I think it's a little tiny bit too loud. Today, during the practice period, we've been studying So we have seven days of satsang.

[01:47]

So it will be a nice opportunity to finish. And so these 10 sections, I'll just name the sections. You Should Arouse the Thought of Enlightenment is the first section. The second section is, once you hear or C, the true teaching, you should practice it without fail. And the third section is, in the Buddha way, you should always enter enlightenment through practice. And the fourth section is, you should not practice Buddha's teaching with the idea of game. you should seek a true teacher to practice Zen and study the way. And what you should know for practicing Zen and those who long to leave the world and practice Buddhadharma should study Zen.

[03:01]

And you should practice the conduct of Zen monks. You should practice throughout the way and immediately hitting the mark. So today, we're going to study Section 5. You should seek a true teacher to practice Zen and study the way. So Dogen says, beginning is not right, useless practices will be in vain, won't add up to anything. So I think it's very important when we begin to practice

[04:07]

to establish the foundation of practice right away. And so what is the foundation of practice? The foundation of practice, of course, is, for us, is zazen. It's not always necessary to learn about Buddhism first. I think this is what Dogon is getting at. The most important thing is to set up the practice as practice, not as learning. will help your practice and will help to verify your practice.

[05:35]

When a student comes to practice, mostly people come through reading or through hearing something about it, or some kind of study. But when you and enter in a very clean way, so that you're not just want is not enlightenment.

[06:57]

People don't really necessarily want enlightenment. They want to reinforce the idea of enlightenment. Will enlightenment make me happy? Will enlightenment make me powerful? Unless you get rid of your ideas, practice won't help you. So when we enter practice, it's important to just listen to the instruction. When we have zazen instruction, If you can just let go of opinions, knowledge, history.

[09:03]

You can't let go of history, but not letting your history be an impediment to your openness in your position in life, your professional status, your age. When we come together to practice, everyone is different, and yet we're all the same. So the goal of practice is to let go of everything, to not be bound by thinking mind, study,

[10:05]

then enlightenment is not so difficult. You're quite prepared to realize Please be very careful. If the steps are off, it's still possible to make the right turn and get on the correct path. But you have to be willing to wake up or willing to let go of So then Dogen says, how true these words are.

[11:45]

The practice of the way depends on whether the guiding master is a true teacher or not. So how do you tell A true teacher will usually not advertise themselves. And often a true teacher will not even proclaim that they are a teacher. If you find that the teacher teacher.

[12:56]

If you stick with me, you'll get enlightened. I'm a true teacher, you see, not boastful. when you see a teacher who is not straightforward about their shortcomings or doesn't admit that they have any. One of the problems, you know, with Zen teachers is that according to the myth, Zen teachers are supposed to be infallible.

[14:48]

that you're infallible. And so you have to live up to this infallibility of being a master. And then if you do something wrong, then you have to defend the thing that you did wrong. And then defending what you did wrong, or your shortcomings, just keeps creating more and more problems. including all his investors. So then he says, the disciple is like wood, or a good material.

[16:40]

Not wooden, but like a block of wood. Each one is like a different shape. It's like the raw material. And the teacher resembles a craftsman or a carpenter or a sculptor. Even if the wood is good, without a skilled craftsman, its extraordinary beauty is not revealed. Even if the wood is bent, placed in skilled hands, its splendid merits immediately appear. By this you should know that realization is genuine or false, depending on whether the teacher is true or not. by the outer shapes.

[17:55]

But look at what is this, the pure essence of the student. Even though each one of us has been shaped by our life, our postures, and the way we present ourselves, think about ourselves, is shaped by our thinking and our life, but yet there is a core which is very pure and untouched. A teacher should be able to see into that talks about shaping, the teacher doesn't actually do the shaping.

[18:59]

The teacher coaxes out the shape. You know, you say a good sculptor already sees the figure in a block of wood. and simply takes away all the pieces so that the figure reveals itself out of the block of wood. So, in this way, a good teacher is like a good sculptor who sees the shape, sees the figure in the block of wood, and just helps to bring that forth. So, if a teacher is too wants to create something too much, then the work is not contrived. And if the teacher doesn't do enough, the shape never really comes forth.

[20:11]

So it's a very delicate and sensitive relationship that the teacher and the student have with each other. Because the teacher becomes a shape, a pure shape to come forth, and at the same time is shaped by the interaction actually enjoys taking on the challenge of a difficult student, because the problems, the nutty problems of a difficult student actually enhance the character of the student when the shape is, the true shape is brought out.

[21:42]

beauty marks. So one can tell, sometimes we say, we can tell the quality of the teacher by looking at the students. The students are a kind of indication And then Dogen talks about Japan in the 13th century, which he does continually throughout this fascicle. When Dogen was in Japan studying, of course, there was no, what he calls, true practice. There was only scholarly study. kind of Buddhism which was mostly the property of the courts and the aristocracy and was a very prestigious kind of organization so that the aristocracy

[23:20]

make a name for themselves or to have some prestigious authority. So Dogen is always complaining about this. And he was taught this. Dogen was taught, if you study Buddhism thoroughly, you will be able to get a nice position. He says, but in our country, from ancient times, there have not been any true teachers. How do we know this is so? We can guess by studying their sayings, just as we can scoop up spring water and find out about its source.

[24:38]

Down at the bottom of the stream, you can see whether it's clean or dirty. In our country, from ancient times, various teachers had written books and instructed their disciples offering their teaching to human and heavenly beings. Their words are green, they're immature. Their discourse is not yet ripened. They have not yet reached the peak of study. How could they have come close to the state of realization? How could they, you know, how could they come close to the state of realization? They only transmitted words and phrases or taught the chanting of Buddha's name. They count each other's treasure day and night, not having half a penny themselves. So, to study is to accumulate knowledge, but it comes from outside.

[25:40]

So he's saying, either the study comes from outside, or else one is just supplicating Buddha in order to be born in the pure land. These are his two complaints. Previous teachers are responsible for this. They taught people to seek enlightenment outside of mind, or to seek rebirth in another land. Seeking enlightenment outside of mind means to study the principles of Buddhism, or to get something from outside. You can't get it from outside. by chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha. This is a very popular practice in Buddhist time. I mean, in Dogon's time, because in Dogon's time, there was a third age of Mapo. You all know about Mapo.

[26:42]

There's the prediction among Buddhists at that time that there were three ages. The first 500 years after Buddha was the authentic Buddhist The second 500 years was the counterfeit teaching, which was mostly, well it was a lesser kind of teaching. It was studying and And the further away one gets from Buddha's time, the worse it gets. And the third age was the age of Mapo, in which one could not possibly find realizations for practice. And people believed in these three ages.

[27:47]

And this third age was the age in which Dogen lived in Japan. The age of Mapo was the Panna. And so they had preachers like Shinran and Honen, who preached that there was no way in this age of lapo, the degenerate age, that one could have realizations through practice like the old monks. So they devised this practice of chanting the Buddha's name, Amitabha Buddha's name, Amitabha Buddha, Amida Buddha's name. in order to find salvation, be born in the pure land. And so practice was out. No practice. Simply chant the Buddha's name. And no matter how, what your sins are, or how neglectful you are of the precepts, you didn't do any precepts.

[28:50]

You simply chanted the Buddha's name in order to find salvation. Which is not a bad thing, but it's not practice. It's like depending on other power, it's called. But in a sense, if one actually chants it that way and totally gives up ego and self-centeredness, it's not so different. But Dogen said, even though this is the age of mapo, you should do your practice. I don't believe in mātpō. Mātpō is just an idea that people have and then they're believing in it and falling for it and it's an excuse to not work, to give up your practice. In some way, you might be feeling a relief to not practice so hard and just give up.

[30:17]

No, I'm serious. Seriously. In a way, hard practice is like that. But the difference is that instead of depending on Amida Buddha to save you, you find your own salvation through practice, through giving up. Buddhism, but they didn't teach practice. So then Dogen says, though you give good medicine, if you're a teacher or somebody, if you give good medicine, which is something to help you, if you do not teach a method of controlling its use, it will make one sicker than taking poison.

[31:40]

In our country, since ancient times, it seems as though No one has given good medicine. There are as yet no masters who can control the poisonous effects of medicine. Because of this, it is difficult to penetrate birth and death. How can old age and death be overcome?" So, good medicine actually is Buddhism. But unless one knows how to use it, Medicine is good. So a lot of people talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk, is what I'm saying.

[33:11]

So how to, when he says, you give good medicine, if you do not teach a method of controlling its use, It will make one sicker than taking poison. In our country, since ancient times, it seems that no one has given good medicine. There are as yet no masters who can control the poison's effects of the medicine. Because of this, it is difficult to penetrate birth and death. How can old age and death be overcome? This means like the pain and suffering of life as well as old age and death. How can it truly be? How do you control your practice in order to make it effective?

[34:22]

How do you regulate your life in order to make your practice effective? Maybe that's an important question. It's a really important question. How do you regulate or order your life so that practice is actually effective in your life? That's why we had a practice period. We had this practice period for six weeks. And one of the purposes of the practice period is to bring attention to how you regulate your life and your practice so that it becomes effective. Your so-called practice balances your so-called ordinary life, and your ordinary life balances your so-called practice.

[35:32]

how your daily life, how the zendo is extended to your daily life, and your daily life is extended in practice, in zendo. So how to regulate that, how to regulate your practice, how to make a rhythm of practice. So then he says, all this is the teacher's fault, not at all the fault of the disciples. The reason is that those who are teachers let people neglect the root and go out on the limb. connected.

[37:23]

The limb doesn't exist without the root. And the root, and the limb reinforces the root. So they really exist for each other. But to only be out there on the limb, Before they establish true understanding, they are absorbed only in their own thinking, and they unwittingly cause others to enter a realm of confusion. What a pity! Those who are teachers do not yet understand this confusion. How could students realize what is right and wrong? How sad! In this small, remote nation is Japan. Buddha nature has not yet spread widely.

[38:25]

True masters have not yet appeared here. If you wish to study the unsurpassed Buddha way, you have to travel a great distance to call on the masters in Song, China, which is what he did. And yet, you have to deeply reflect on the vital road outside of thought. Until you have a true teacher, it's better not to study. That's an exaggerator. on a vital road outside of thought. That's very important. That's the root, the road outside of thought. Regardless of his age or experience, he talks about what is a true teacher, kind of definition.

[39:28]

He says, regardless of his age or experience, a true teacher is simply one who has apprehended the true teaching and attained the authentic teacher's scale of realization or understanding first. But his capacity is outside of any framework, and his spirit freely penetrates the nodes in bamboo. Nodes in bamboo is a way of saying complicated theories, complicated, complex theories and hindrances of dualistic thinking. He is not concerned with self-views, but for his own ideas and speculations and opinions, and does not stagnate in emotional feelings.

[40:32]

Thus, practice and understanding are in mutual accord. This is a true master. There's a term called A good teacher usually is like round, maybe like a ball or a glass, and has no sides.

[41:59]

It's all one side. things don't stick. their highs and lows in one's life.

[43:07]

Teacher's true nature is not tossed around by conditions. I think that's one way that you can judge or evaluate Good teacher. We couldn't see it, but he could.

[44:26]

He would say, like you just said, teachers are half bad and half good. He said everyone. Everyone's half bad and half good. It was up to you and Sathanga then to figure out. He didn't say you have to figure it out. He just... Well, that's what we inferred, but he never heard anything bad about it. with the same program. It's just like, don't exclude yourself from or think that you've risen above where everybody else is.

[46:15]

That's the point. It's not like, what are your good points and what are your bad. It's like, we're all subject to being good or bad. That's more the point. Could it be referring to ego training? No, that's not bad. That's just ego clinging. Everybody clings to ego. It's not bad. This is our natural condition. The natural condition of human beings is to cling to their ego. But it's very painful. So it's not bad. It's just wrong. Laughter. In the sense that you were saying bad, that it's not things like cause suffering, like clinging to your ego, is it?

[48:22]

excuse me, maintaining awareness that there's always more to life. I'm a realist

[51:15]

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