Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Today is a special day in our calendar. Today is the birthday of Ehei Dogen, the Japanese monk who founded this tradition, in Japanese called Soto Zen. He was a Japanese monk who went to China and brought back Chinese Zaodong tradition, Japanese pronounced Soto, born in this day in 1200, lived 1200 to 1253. I talk about him somewhat regularly, and I thought I'd celebrate his birthday today by talking about We're talking about some of his basic teachings and some of my favorite sayings from him today. So, Dogen introduced the practice that we do here called just sitting, or zazen, sitting meditation.

[01:17]

He also brought back to Japan from China the whole Koan tradition, the teaching stories which he had mastered from China, which he wrote about and talked about extensively. He taught in, so again, he lived 1,200 to 1,253. He went to China from 1,223 to 1,227. And from 1,233 to 1,243, he taught in a monastery a little bit outside of Kyoto, just southern suburbs of Kyoto. And then 1,243, rather abruptly moved to the north, remote mountains of Japan and founded what's now Eheji Monastery, way up in the remote mountains and taught there for 10 years.

[02:22]

So we have some snow outside there. There's about five or six feet of snow every year this time of year. He wrote quite a lot. He was known in Japan for founding what's now called the Soto School of Zen. But he wrote an incredible amount of wonderful, subtle, deep, poetic teachings. His two main works, Shobo Genzo and Chudarma I, Treasury, are these long essays that elaborate on various teachings. And then the other major work he did was Dogen's, Ehekoroku Dogen's extensive record, which I had the privilege of translating with Shōhaku Okamura, and I translated some of Shōbō Genzo, and have written about Dogen. So I wanted to talk about, for some of his basic teachings, maybe most important is the oneness of practice and realization.

[03:33]

So this practice, this meditation practice we've just been doing, is not a technique to reach some experience or realization or enlightenment sometime in the future. The practice is the expression of your realization right now. and enlightenment or realization doesn't exist except in as much as it's practiced. So this is a fundamental aspect of our teaching, that there's a separation between enlightenment and practice, that we each this morning have been expressing that for the people who did this practice for the first time this morning, which is wonderful for all of us, this was your expression of that realization which brought you here.

[04:35]

And for all of us, this is, no matter how long we've been doing this, this is our expression of realization right now. There is no abstract, theoretical enlightenment somewhere up in the sky. It's what we actually practice on our cushions and in our everyday activity. So this is fundamental to Dogen's teaching. Another basic teaching he talks about a lot is going beyond Buddha. So Buddha is not something static. It's not that we reach some experience or understanding or attainment of Buddhahood, and that's it. Buddha is alive. Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, one way of talking about Buddha, who lived 2,500 years ago, continued to practice every day after he became the Buddha.

[05:48]

He continued to awaken. So Buddha is a dynamic reality. We continue to awaken. Buddha continues to become Buddha and go beyond Buddha. That's what Buddha is. So this is a phrase he uses much more than just sitting or Shikantaza, just going beyond Buddha. Buddha is always going beyond. And in each situation, in each new a reality and each new challenge and each new difficulty in our world and in our life, there's this opportunity to go beyond Buddha. So Buddha's dynamic and active and alive. Dogen also talks often about dropping body and mind. This is about letting go. So it doesn't mean to get rid of or deny this body and mind. It means that this body and mind is a continual letting go. That to fully realize and appreciate this body and mind is to let go of or drop away

[06:59]

Our idea and our attachment to this body, this mind, that this body and this mind and our awareness, first of all, body and mind is not separate. So the tension we feel in our shoulders, our knees, our back when we sit, and maybe particularly when we sit long periods, when we sit for a day or more, it's not separate from the emotional and mental tensions that we have too in our life and in our karma. we say in Buddhism for many lifetimes, however you want to understand that, that letting go is maybe the fundamental practice of Zazen, dropping body and mind. So this is a phrase that Dogen used as a synonym for Zazen. So this is what we've been doing this morning, dropping body and mind. And he also uses this as a synonym for complete enlightenment, for the Buddhist enlightenment, just dropping away body and mind. and opening to the freshness and tenderness of each breath and each awareness and the openness of this reality right now, just dropping body and mind.

[08:14]

And this is something we do together. So this has to do with Sangha also, with community, with each of us facing the wall, facing ourselves, doing this together by ourselves. And when you do this so-called alone at home, also, we're all doing this together. We're all informed by everybody we've ever met and ever know, and each of us. this sense of dropping body and mind, individually and communally, comes together. So there's lots more to say about each of these aspects of Dogen's teachings and many others. I thought I'd talk about a few of my favorite lines from Dogen, and hopefully we'll have some time for discussion as well. And some of you may have other favorite lines to add from Dogen, but one that I've been talking about recently is from one of Dogen's earliest writings, Ben Do Wah, or Wholehearted Engagement of the Way.

[09:31]

which I also translated with shohaku, and we chant sometimes the section of it in the self-fulfillment or self-realization samadhi, Jiji-yuzami. Totally, and this is one of his first writings about Zazen, and it's so totally radical and so totally mind-boggling, but he says, when one person displays the Buddha Mudra with their whole body and mind, that even for a short while, that all space in the universe displays the Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes awakening. And for decades I've been struggling to get my head around what that means, and of course one can't, but what this is about is that this practice is not just I mean, this is, you know, we can talk about this in terms of human psychology and in terms of what this means in terms of our own awareness and our own growth and so forth, but this practice is about radical interconnectedness, that we are connected to, as he says, grass and trees, tiles and pebbles, fences and walls, everything in the world around us practices with us.

[11:01]

and there's this mutual interrelationship. And space itself, reality itself, awakens as we sit. So this is not some kind of, you know, he's not saying this as a, you know, kind of statement of, rational Western scientific data, he's proclaiming this as his experience and his statement of what this practice is. So you don't have to believe this or take this on faith, but anyway, you should hear that this is what Dogen said our practice is. This doesn't mean that it fixes all of our problems or that it solves climate change or all the difficulties in the world. It means that we are connected to all space in the universe. That we have the chance to awaken to the realities of our life and our world and the particular problems of our life and our world.

[12:12]

So, again, this amazing statement, when one person displays the Buddha mudra, which just means this sitting upright, like the Buddha, who sits in the center of our Zen dome, with the whole body and mind, that all space in the universe completely expresses Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely awakens. So maybe that's enough to say. But I'll throw in some more statements from Dogen. in one of his most famous writings, also considered part of Shobo Genzo, called Genzo Koan, which we sometimes chant. It's a longer chant, so we don't do it so often, but he says, he defines delusion and enlightenment very clearly. He says, to carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

[13:16]

So our usual way of being in the world is to bring ourself forward and experience the myriad things. We project ourself, this ego, this sense of this identity that we, as individualist Westerners, but as human beings, you know, that we have. We all have some idea, some sense of ourself. We all have various ways of identifying ourself. you know, social security numbers and so forth, and personal histories. Anyway, we carry that self forward and experience all the stuff out there, so-called. That's delusion. That the myriad things come forth and experience themselves, and everything arises together and experiences this interconnectedness. That's awakening. And we're part of that. Even this deluded self is part of that. That's not something happening out there. That the myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakened.

[14:23]

That's kind of subtle, but these simple definitions of delusion and awakening are worth considering. But he also says that it's not that we should get rid of delusion and try and be awakened. He says that awakened people are awakened to their delusions. Enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. So we study delusion. And deluded people have delusions about enlightenment. So we all probably started practicing with some delusions about enlightenment. Some idea about, oh, I want to be enlightened. That would be really nice. And everything would be perfect. And I'd be wise and beautiful and wonderful and all that. So that's delusion. And he says to be deluded throughout delusion and to be enlightened throughout enlightenment. Anyway, to carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things, that's delusion.

[15:24]

That everything arises and experiences themselves, itself, together, that's awakening. And actually our life has both sides and our practice has both sides. And to see each side and how they work together. That's our practice. And we might want to be awakened all the time, or we might want to not have our delusions, but this is our reality. We do have some self that we project onto the world. Can we study that? Can we be awakened? Can you see how that... So a big part of our practice, practically, is seeing those solutions. And part of what's difficult about practice and sustaining practice is not dealing with some discomfort in our knees or our shoulders or whatever, sitting in this position, but seeing all of those habits of

[16:40]

projecting all the nastiness of our particular patterns of greed, hate, and delusion onto the myriad things. Can we just study that, be with that, not get caught by that? Can we see that actually that's part of the myriad things coming forth and experiencing themselves, which is awakening? So Zazen works in this kind of organic, alchemical way. We sometimes sit for We have a monthly all-day sitting or sometimes half-day or sometimes three or five days now, but also just sitting regularly. So I recommend sitting many times a week, several times a week, if not every day, because there's this rhythm that happens when we sustain a practice of regularly paying attention to what it's like to just be present as we are.

[17:54]

is this organic quality. And our idea of our practice is just our idea of our practice. That's part of the projecting ourself forward. So, you know, sometimes we think that nothing's happening in our practice. It happens that people feel like their practice is dull or that it's boring. You know, sometimes people, you know, especially when people first come to practice, sometimes, oh, this is wonderful. And so Joseph sat for the first time this morning, and just in Zazen instruction, he felt really great, and that was wonderful. Yeah, and I, so I had my Zazen anniversary last week. I was sitting every day. decades, many decades, and my first time too. Wow, this is wonderful. It's okay to be the person sitting on my cushion, in spite of everything. And I really felt that, and I've been doing it every day since.

[18:57]

So yeah, we can feel that. But sometimes it gets kind of dull. Sometimes our mind naturally does this thing of evaluating. We think, oh, that was a great period of Zazen. Oh, no, that was a crummy period of Zazen. My mind was so busy, and I was distracted, and I was sleepy. Anyway, we do that. We do say, oh, that was really good, or that was really bad. That's part of how our discriminating consciousness works. But actually, how Zazen works is not that way. It happens sort of underground. It happens by being willing to just be present. and upright and face the wall and face ourselves even when we're feeling crummy or sick or even when we have a headache or even when we have, when we're really upset about something or angry about something or even when we're feeling really sleepy and want to be doing something else.

[20:04]

To just be present and upright and You know, maybe we aren't able to sit 30 minutes or 40 minutes, maybe it's only 20 or 15, but just to be present and upright and face ourselves. There's a power to that. So there's one of the Shobo Genzo essays that I translated with Kastana Hashiri, it's called, Gyo Butsu Igi, The Awesome Presence of Active Buddhas. And he actually starts by saying that the only Buddha Buddha is an active Buddha, a Buddha who's actually practicing. But he has got this line in there that's one of my favorite lines, Dogen lines. He says, just fully experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. So whether or not you think that your zazen is crummy or wonderful on a given day, or a given week, or a given year,

[21:07]

Just fully experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. Give yourself to actually being present and experiencing this vital, lively process that's happening beyond your judgments. We do have judgments. Don't make judgments about the judgments. Or if you do, don't make judgments about those. There's this lively, vital process, this alchemical process that happens when we sit regularly. On the path, there's a path, there's a practice. So the very first time we sit, as Dogen says, when one person displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, all space in the universe completely becomes awakening. And still there's a path, there's an unfolding, there's a dynamic process of Buddha going beyond Buddha.

[22:10]

There's a blossoming, there's a flowering of reality and truth that happens in this Buddha body on your cushion now. So just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. Real Buddha is always going beyond. Allow that process to unfold beyond your idea of who you are and what Buddha is and what the world is and what the problems of the world are. We don't ignore the problems of the world. We don't ignore the problems in our life. In fact, we are open to the suffering of the world. We keep our eyes open. We study, we feel how it feels to feel the sadness and the frustration and the fear and all of this, all of the particular difficulties of our life and the life around us.

[23:23]

We don't push that away or ignore it. And yet there is this vital process of how do we respond So in addition to these long essays where he elaborates on particular themes or particular koan stories or teachings of a particular teacher, Shobo Genzo, in his extensive record there's these short, really sometimes very warm and humorous, but these short little talks that he gives in his extensive record, but also there's these poems. A lot of his writing is very poetic, but Since we have snow outside, I thought I'd read one of Dogen's six verses on snow that he wrote, living up in the mountains at Heiji.

[24:35]

And this one, particularly, my friend Kaz Tanahashi was inspired to study Dogen and eventually translate all of Shobo Genzo because of this one verse. and caused, through that painting behind Douglas, one brushstroke that's related to this, it's called The Snow Within. So we have snow outside and we also have snow within. And Dogen wrote, in our lifetime, false and true, good and bad are confused. While playing with the moon, scorning winds, and listening to birds, For many years, I merely saw that mountains had snow. This winter, suddenly I realize that snow completes mountains." It could be read, for many years, I merely saw that there is snow on the mountains.

[25:38]

This winter, suddenly I realize that snow creates the mountains. So we think of snow on the mountains as separate, but somehow snow creates or completes Ferdinand Park Road. So when you step out into the entryway, you'll see there's snow out there, lots of snow. Not as much as at Ahege. Anyway, there's snow out there and there's snow within. cause left that for us on our wall. And even when it gets hot in Chicago, as it will eventually, there's also snow with it. But do we think of the snow as, so, you know, we live in flat Chicago, we have a lake instead of mountains, you know, but do we think of

[26:43]

Our usual way of thinking is that we're separate from the mountains, and the mountains are separate from the snow, but the snow is us. The lake is us. The lake completes us. The lake creates us. How do we feel How do we appreciate this deep connection that we are with everything around us? So this isn't just some idea. This is something that we start to feel in Zazen. So Zazen teaches us somehow, or we start to feel in our bellies or, I don't know, our shoulders or somewhere, this sense of connectedness that we are.

[27:52]

So I thought I'd end speaking of mountains by just reading a few lines from another one of Dogen's essays from Shobo Genzo. And this is called the Mountains and Water Sutra, and this is the teaching of Dogen that will be the focus for our upcoming spring practice commitment period. So we have a two-month practice period every spring here. So that'll be in April and May, and this year we'll take as—we're not going to try and kind of fully cover this text, but the touchstone for the practice commitment period this year will be this Mountains and Water Sutra. It's the only, usually a sutra is a teaching spoken by the Buddha. This is the only writing by Dogon that he called and that we call a sutra. I'll just read maybe a couple passages and then we'll have some time for discussion or questions.

[29:02]

So he starts, so he's talking about mountains and waters or mountains and rivers and lakes. Again, we don't have mountains, we have prairies and lakes and maybe skyscrapers and lakes and rivers. But anyway, Dogen said, the mountains and waters of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. together abiding in their normative state, they have consummated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Because they are events prior to the empty aeon, we can maybe read that as because they are events prior to the Big Bang, they are the livelihood of the immediate present. It's a wonderful phrase. What is the livelihood of the immediate present? Because they are the self before the emergence of signs, they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. So these phrases by Dogen that you kind of chew on, the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality.

[30:12]

By the height and breadth of the qualities of the mountains, the virtue of riding the clouds is always mastered from the mountains, and the subtle work of following the wind as a rule penetrates through to liberation from the mountains. So most of Shobo Genzo was written in the brief period just before he left Kyoto and just after he arrived up in the mountains, before Eheji was finished. So this one, I don't know if he was already in the mountains. I think this was actually written before he moved up to Eheji. Anyway, he had lived in the mountains. Mountains are part of the terrain. in China and in Japan and California, so we have to find our own mountains here in Chicago, anyway. Again, this livelihood of the immediate present.

[31:18]

What is the livelihood of the immediate present? What is the self before the emergence of science, say or signify anything. So that's from the very beginning of this long essay. And I'll just read a little bit from the very end. He talks about mountains, and he talks about water, and he talks about how different kinds of beings see water differently. He talks about dragons, but he also talks about how humans see water and how fish see water. And of course, that's very different. We drown in water. Fish drown if they leave water. He says, it is not just that there is water in the world. There are worlds in the realm of water. And this is so not only in water. There are also worlds of sentient beings in clouds. There are worlds of sentient beings in wind. There are worlds of sentient beings in fire. There are worlds of sentient beings in earth. There are worlds of sentient beings in phenomena.

[32:20]

There are worlds of sentient beings in a single blade of grass. There are worlds of sentient beings in a single staff. Where there are worlds of sentient beings, there must be the world of Buddhas and Zen adepts. You should meditate on this principle very thoroughly. So part of what Dogen does again and again in his writings is to help us to see beyond our usual way of seeing. to see more deeply than our usual way of thinking. It's not that our usual way of thinking is bad, it's just that it's limited. And that there is much more to reality than our usual way of thinking. And that we can open up our usual way of thinking and feel and experience and appreciate much more of reality. He goes on to say, again in this last part of this Mountains and Water Sutra, in the case of mountains too, there are mountains concealed in jewels.

[33:32]

There are mountains concealed in marshes. There are mountains concealed in the sky. There are mountains concealed in mountains. There is study which conceals mountains in concealment. An ancient Buddha said, mountains are mountains, waters are waters. This saying does not say that mountains are mountains. It says mountains are mountains. Therefore, you should investigate the mountains. If you investigate the mountains, that is meditation in the mountains. Such mountains and waters of themselves make sages and saints. There's one other passage I was going to share. It's just a little show. Though mountains belong to the territory of the nation, they are entrusted to people who love the mountains.

[34:37]

When mountains definitely love the owners, saints, sages, and those of exalted virtue are in the mountains. So, how do we find our way of actually loving the world? and loving beings and appreciating beings. Anyway, this is what Dogen's teaching is about. And so I want to say happy birthday to Dogen on this. So how old would he be today? He was born in 1200. What is this, 2013? Anyway, somebody else can do the math. 1814. Happy New Year. Happy birthday to all of us. So comments, questions, other, you know, Dogen wrote this huge amount of stuff and it's sometimes bewildering and difficult and sometimes it's just very poetic and cool and anyway.

[35:50]

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