforts at helping. And I understand your question about the word healing. And healing doesn't mean necessarily fixing. It means trying to help. So, yeah. I don't know if that helps. We have a few hands up. Zoom, and I don't know if it's open in the room, but I think David Weiner was first, if you can briefly express your comment or question.

[32:34]

Yes, if I may, I'm commenting a little bit on Chris, and then I also have a question. As a hospital... Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. I... It's not so much, you know, I'm not going to heal a dying person. You know, I've been in rooms where the person was already comatose and not, you know, intubated or some form of, you know, ventilator. And they may not even hear me. Or I've been with people who are awake. It's a matter of being in the room and having everyone have some sense of connection. For me, that's the key word. We often live in worlds of delusion. And how can we connect with the ultimate reality?

[33:40]

So it's more about, for me, not so much healing, but connections. Good. If I may. Okay. If you have something else. No. Go ahead. You comment. Go ahead. So connecting is the point, yes. It's not about fixing. It's about, and we already are connected. That's the point of Dharmakaya teaching. That's the point of the Samadhi of the Tertiary of Radiance. Radiance is here. It's here. We are connected. How do we recognize that? Yes, yes. How do we come back to that? So thank you very much, David. Yes, good morning. Good morning. If you'll excuse me for saying so, I feel a little bit of disappointment in your talk this morning in the sense that I'm not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV.

[34:50]

I may not understand what the term spiritual bypassing actually means, but... As you quoted Suzuki Roshi, the world is perfect as it is, and it has a lot of work or something like that. As I remember the quotation, it was, you are perfect as you are, and you need a lot of work. And me, you, everybody. When I, in preparation for hearing your talk, perused... you know, just casually online definitions of spiritual bypassing. In every instance, the emphasis was on developmental issues, unresolved psychological issues, unresolved interpersonal conflicts, all these kinds of things. Now, we can and we do in our service acknowledge our ancient twisted karma.

[35:53]

How do I put my hand down here? I'll figure it out later. We acknowledge our ancient twisted karma. I myself have come to feel like this in itself can be a form of spiritual bypassing in that we... Sort of say, okay, we got problems, and then we move on. And we don't actually do the work of attending to our own psychological mess, our own neuroses, our own stuff. We don't turn away from the world. This is a very strong aspect of psychology. teaching and uh and that may be an aspect of spiritual bypassing but as i understand the term i think you rather under emphasize that part and over emphasize the dharmakaya part and that that's the the issue that comes up when we talk about spiritual bypassing so um

[36:55]

Yeah, I feel like I'm making a slightly critical comment, but I would appreciate your response. Well, thank you, Nyozan. Yeah, I think we need to make light of the difficulty of responding to the difficulties of the world and the difficulties of our own body-mind. Yes, our body-mind. Let's talk about our body-mind, our body-mind. Yes, this is personal for each of us, and it's also the world. So I'm tempted to call on Aisha to comment since she brought up the term and I am not a psychologist, but I appreciate your saying this. It's not something to take lightly, it's work. How do we take care of ourselves and our relationships? and our being in the world. It's not simple. It's not easy.

[37:58]

And yet I do feel that this Dharmakaya teaching and this practice of Zaza is a support and nourishment for doing that. Ishan, do you have any quick comments and response? So... I really would want to give my comments more thought, but I do agree with Nyozan that my understanding of spiritual bypassing is when we gloss over our own ancient twisted karma, our own actions, and kind of focus on, you know, like the oneness. It's a little bit like, you know, Zen sickness or the stink of Zen, although I don't think it comes from the Zen tradition. I think it comes from the Tibetan tradition. And now I've forgotten what I was going to say, but... I think it's very difficult and it's something that requires discernment by each person and possibly talking about our practice or our lives with a teacher or with others whom we trust to tell us the truth.

[39:24]

Because it's very, very tricky. There is suffering in the world and there is suffering in ourselves. And A certain amount of that is, I think, unavoidable. You know, we are subject to old age sickness and death. But as spiritual practitioners, I think we do have a responsibility to look at our actions and their impact on us. the world, but their impact also on those closest to us. And to not just say, hey, yeah, you know, everything is perfect just as it is, but to, it's really, it's a tension that I think that we all have to hold. And that's maybe all I'm qualified to say at this time.

[40:30]

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Nielsen. Yes. There's a creative tension about all this. How do we function and respond in our own troubled lives in one troubled world? And yet, I do think that there's a support and nourishment available in our practice. Nicholas has had his hand up. So, Nicholas, last question. Yeah, I have a comment, but I just want to address the spiritual bypassing thing because I've used that term for many years. And what I've meant by it and what I took that the many people that have used that term also meant by it is it's describing a type of person. a person, kind of a new-agey type person who, you know, like if you tell them, oh, I'm really depressed, I'll say, well, change your thoughts.

[41:31]

You know, they have all this sort of bumper sticker kind of philosophies that they just dole out, you know, unrequested, you know. um so it's it's yeah it's just a person who is afraid of of dealing with their own suffering so they skate above um and they're just into the light and love and you know that kind of stuff so that's yes that's what i mean by spiritual bypassing so i i was um I watched a lot of videos on YouTube, physics videos, and I saw this one recently where they discovered that when light particles are observed, they behave differently. And this was sort of a revelation to scientists. I think they made it clear that other particles behave differently too when they're observed.

[42:36]

And I just wondered how, you know, that, what the implication, you know, what is the implication to our practice? You know, that we are paying attention. We are observing. That's kind of what we do in Zazen. We're paying attention to the world. We're paying attention to the body, mind. We're paying attention to our breath, emotions, thoughts, pain in the body, all of it. So, By definition, it's going to change things, even according to physics. So my question is, what do you think of that? I think that's basic for our practice, that when we're paying attention, something changes it. I know this has been demonstrated in scientific experiments by physicists more recently, but the Heisenberg principle goes back to, because it's Heisenberg, that when you, as you said, when you pay attention to a particle, when you pay attention to a problem, when you give your caring to a situation, that changes it.

[43:59]

It doesn't necessarily heal or fix it, but it makes a difference. All of our practice of working towards healing, I don't know what other word to say, and I appreciate Chris's question on healing, but when we pay attention to our life, the details of our life, and Zazen tends to help us do that, and our world, it makes a difference. And it's not that, you know, if enough people are doing that, may it be so, and maybe we'll make a bigger difference. So, yes, thank you. I appreciate you bringing that. Yeah, and I just want one quick thing. It's like the impact that we have on other people or the world or the problems of the world is very mysterious, and we can't really know what that impact is. That's right. It's inconceivable. We don't necessarily know.

[45:00]

what the results or impact of our practices. That's important. That's an important point. We can, we may, we may think that we're, that what we're doing is not helpful. You know, sometimes we can feel that way, but yeah, the outcome isn't, we don't know the outcome of our practice and that's okay. But our effort to support to relieve suffering, support joy, support kindness does make a difference. And how, you know, and sometimes it's many years later, we couldn't see. So thank you very much, Nichols. We do have to close now. I'm sorry, I didn't get comments from people here in the room, but you can talk about it over tea. but I guess we'll do the 447 to 1,000 now and then.

[46:05]

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