I want to welcome you to the third installment of our exploration of Dogen Benjie's essays. We have the good fortune to be led to these essays by Taigen Dan Leighton, who I told you is both traditionally well-trained in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi, and he also spent a good deal of time in Japan. At the same time, he is one of, at least in my view, he's an author, he's an academic, a scholar, a translator, but he's also one of the best teachers in terms of taking the traditional text and actually helping make them accessible to those of us in contemporary practice. So he has that exquisite and very unusual capacity to fully inhabit the tradition, and at the same time to translate it into contemporary audiences in ways that we can actually make

[01:03]

sense of and feel that we can participate, so he provides a link for us. So thank you so much, Taigen, for being on the call. Thank you, everybody, wherever you're at in the world right now, for joining us, whatever time zone you happen to be in. It's a precious morning, I'm happy you're here, and take it away, Taigen. Okay, thank you very much, Diane. So today, we are going to discuss the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen, a wonderful text, an important text, way too much to say about it in just an hour and a half. He calls it a sutra, which is unusual. A sutra, as you I'm sure know, is a teaching by the Buddha himself, but this is the only text that Dogen himself calls a sutra, and we could say a sutra is the fundamental teaching of the Buddha, and I think this text is worthy of calling a sutra, of describing as a sutra.

[02:09]

So I want to, before we look at the text itself, a number of comments, a way of introduction. So just in general about Dogen, one of the things I've focused on is in the first two classes, and when we looked at his essay on Flowers in the Sky and Being Time, and a few others before that, is how Dogen emphasizes shifting our perspective, opening up our perspective, shifting our way of seeing ourselves in the world, and certainly the difficulties and challenges he offers in terms of his language, but even more in terms of his way of seeing and conveying things is part of that. And Mountains and Water Sutra perhaps does so even more than Flowers in the Sky and Being Time. Being Time does so mostly in terms of time. Mountains and Water Sutra does so in terms of space and size, along with time.

[03:13]

So shifting perspectives, though, is one of the major themes in Dogen's teachings. I wanted to just mention a couple others, which have been part of what we've been talking about, but the idea of the oneness of practice and realization also comes across in the Mountains and Water Sutra, so that for Dogen, a very strong emphasis, and this is part of the whole Soto teaching, that practice is not practice for realization or enlightenment sometime in the future. Practice is the expression of realization right now. And realization doesn't exist except as it is practiced right now. So this is a very strong emphasis by Dogen, and we'll see it in Mountains and Water Sutra, that practice and realization are inseparable. And connected with that is the idea of going beyond Buddha, that Buddha is the Buddha who

[04:15]

goes beyond Buddha. Buddha is not something that, when Buddha awakened, you know, the historical Buddha, there are many, many, many Buddhas, but when Buddha awakened 2,500 years ago, more or less in northeastern India, or what's northeastern India now, he didn't stop practicing and he didn't stop awakening, that Buddha is one who awakens ongoingly and again and again, and continues practicing and awakening. So Dogen talks, more than he refers to, for example, just sitting, or some of other common phrases that you may have heard, Dogen talks about going beyond Buddha very often. So this idea of going beyond an ongoing practice, an ongoing awakening is very important. So just to mention those as other important aspects of Dogen's teaching, maybe I'll mention also non-dualism, but not non-duality as opposed to duality, but the non-duality of duality

[05:20]

and non-duality. That gets a little abstract, but anyway, all of this is also in Mountains and Water Sutra. So I wanted to mention also some, in terms of the shifting perspectives and some ways of looking at Mountains and Water Sutra, again, I mentioned last time that this course is, I certainly do not intend, nor could I possibly explain, Dogen, what I hope is to give you more tools to enjoy Dogen and explore Dogen, not to decipher or understand Dogen, but to sit with Dogen, to be with Dogen, to allow yourself to bathe in Dogen or listen to Dogen as he riffs and plays with the various images and themes that he is working with.

[06:27]

In terms of the Mountains and Water Sutra, particularly as auxiliary texts, I would very much recommend, when you come back to it, two texts by Gary Snyder, a great American Zen patriarch, Mountains and Rivers Without End, which is an extended poem that is Gary's original insights, but also, in a lot of ways, is inspired by the Mountains and Water Sutra. Also, one of my favorite books, Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild, which in some places very specifically refers to the Mountains and Water Sutra, so that's very helpful. Just in terms of shifting perspectives, I've referred to some of the great American Zen movies, and I would recommend, in terms of shifting perspectives, maybe even better than classic American Zen movies, Groundhog Day or The Big Lebowski, Men in Black, as a really

[07:32]

wonderful American Zen movie that helps with shifting perspectives. Anyway, that's by way of introduction. Mountains and Water Sutra, I'm going to go through the... It says Mountains and Waters, literally, is the title. In a lot of ways, he's talking about mountains and rivers, and with my students here in Chicago, you don't have this problem in Utah, and I know there are people in various places around the world, but just to say a lot of Zen imagery, East Asian poetry, and in East Asia and California, mountains and rivers, and the interplay of mountains and rivers is very clear here in the Midwest. I talk about this sometimes in terms of pastures and lakes, or here in Chicago,

[08:33]

skyscrapers and lakes. We have a great lake nearby. Anyway, so the text itself on Tom Query's translation, starting on page 89, we'll see how far we get in the actual text. Starts off by... I'm going to start at the very beginning. 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. Query's translation, normative state, is literally Dharma position, and that's another very important teaching that Dogen... Another theme in Dogen's teaching, abiding in one's Dharma position.

[09:33]

I like the dude abides, but that one's Dharma position is ever shifting, and this is part of the theme of the mountains, walking that we're going to get to in this Sutra of Mountains and Waters. So, to abide in one's Dharma position, though, I talked about this in the first week when I talked about the self-fulfillment Samadhi, that the self receives one's function, literally, self-fulfillment or self-enjoyment is the self accepting or receiving one's function, to actually abide in one's Dharma position, to actually accept one's situation. You know, Dogen talks about this in terms of positions in the monastery, but it's also, you know, one's position in this lifetime, one's situation in this lifetime. Anyway, he says that here in this second sentence, that the mountains and waters abide in their Dharma position, and they have consummated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness,

[10:40]

or as Tanahashi translates this as, they have realized completeness. So, this idea of wholeheartedness or fullness, he attributes that to mountains and waters. Then we get to this really important and very interesting passage. He says, because they are events prior to the empty aeon, they are 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, because they are the events prior to the empty aeon, we might translate this as saying, because these mountains and waters are events prior to the Big Bang, you know, that's kind of our equivalent cosmologically, they are the livelihood of the immediate present. So, he's saying the mountains and waters exist before what we usually think of as the universe.

[11:48]

And then he talks about this in terms of the self, which is maybe more relevant to us in terms of thinking of our selves. Because they are the self before the emergence of signs, they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. So, they are the self before, we could say the self before forms arose or arise. Before forms arise, they are the self. They are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. He goes on to say, 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, this first paragraph is almost, you know, maybe is as mind-blowing as the one from the

[12:55]

Self-Fulfillment Samadhi from Bhen-du-Lah that I mentioned the first week, about when one person sits, even for a little while, completely taking on with body and mind Buddha mudra, and all of space awakens. He's saying here that the mountains and waters of the immediate presence are the self. I think he means yourself too, before forms arise. And therefore, they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality or reality. So, this has, this is one of the things that, one of the perspectives that this has, relates to, and this wasn't a perspective for Dogen, but I think it is for us, is that this, he's talking about creation. So, this is creation before creation. So, from the perspective of Western religion and creator deity, he's saying that the mountains

[14:05]

and waters existed, you know, before creation. So, the idea of creation, I like to use the word creation in translations, in terms of of talking about the environment, the universe, our planet, our ecology as creation, but it's not creation as we usually think of in the Western context, where, you know, God created the heavens and the earth. There's not a one-time creation that happened. So, in Buddhism, and here, what Dogen's referring to, creation is something that's going on constantly right now. So, again, this first paragraph is pretty radical in various ways, and maybe going through this like this gives you a sense of what, how to read Dogen, you know, and I understand that Dogen is difficult to read, and there are lots of, one of the problems is there

[15:08]

are lots of references, like the first sentence in the next paragraph that I'm going to talk about, that are references to traditional teachings. There are references to Buddhist and Chinese cultural phrases and so forth, and so, you know, it helps to look at the footnotes and get some guidance on that, but also, just in terms of how I've tried to unpack a little bit this first paragraph, to actually spend time with it and try and get what he is saying is important, and how much this is, again, about shifting or opening up perspectives on what Dogen is saying is reality, and this is not just philosophical, he's talking about this as, he's not talking, he's not presenting

[16:10]

some, by calling it a sutra, we know he's not talking about some philosophical position he's trying to promulgate. Dogen has been talked about as a philosopher, and actually his revival, Dogen's, you know, just a historical footnote, Dogen's writings were almost unknown in Japan from, call it a century or two after his death, until really in the 1920s, except for within the Soto school, there were periodically, you know, Soto scholars, monks who studied him, but he wasn't widely known, even within Japanese Buddhism. Dogen was very well known as the founder of Soto Zen, and there were other things he was known for, but he was revived by Japanese people and became known by Japanese people as a kind of philosopher to counter the idea that there weren't philosophers in Japan,

[17:11]

and in some sense, yeah, maybe he's a philosopher, but he's talking about this as religious, as practice instruction, talking to his students, he's talking to religious practitioners. So, you know, the whole rest of the text is about what this means in practice, the implications of this, but in terms of reading Dogen, to hang out with, you know, the way I've talked about this first paragraph and all the implications of this, and the idea that the mountains and waters abide in their normative state and have consummated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness, we're not usually, so, you know, it's not exactly that he's anthropomorphizing mountains and waters, he's talking about mountains and waters as primal phenomena, where, you know, as they are in Japan and in many parts of the world, they are the self before

[18:14]

the emergence of signs, before forms arise, before we can signify anything, and they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. He talks about the virtue of riding the clouds and following the wind, riding the clouds is, what does Cleary say about this, he says, Cleary's footnotes here are not so useful, he says these are Taoist expressions, which they are, but cloud riding and cloud driving, Suzuki Roshi talks about this as quality of good teachers, because another way of talking about this, so mountains, Cleary in his introduction talks about this a little bit, he talks about mountains and waters as form and emptiness, and that's okay, you can see that as symbolic aspects, but also mountains are teachers, clouds are, and clouds, of course, are made of water, so, you know, so there are many ways, there are many kind of,

[19:17]

all of Dogen's writings and all of good Koan literature and Zen literature, you can take literally, and you can also take as a kind of evocative of, I wouldn't call it exactly symbolic, but mountains, traditionally teachers are named after their mountain where they teach, all temples, even temples that are in flatlands are given mountain names, and clouds refers to monks, unsui, wandering like clouds, from temple to temple, so when he talks about, so Suzuki Roshi talks about teachers as cloud drivers, so that's an overtone of this too, the virtue of riding the clouds is always mastered from the mountains, that'll work of following the wind, the wind is also a metaphor for a particular kind of teaching, from a particular teaching lineage or tradition, so there's a lot going on just in this first paragraph, but I do want to go beyond the first paragraph, so,

[20:20]

I mean, we could spend the rest of the, of the class just on that, but I'll keep going. So, the main, the main, um, phrase that he comments on throughout the Mountains and Water Sutra, and that first paragraph is kind of an introduction to it, is this, uh, saying from Furong Daokai, uh, Fuyodokai in Japanese, a great Chinese Saodong or Shoto ancestor, um, the green mountains are forever walking, a stone woman bears a child by night, that's the kind of the central text that he's commenting on, the central statement that he's commenting on, he mentions others too, but this is kind of the starting point, and he keeps returning to this throughout the Mountains and Water Sutra. So, from our usual, rational, literalistic mind, of course, what does that mean, the green mountains are forever walking, the stone woman,

[21:22]

stone woman is a metaphor for a barren woman, but, uh, you could take it also literally, a stone woman bears a child by night, and stone woman also, you know, it relates to mountains, and he talks later about mountains giving birth to mountain children, so, um, there's a, there are poetic levels to these sayings, uh, but there's a teaching here, that is what I want to talk about, so I want to talk about the mountains walking, and that's what Dogen is talking about, um, so, um, um, but Furong Daokai, just to say, was the teacher in Song period, um, um, was a, he was two generations before Hongzhe, who I translated in Cultivating the Empty Field, and, uh, maybe four or five generations before Dogen's teacher, um, and, uh, he kind of re-established the monastic standards for the Soto tradition, anyway, he was a great, great,

[22:24]

very famous teacher, um, in the Chinese Soto lineage, um, so after the quote, Dogen says, mountains lack none of the qualities proper to them. For this reason, they forever remain settled, and they forever walk. That quality of walking should be investigated in great detail, because the walking of mountains must be like the walking of people. Don't doubt the walking of mountains, just because it doesn't look the same as the walking of human beings. So, one of the things, and I've mentioned this before, in Being Time and Flowers in the Sky, is that, in terms of shifting perspectives, he's talking about how, um, he's talking about looking beyond usual human perspectives. Well, how, how does, how do fish see water, as opposed to human beings, for example? Um, but here, and he talks about this later, that later in this, in this text,

[23:27]

um, for this reason, mountains forever remain settled, and they forever walk. Um, so, this remain settled, uh, that is also, you could translate as, they abide, forever abide, and forever walk. They always walk, they constantly walk. So again, abiding, not static. That being settled doesn't mean, so, uh, when you're sitting upright and still, still, settled Zazen doesn't mean being dead. It means finding a deeper life. So, that's part of what this is about. This is also, you know, when he's talking about mountains, he's also talking about, um, uh, Zazen, you know, in some sense. Uh, there's a Paul Reps, uh, who, first English

[24:28]

writers about, about Zen wrote this book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which is still pretty good, and he once said that mountains are people who sat, sat there long enough to become, or rock, like he said, rocks are people who sat there long enough to become them. Anyway, uh, so, mountains, uh, forever remain settled and forever walk, and so what is, what is he talking about, about mountains walking? What does that mean? He says that we should study quality of mountains walking in detail. Um, and then a little further in the paragraph, though the walking of the green mountains is fast as wind, and even faster, people in the mountains are unaware, uncognizant. In the mountains is blooming of flowers that is inside the world, and people outside the mountains are unaware, uncognizant. So, we don't know the mountains walking, and, um, so again, this is a, this has to do with perspective. Uh, we could think of it

[25:37]

in time perspective. One easy way to think about what he's saying here is if we think about it in geological time, and of course, there are mountains, you know, if we take away our view of time and history and look at it in a wider view of time and history, of course, mountains walk, mountains shift, mountains change. The Himalayas are new mountains, and they're, so they're, they're still climbing. Uh, the, um, Appalachians in the east are, you know, old mountains, so they're worn down. The Rockies are relatively new mountains, and, uh, if you look at, uh, the history, uh, at, at the geological history, of course, mountains are walking and moving and shifting over time. But I think he's saying something more than that, although, you know, that's part of this, um, that, so this thing about people in the mountains, he'll come back to, um, the people who are in the mountains are, uh, he later talks about the mountains, love the people in the mountains, um, but, uh, we don't see, it's like the person in the middle of the lake not seeing

[26:44]

the shoreline and thinking the lake is, is, or the ocean is just round or circular. We can't see the walking of the mountains, but the mountains are constantly walking. The mountains are constantly moving and shifting. Everything is constantly moving and shifting. Everything is changing. This is kind of basic Buddhist teaching. Towards the bottom, he says, if one doubts the walking of the mountains, one doesn't even yet know one's own walking either. Not that one's own walking doesn't exist. It is that one does not yet know or understand one's own walking. So, um, so walking as a, as a practice, of course, uh, I assume you all do kin-inner walking meditation. Uh, that's a wonderful practice, uh, uh, and to, to, uh, to, uh, see the quality of one's walking, uh, and just to feel quality of one's walking, uh, is, uh, you know, equally zazen and equally a way of experiencing

[27:50]

reality. Um, next part, uh, so, um, there's so much to say, to talk about in this essay, and I'm not going to cover as much as I wanted to, but I'm, but I'm going to keep going. Um, the Green Mountains are not animate, not inanimate, on the top of page 70. The self is not animate, not inanimate. One should not doubt this walking of the Green Mountains. This animate or inanimate could also be translated as sentient or insentient. And, um, this is, there's actually a significant background about this. So, again, uh, reading Dogen, one, one could read this without knowing this background, but I'm, I'm going to give you some of this. This is, um, goes back to, uh, basic, um, important discussion in Chinese Buddhism that predates Chan, actually, that predates Bodhidharma, but continues into early Chan, and is very, very important in the formation

[28:55]

of the, uh, Soto lineage. So, in, so this, uh, question of what is sentient and what is not sentient was very important in terms of talking about Buddha nature. Uh, in India, uh, and early in China, there was, there was the idea that only certain people had Buddha nature. Dogen ends up saying that, that all beings, whole being, Buddha nature, all being in its wholeness is Buddha nature. Um, beyond that, um, in India, and, and still in Tibetan Buddhism, nature, and eventually in, eventually in Buddhism, it was understood that all sentient beings, human beings, and, and sentient beings are, have Buddha nature. Uh, this is clear in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which we still don't have an English translation of this, uh, somebody working on it, and I keep

[30:00]

waiting for it. Anyway, uh, and Dogen talks about that in his Buddha nature essay, which is very important. But, um, in India and Tibet still, plants were not considered sentient, only animals. So, in Tibetan Buddhism still, uh, sentient beings means animals. In China, that shifted, and that shifted radically. And this had, this was, this was part of a very extensive discussion and debate and development in China, in early Chinese Buddhism, that involved the Chianti, Chianti school, and the Huayan school, and great Chinese Buddhist, uh, teachers and philosophers before Chang, actually, uh, who, who finally came to see that, came to agree, pretty much, that plants have Buddha nature, and even non-sent, so-called non-sentient beings are Buddha nature. Um, so what, so the question of what is sentient and what is non-sentient, uh, was a big issue in

[31:06]

early Chinese Buddhism, and they came to see that reality itself is Buddha nature. And Dogen really works this out, and goes a little further with this. But this is not, uh, this is not only in Buddhism. So, Native, Indigenous peoples around the world have this view, um, that some Native American people, the Cheyenne, I know, uh, say that rocks have consciousness, but I think probably other Native peoples, too. Uh, and, you know, it, it's a, depending, well, if any of you've been to, seen the Zen gardens in, in Kyoto, you, but just looking around at other rocks, you can see that some of them have been through some things. Um, anyway, um, this idea of non-sentient beings, Buddha nature, or awareness, um, is very important in Zen, and we talked about it in, um, the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, where Dogen talks about, um, all, about space becoming enlightened, and that earth, grasses,

[32:12]

and trees, tiles, and walls, fences, and pebbles imperceptibly expound the Dharma, and there's mutual assistance between them and the person sitting Zazen. This goes back to the roots of Chinese Soto Zen. Um, my, the book I'm working on currently is about Dongshan, uh, or Tozan in Japanese, who was the founder of this Soto lineage in 9th century China, and he actually came to his teacher, Yunyan, uh, in Kodoyo, through this question about can, how, how do, or can non-sentient beings expound the Dharma? That was the, that was the root, his, one of his root questions that led him to his teacher. So, it's very, it's a very important issue in, in, uh, East Asian Buddhism, and, and it's one of the, not the only, but one of the big differences between East Asian Buddhism and, and Zen, and, uh, earlier Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. So, anyway, that's just a kind of

[33:12]

background note on this statement by Dogen at the top of page 90. Um, so, moving on to the next paragraph, who knows by the measure of how many phenomenal realms the Green Mountains may be perceived? Walking of the Green Mountains, as well as the walking of oneself, should be clearly examined. There should be examination both in stepping back and stepping forward. Well, okay, who knows by the measure of how many phenomenal realms the Green Mountains may be perceived? Um, this again goes back to Dogen talking about multiple dimensions, multiple realms, uh, not just human, again, he's not just talking about human psychology, he's working on an existential ontological level, although it applies to us and our practice. And from different phenomenal realms, Green Mountains are seen differently.

[34:17]

So, again, geological time being one example. Uh, if rocks have consciousness, how do they see it? How do, how do, uh, how do birds see the mountains? How do, um, animals that live underneath the rocks in the mountains see the mountains? Um, as well as, you know, in the, so, calling this a sutra, in all of the Mahayana, in all of the Buddhist sutras, there are many other kinds of beings that were kind of just accepted as part of the assemblies in, in, uh, India, in Buddhist sutras, uh, heavenly beings, and beings from other dimensions, you could say, who were part of the assembly, um, that listened to the Buddha. So, um, again, he's invoking that here, because the walking of the, um, the walking of the Green Mountains, as well as the walking of oneself, should be clearly examined. So, he's not just

[35:22]

talking about looking at what does it mean that Green Mountains are walking, but what does it mean that we're walking? And then he, he, part of Dogen's style of rhetoric, you could say, his style of proclamation, is to go into detail about this. This should be examined both in stepping back and stepping forward. Precise time of before signs, before you start to think about it, before you identify anything, as well as from the other side of the King of Emptiness, as well as before forms emerge. Stepping forward and stepping back, walking never stops for a moment. What does it mean? So, he's talking, he's talking about stepping forward and stepping back, but he's also talking about walking on other levels. What does it mean? What is, what, how do we see walking? How do we see the movement in our lives? He's also talking about your mind walking. Thoughts arise. How does your thinking walk?

[36:27]

Then he says, if walking ever stopped, Buddhisms and adepts would not appear. If walking had a final end, Buddhism wouldn't have reached the present. This is something that amuses me, that Dogen says various, in various places. If it, you know, he says, when he's talking about something that he sees as not realistic, if things were that way, then the Buddha way would not have reached the present moment, present time. So, he's talking about Buddha way walking also. How does it, that the Buddha, that, that here we are, you know, in July 2013, talking about the Buddha way, that the Buddha way walks. They keep continuing, this quality is called the mountains flowing. It is called the flowing mountains. Cause the green mountains to learn walking and the eastern mountains learn traveling on water. This learning is the learning of mountains. Doesn't change the body and mind of

[37:36]

the mountains. Keep the face, keeping the face of the mountains they have learned, they have learned on a winding road. So, and now he's turning to how do we learn to walk? So, for those of you who have young children or young grandchildren, to observe how they learn to put words together, how they learn to speak is interesting, but also how they learn to walk. How do we learn to walk? How do eastern mountains learn to walk? So, there's another phrase, the eastern mountains walk on water, that he's referring to here. Again, which teacher that's from, but, mean, what is walking mean? How do we learn that? How do we learn to see walking in this other way, from this other perspective? Being the face of the mountains, they have learned on a winding road.

[38:40]

Uh, Paul Buhlfeldt has one of the early translations of the Mountains and Water Sutra. You can find it online, wonderful translation also. And he translates this passage as, keeping the face of the mountains, they have, they circle back to study themselves. So, as they walk, they come back to study themselves. Um, a lot more I wanted to get to before we started the discussion, but we're not going to, but let me just, so I'm going to try and speed up a little bit, but I want to give time for discussion and questions, which I'm sure you have. Um, okay, uh, uh, going to the bottom of page 90, excuse me, there's a time when mountains give birth to mountain children. Um, because of the principle of mountains becoming Buddhisms and Adepts, Buddhisms and Adepts immersion appear in this way. So again, the mountains walk,

[39:44]

mountains flow, mountains move. Uh, he's talking about, when he talks about mountains, uh, giving birth to mountain children, he's also talking about teachers, uh, uh, finding successors. And he's also talking about parenting, and he's also talking about how do, how does anything give birth? Um, um, jumping to the next page, a few lines down on 91, even though a time may manifest when it is seen as a ray of treasures, this is not the true ultimate. Even if there is manifestation of being seen as the realm of Buddha's practice of the way, it is not necessarily something to love. Um, a part of this, uh, um, let me, let me keep going. Um, even if we attain the summit of seeing manifestation of being as the inconceivable qualities of Buddha's, reality as it is, is not only like this.

[40:51]

Important. Individual views of beings or individual objects and sub, and subject, this is not to say that they are to be considered the work on the way of Buddhism as Adepts, they are limited views of one corner. Um, what he's talking about here is, um, that on another level is that, um, this is, this goes back to the Stone Roman giving birth daring children at night, um, that it's not enough to see the ultimate truth, that it has to be manifested and expressed in phenomena. So this is, this is a key point. Um, so, uh, uh, in the middle of the page, as for, as for a stone woman bearing a child by night, the time when a stone woman bears a child is called night. So this is, this is, um,

[41:58]

night is a metaphor. This goes back to the Sandokai, the harmony of difference and sameness, or identity of, um, I forget the translation, um, in, uh, White Plum lineage, but, um, that night is an image for merging. Identity of relative and absolute, Taigen. Identity of relative and absolute. Yes, the identity of relative and absolute, the use of the image of light and dark, and dark is an image for, or night is an image for not knowing, for, uh, the ultimate. Um, so this is why the stone woman gives, bears a child at night, but it's important to bear a child, that it's important to, that, that the mountains give birth to mountain children, that this reality needs to be expressed and manifested in phenomena. It's not enough to just see some ultimate view. Reality is not only seeing this as a Buddha realm. So, uh, going back to the, to the, uh, uh, third of the way down on the page, she says some things, um,

[43:01]

this is not to say, this is the middle of the top paragraph, this is not to say that they are to be considered the work on the way of Buddhists and Adepts, they are limited views of one corner, transforming the environment, transforming the mind, that could be translated as turning the objects and turning the subject, or turning the mind, is something scorned by great sages. Speaking of mind, speaking of nature, is something not approved by Buddhisms and Adepts. It could be translated as explaining, you're explaining nature, isn't something not approved. Uh, seeing the mind, seeing nature, is the livelihood of heretics. Sticking to words and phrases is not the expression of liberation. That seeing the mind, seeing nature, seeing nature, there is Kensho, a phrase that some of you may have heard, and he calls that the livelihood of heretics. Um, and the way, the reason he says that is that it's not enough to just see, to have some realization of the ultimate. Kensho is not enough. That's, that's, uh, and to, to,

[44:09]

to hold to that as the point of practice is not enough at all. So, Dogen is very, you know, says this many places, very strongly, that the point is that this needs to be manifested and expressed in phenomena. And that's what he's talking about here, and that's what, why he's talking about this stone woman bearing a child. Um, on the next page, so I'm going to go a little more quickly, um, because there are a few other things I want to just mention in this text before we have discussion. There's a whole section in the next page in 92, um, where he talks about starting in the, you know, the top. Now in China, there's a type of incompetent, uh, and he, he, basically that whole page he's talking about, um, he's attacking the idea that Zen stories or koans are nonsense riddles or irrational. Goes into it in some detail. Um, uh, there's an idea

[45:11]

that stories involved with thoughts are not the stories of the enlightened ones, and that stories without rational understanding are the stories of the enlightened ones. And he just, he just, you know, tears that apart. And, and that's just, and it's not true. Zen stories and koans are not nonsense riddles, are not irrational. Dogen's writings, even though they may be very difficult, are not irrational. They're not nonsense. They're not our usual, our usual, um, linear kind of logic or rationality, certainly. But there is a, uh, a logic of awakening that's always at work here. Um, uh, so anyway, that's, that, that whole page is, is discussing that in some detail. Um, and, um, there are points I want to highlight. Um, uh, on page 93, books, uh, sort of towards the middle of the page, uh, again, about shifting

[46:15]

perspectives or, or see, or just being aware of the fact of other perspectives in the middle of the page. Uh, it goes back to being time. For the time being, you should study the time when you must look upon the world. And, and, [...] and. So here it shifts to water. He talks about water, as well as mountains. Um, this is not the study of only when humans or celest muster see water. There's the study of water seeing water. So some of this, um, is familiar from being times because water cultivatimates and realizes water, there is the investigation of water expressing water, just like mountains give birth to mountains, uh, mountain children. One should actualize the way through where self meets self. What should advance on the living road where others meet others should leap out. Seeing mountains and waters has differences depending on the species, and there he talks about

[47:20]

the different ways of seeing water, and that, you know, as human beings we see water one way, of course, but then he goes on, there are those who see water as beautiful flowers, but they don't use what flowers as water. Ghosts see water as raging fire, so he's talking about hungry ghosts here. Hungry ghosts see water as raging fire, as pus and blood. Dragons and fish see water as palaces and pavilions. So, again, this sense of the different perspectives on how we see our own walking as well as mountains walking and other beings walking. Um, so the story of the tortoise and the hare, and, you know, the hare runs very quickly, the tortoise more slowly, but who wins the race? Anyway, you know, that's just, you know,

[48:22]

another perspective on how the usual way of seeing walking is, you know, that's maybe more accessible, but anyway. On the top of 94 is established that what is seen differs according to the species. For the moment, we should question this. Say that in viewing one object, the views are varied. You say it is misapprehending multiple forms as one object. So, are they actually the same mountain or the same body of water that's seen? At the peak of effort, one should exert further effort. So, again and again, you know, this goes to how to read Dogen, you know, and he's talking about that himself, that actually hang out and spend time with what he's saying, and this applies to koans and applies to sutras as well, not just read it and try and decipher it and say, okay, this is what he means, but to actually look at, you know, we should question this, he says.

[49:24]

Of effort, one should exert further effort. So, always when you're reading Dogen to just fall over a sentence or a phrase or a passage and wonder, what is the Dharma here? What is he trying to say? What does this mean to me? And if you don't find anything useful, just skip it and go to something else. So, you can't read Dogen like an instruction manual or like a usual philosophical or even poetic text. What is he saying and what's the practice he's implying here with everything? You know, he's not talking, he's not putting out just a philosophical position, talking about how we practice this. So, down towards the bottom of 94, Buddha said, all things ultimately liberated have no abode. You should know that although

[50:27]

they are liberated and have no bondage, all dwell, things dwell in their normative state or in their particular Dharma position. This being so, when humans see water, there is a way of seeing it as flowing incessantly. That flowing has many kinds. This is one aspect of people's perceptions. That to flow through the earth, flow through the sky, flow upwards, flow downwards, flow through one bend, flow in nine abyssal troughs, rising it becomes clouds, descending it becomes pools. So, part of Dogen's discourse is just to stop and go through different ways of seeing things. Sometimes he'll go and talk about all the ways of misunderstanding things and saying, no, it's not that, no, it's not this. Then he cites an old Confucian book somewhere, one of the translations must say which this is, but anyway, it says the path of water is to become rain and dew when it goes up into the sky,

[51:31]

to become rivers and streams when it descends to earth. Dogen says even a worldly person, Confucians in some way, sees this, so he's basically praising what that says. So, Buddhists and Zen founders shouldn't be more ignorant than the worldly. What this says on the top of 95 is that while the path of water is not yet consciously known by water, yet water does actualize it. While it is not that water is unaware, water does actualize its course. So again, here he's saying it's not a matter of knowing the flowing of your practice, it's to actually do it. The point isn't to understand Dogen or any other, or the teaching, it's to actually practice it. The book says ascending to the sky, it becomes rain and dew,

[52:31]

you should know that water ascends to any number of skies and upper regions, and regions that makes rain and dew. So again, this wider perspective. I'm going to jump to page 97, although there are good things in between, but towards the bottom of page 97, the next to the last paragraph, though mountains belong to the territory of the nation, they are entrusted to people who love the mountains. Mountains definitely love the owners, saints, sages, and those of exalted virtue are in the mountains. And just to give you a different take on that, I want to read Sanahashi's translation of that same passage. Although mountains belong to the nation, mountains belong to people who love them. When mountains love their master, such a virtuous sage or wise person enters the mountains. Since mountains belong to the sages and wise people

[53:34]

living there, trees and rocks become abundant and birds and animals are inspired. This is so because the sages and wise people extend their virtue. So again, shifting, I didn't read all of that clearly. When saints and sages live in the mountains, excuse me, because the mountains belong to them, the trees and rocks are abundant, the birds and beasts are holy, because the saints and sages affect them with their virtue. Note that the fact exists that mountains like sages and saints. This again, you know, recalls the Dogen saying in the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, that they're talking about the interdependence and mutual guidance of the practitioner and the environment, so that we, that the persons living in the mountains and the mountains support each other. This is, this kind, this way of seeing is actually, I think,

[54:39]

important to us in terms of thinking about the problems of the environment now. Okay. Skipping to page 98 and finishing up in the, towards about a third of the way down in on 98, know that the mountains are not the realm of human society, not the realm of heavens. One cannot know or see the mountains by the measurements of human thought. You know, just making that very explicit. And also, you know, he does talk in here about, and part of this is that traditionally, and Dogen himself did this, actually not, this was not, this, actually everything we studied is from Dogen's period of teaching in Kyoto, the first 10 years of his teaching. He eventually, a few years after this, departed and went to deep mountains in the north of Japan, very remote, and built a heiji where, you know,

[55:41]

they have 10 feet of snow in the winter, and it's still difficult to get to, and even more so. So he eventually retreated into the mountains and gave up living in the cultural capital of Kyoto. But this idea that traditionally in China and Japan, the monasteries and training centers were up in the mountains, you know, that's part of what he's talking about here. So just to end, on the bottom of 98 and 99, there's some amazing stuff at the end. It is, so the last paragraph on 98, 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, so that's, you know, hard for us to imagine, but he says there are world's of sentient beings in fire. There are worlds of sentient beings in earth, that was may be easier for us to see, there are worlds of sentient beings in phenomena, there are worlds of sentient

[56:45]

beings in a single blade of grass, and some of the sutras talk about buddhas and bodhisattvas, you know, on the tip of every grass, and maybe Walt Whitman knew that. 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 again, he's opening up our sense of reality, to see multiple dimensions, to see reality as existing in lots of different dimensions. Finally, the last two paragraphs of the whole Mountains of Water Sutra. In the case of mountains too, there are mountains concealed in jewels, 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. Cause uses hidden, because there's a study in which mountains are hidden in hiddenness.

[57:49]

So again, this is to undo our usual sense of the solidity of mountains. Of course, mountains are very, you know, part of power of this, of what he's saying, is that we think of mountains as the most solid event in the world. But anyway, mountains are constantly walking. Then he says, an ancient Buddha said mountains are mountains, waters are waters. This saying does not say that mountains are mountains, it says mountains are mountains. Or you should investigate mountains. If you investigate the mountains, that is meditation in the mountains, such mountains and waters of themselves produce sages and saints. And he's referring here, of course, to the old saying that when I started practicing mountains were mountains, and water was water, or mountains were mountains, as I first in practice mountains were no longer, were not mountains, but then eventually mountains were mountains again. So, um, okay, um, that's a lot of stuff and it's, uh, I assume, I hope that you have questions,

[58:59]

comments, responses. So, um, let's do that, please feel free, uh, comments, questions, responses, um, any, uh, stories of walking, or of mountains, or anyone has to say. Ah, uh, Julian Quezon-Gonzalez. Hi Taigan, um, thank you for, for that, um, I just wanted to share what, um, happened for me, um, this week with, um, reading this essay, um, and it was, it was, um, it suddenly all went clunk, it all fitted, I don't know, I had an incredible experience reading this essay, because as I was reading, well, my background, I'm an engineer, I am very, um,

[60:05]

rational, let's put it that way, so I would struggle with, with a lot, with seeing this as poetry versus just, and just, and then trying to penetrate the poetry, and, uh, somewhere I let go, trying to understand what Taigan, um, was saying, and, uh, um, I used to guide a lot in the mountains, and I know, who knows why, but this week, suddenly, I just saw the incommensurability of, of, of two worlds, of the world of reason, of, of, of trying to make sense of it, and in this essay, he speaks to that, and really just when I let go, and I live in Vancouver, it's mountains, and, and suddenly, I, I, all my world of being in the mountains, walking the mountains, of, of, of being, just of, of, of being with all, when mind drops away, I, I had, I've had the experience of going back to the time and being

[61:11]

in the mountains, and, and in that time, the, the mountains are alive, are walking with me, there is, there is a, there is an incredible shift of, um, and it happened to me here, walking, um, um, in, in the streets of Vancouver with the background of the mountains, and, and just experiencing them as sentient beings in relationship with, and, and the moment that I tried to make sense of that experience, I lose it, it disappears, it's like this two incommensurable world, I'm really starting to see that I didn't see before, um, and they, I feel they can negate each other, um, in a sense, like if I try to reduce one to the other, um, that was at least my experience this week, if I can, when I'm being, and right now, I'm, I'm just sitting outside, and the wind is, is blowing a bit through the trees, and just, there's the aliveness of the world that comes through, and, and, and, and I, there's a sense

[62:14]

of being out here with the world, um, and from there, and from there, I fully understand, um, Dogen's essay, um, so I, I guess, um, I just wanted to share that, and, and I guess the question is, and here my, my rational mind starts kicking in, and I'm trying to make sense and understand this, um, and maybe I should just drop that, a sense it would probably tell me, um, but why not give it another try, um, the, this notion of, and it is the, I think it is what, um, identity of the absolute and relative, if speaking to is, or going beyond just, um, the experience of the absolute, and that is not enough, um, I'm just, my wondering is, um, for me right now, it's the incommensurability of these two worlds,

[63:20]

and I'm, and I'm just wondering if there is an integration that happens, or it is just the incommensurability of those two worlds as it is. Yes, okay, thank, first of all, thank you very much for your testimony, lovely, um, I would say that, um, I don't, I don't think of them as incommensurable at all, um, but, you know, you said it doesn't make sense in terms of your rational world, and, uh, what I want to say is that it, it does make sense, but it doesn't make sense in terms of that particular kind of rationality that most of us are trained in, so to see a different kind of logic and ration, and maybe rationality isn't the right word, maybe if I use that word, it's too much of a problem, but definitely, that's, um, the point of practice and the logic of, um,

[64:23]

so to them, practice is about integrating, um, the awareness that you have looking around at the, at the mountains and feeling the wind and seeing them as sentient beings, uh, with a kind of logic that is, that works in your everyday world, so definitely they're not, I would say they're not incommensurable, but it may be useful to start out from, um, seeing them as incommensurable, but then don't hold on to that too tightly, to just, you know, so the testimony you gave, the witness you gave to, you're, you're, you're feeling that, that other side, um, um, it's not about getting rid of the, the rational functioning of, you know, your usual, your usual work in the rational, uh, you know, technical mode,

[65:28]

that's fine, that's useful, that can be put to good use, but to see that there is some other kind of, uh, sense, that also makes sense, so, I mean, you, you, you sort of started going there in the way you were talking, so, uh, don't rush that, don't try and figure it, don't try and figure that out, be with that, fit with that, just allow that to, uh, find its own place, so thank you very much for that, Julian, um, I'm going to go to the next person, Maya has her hand up. Yes, hello, Taigan, my question is about practice and including the writings of Dogen into our practice, and what happens to me when I read the material is I, I can really feel that my internal tension and energetic tension that is being created by the, by the text, and then I tend to shift my attention and become, make more conscious

[66:40]

this energetic tension, and I tend to follow that, of course, at that point I'm often losing the meaning, or I'm losing the connection to the text, and I kind of go into a sense of following my own in, in internal movement, and I wanted to ask you, this occurred to me when you were talking about Kenjo is not enough, it needs to be expressed in phenomena. Yes. I would like to have your advice on to what degree to flow with those recognitions of, of internal tensions, or how to stay connected to the text. Very interesting question, um, so, um, what, what, the, just to comment a little bit more on when he, and what, on when he attacks,

[67:45]

you know, uh, uh, Kenjo as the focus of practice, uh, it's not that there's, it's not that, you know, I mean, that Kenjo happens, it's not that there's anything wrong with that, but he's, he's criticizing, focusing on that as the goal of practice, in my opinion, and, uh, that, um, the point is, the point of practice is how do we express it in the world for the, you know, again, going back to the Bodhisattva root and the Bodhisattva vow as the core of, as the basis of, uh, Zen practice, so how do you express it in the world? So, uh, now I want to go back to your, you talked about, uh, tension, internal tension, is that what the phrase you used? Can you say, as opposed, and, and, and wandering off into that as opposed to staying with the text, I think that might be okay, but can you say more about what you mean by internal tension? Because there's, that, that could be some kind, there, I think there's different ways, different things that could refer to, it could be a creative tension in which you

[68:51]

are allowing the text to work on you and vice versa, or it could be something that's, that's, uh, so say, say more about what you mean by internal tension, please. Well, I would say that certainly it, it expands me beyond my rational thinking because of the, because of the oxymorons that are being presented, that creates a tension. What does it feel like? How does it feel? What does it feel like to you? What's going on for you? It feels like, it feels like there is an, an, an, a stream, there's like these two polarities that are being mentioned in the text, often opposites or, or, um, things that don't fit

[69:55]

together rationally. Like mountains walking? Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Actually that, I can get that really easily. Yes. Give me an example, example of a polarity that you think of as, that might incite. Okay, so the example in the text with the stone woman bearing children in the night. Yes. I immediately went into this, my own inner experience of what it means to be in the dark night of the soul and what that means to be in that darkness of where things are not moving, things are really, feel very stuck and to also hold the hope or the faith that there is something in gestation that is very important and needs an enormous amount of time and to stay with that and to tend to that and to not try to, um, you know, escape.

[71:06]

So, so of course you, you, I've already gave, did this right now. I go into all kinds of my internal, may that be metaphors or fantasies or creative streams. But of course, I don't, I don't know if that is what token really meant. And I guess, so let me, so let me, uh, jump in. Um, I, uh, part, I, I think part of what you were saying is relevant and maybe part isn't because I'm not sure that dark night of the soul is relevant there, but also I think it's okay if whatever it brings up for you is there. So, uh, you know, I think what you just described is okay that partly to, to allow yourself to turn within and reflect on still and woman gives birth at night and the difficulty of that and, and gestation and what, what, and, and what you said about giving it time is important. And so, uh, being aware of

[72:12]

that. So that kind of internal tension, I think is creative. Uh, so, so, okay. So let me, uh, respond finally to your question then in terms of some kind of adrift, letting, allowing the text to bring you into some internal state of internal tension, as you called it. Um, I would say that, um, uh, if it feels like it's a place where you're stuck, then come out of it and go back to the text. If it feels like a place where that is, well, in terms of what you said, fertile, where you see you, where you're feeling like there's movement, then I think it, then, then that is a kind of creative tension. And I think it's, it, that's a good place to hang out and be willing to spend time and see what comes up and, and keep coming back to it. And you can, and when you get to such a place of creative tension, it's okay if you go back to the text

[73:18]

for a while, you'll come back to that place of creative tension in Zazen or wherever. So, um, you have to be a little skillful in terms of, um, going back and forth, um, but allow yourself to go to such a place. And I think Dogen does incite that. So I think, you know, I think the process you're describing, uh, can be very healthy. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. Uh, next, uh, person was Brooke Gessay. Hi, Tygan. Thank you so much. I feel really inspired and confused in a wonderful way. Oh, good. Um, and I, I can feel that my attention is, is I think sort of drawn in the same direction as Maya and Julian, at least in general, um, in terms of that point about, um, Kensho not being the ultimate goal of practice, uh, kind of a, a stepping stone, but not the goal. Okay. And,

[74:21]

and the injunction to express realization or manifest in the phenomenal realm is just incredibly moving and heart opening and heartbreaking in, in my physical body. Like, I can just feel myself wanting to celebrate and cry just at that injunction. And I, I'm a dancer. Yeah. I mean, it simultaneously makes me want to sit. I'm sitting here on my cushion at my altar. And also, um, I'm a dancer by career, and I can feel that my internal, kind of subtle body is just moving all over the place. Right. And, and wanting, wanting to create, wanting to either move or create. And, and there's that heartbreaking sense of, like, the impossibility of expressing realization in, in phenomenal reality and just the... No, no, it's not impossible. No,

[75:25]

all of you, each one of you, absolutely in your own way, whether you're a dancer or whatever else, that's the whole point. That's what Dogen's talking about, is that there is a way for you to express something of the, this step, and that's the point. How do you practice, how do you express your practice in your life? Mm-hmm. Well, it feels, I was going to say, it feels simultaneously impossible, impossible, like that translation from absolute to relative or, or can show to phenomenal expression, but it also feels like the deepest desire and the most satisfying thing. And so, it feels like a paradox in my body, like, how can that possibly occur? And it has to, and it's the only thing that can occur at the same time. The whole point. It's what, and the world needs it. Yeah, and I, and I, I think my question to you isn't, I would love to hear you talk about it,

[76:29]

and I don't know, I, I don't know if, if it's more just a koan that I really just want to sit with. I don't know if there's an answer, but like, why? Where does that come from, that impulse to create and manifest and the deep desire in me as a, as a woman to create children, and what I feel from Musho Sensei and teaching us and, and mothering us as, as students, like, yeah, why? Where does it come from? The whole point of practice, the whole point of the Bodhisattva Way is not to, not to understand some esoteric text, and this is what Dogen is saying, too, is, but to actually bring it into your life and express it for others, and for yourself, too, of course, to get to, because part of, so what this, what the Mountains and Waters is about is finding your own creative juices and finding your way, and it's not, and it's not static. It flows. Finding your own way

[77:36]

of expressing this in a way that it supports and inspires your practice, and, and practice, I mean this in the widest sense, so Zen, so Zen practice connects us with that deep creative wellspring that allows us to create awakening expression in the world, and that's what it's about. That's, that's, that's, that's the point, and that's why the mountains are always walking. So, so keep dancing. Just keep dancing. Thanks very much. Yeah, thank you. It's so beautiful. Thank you. You're welcome. Liz Fox? Hi, Dogen. I'm a friend of Steve Kibb's. Thank you for the book. Oh, yeah, yes. I'll tell Steve that I may see Steve tomorrow. Okay, say hi. Well, what I wanted to, thank you for today. It was really good, but I'm still going back to last week to a question. I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing. Say that again. Oh, sorry. I

[78:41]

want to go back to last week a little bit, because it's something I'm still just chewing on. We were talking about at the end, you know, Bill McKibben and climate change, and maybe it relates to today too, but I, I flip back and forth on this so much that, you know, there's so much to do. There's, you know, there's a huge fight to save the planet, but on the other hand, it's too late, you know, and I kind of go back and forth because, you know, relative and absolute, you know, there's so much to do, but then on the other hand, from, you know, taking my personal perspective out of it and just looking at the planet, you know, the planet can heal, and I'm just kind of curious, maybe for your own life, how you, you know, work those two. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm still having a little bit of trouble hearing, but say that last part again. Yeah, I'm curious, mostly for your own life, how you work those two perspectives of, of really just sitting back and, and looking at the perspective that, yeah, we're already over 350, you know, the climate is

[79:43]

basically ruined. Right. Does it matter? Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I don't have, I wish I had the answer. So I, but I, you know, one of the things I do is talk about that sometimes, and I think it's important to keep talking about it, and I very much believe in preaching to the choir, and, you know, we have to, so I'm, you know, work at talking about and trying to actively oppose, you know, all the, all the things that, enhancing climate destruction, the Keystone Pipeline, but generally the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear power industry, which are horrible destruction to the planet for, you know, that some people are making personal profit from. And yet also part of my work and very important part of it is keeping alive the perspective that Dogen is talking about of seeing that what's happening, you know, on some

[80:51]

perspective, we can talk about it, you know, in terms of the political realities and how do we oppose those. And it's, but there's so many, there, you know, when Dogen talks about the different dimensions and different aspects of all of this, I'm thinking about that more these days and how that actually is a helpful way to think about it, that we don't really know or understand everything that's going on. And how do we, how do we study this and work with it? And one, I take some comfort in the work of my friend, Joanna Macy, who talks about, she, I don't know if you know of her work, but she visited our temple a couple of years ago,

[81:52]

anyway, maybe it was last year. But she talks about three different aspects of the work that needs to be done now, the work that reconnects. Part of it is what you might call political work, which has to do with what she calls holding actions to try and stop the devastation of the planet by, which includes stopping the devastation of the planet by the fossil fuel industry and all the things that Bill McKibben and the good people who work with him are talking about. That's one part of it. Another part of it is developing alternative sustainable systems. And that is the work that a lot of good people are doing of developing regional agriculture, regional economies, developing alternative structures. And then the third part is what very much we're all doing. Well, I think many of us are doing more than one of them, but the work of changing perspectives and of changing paradigms and of

[82:55]

developing awareness, changing the consciousness, changing how we see the world. And that has to happen. That kind of educational work has to happen internally and with everyone. So, I'm dedicated to trying to keep alive this practice and teaching tradition as well as trying to work in the world. So, that's not an answer, but that's just the perspective in which I try and remind myself that there's a lot of work to do and that there's not one right response to what's going on, that each of us has our own way of responding that might be helpful. So, for Brooke to dance and express herself in her dance in a beautiful way, it may be a way of responding to climate damage and help awaken something in the people who see her dance that will be a response. We each have our own way of responding. So, I don't know if that helps,

[83:58]

but that's what I have to say right now. Thank you. Do we have time for other comments? Julia had her hand up before. Well, first of all, I really appreciate, Tyvon, the re-readings and questions and find that because we've gotten to know you a little bit in this context, that text, that book is incredibly rich and I really value having you in that. My question is about dreaming. Since we began this course, there's a way that my dreams have shifted completely and I feel like I'm being dreamed in a wonderful way, in an amazing way. And I'm curious about if you have any advice about working with dream, not that there's so much content that I can work with, but there's a sensibility

[85:00]

in my dreams that has shifted dramatically. You know, there's all kinds of approaches, you know, modern psychological approaches to dreams and Jungians have a lot to say about that. Just trying to be aware in your dreams, trying to note content is maybe helpful. From a Buddhist perspective, Dogen has a wonderful essay that I helped translate with Kaz, called Expressing the Dream Within a Dream, where he says that, you know, as a dream, you know, and I mentioned this, I think in the first week, it's in Enlightenment Unfolds, as well as in his causes, Full Shobogenzo, but Dogen says that expressing the dream within the dream is the realm of Buddhists and ancestors, that this is all a dream. And in East Asian Buddhism, they see that dreaming, that there's a continuum of consciousness, from totally awakened consciousness to, you know, different

[86:01]

aspects of awakened consciousness to dream consciousness. And, you know, there are practices, actually there's a traditional monastic practice for sleeping, which includes, which has to do with sleeping on your right side in the position that the Buddha's Parinirvana is in, and there are actually physiological reasons for doing that. There's also, you might look into Miohe Shonin, who was a contemporary of Dogen, a little older, and kept a dream journal, and is a fascinating, one of the most fascinating figure, in my opinion, in Kamakura period. So, if you email me, I can send you, say more about all that, but just to be aware of it. I see that Michael has his hand up. Do we have time for one more? My question was just looking, going to what Brooke was saying, and what Liz was saying, I always find something, and I'd like your

[87:05]

thought about it, I think in Dream Within a Dream, there's a Steelyard metaphor that Dogen uses, where he talks about resolving to act out of a complete awareness of what we know at the moment without attachment to the outcome. Okay. And then just do it again, and again, and again. I always find comfort in the idea that attaching to the outcome, not attaching to the outcome, frees me to act, because I can accept my mistake. I'm bound to make a mistake, but I'm also morally compelled to act somehow. So, I'll take that offline. No, I just agree with everything you just said, that we don't know, that everything we do has an effect, we don't know the result, we shouldn't be, that we can't, that the outcome is unknown, there are unintended consequences to everything, but that to act, the point is to just act and express ourselves from our best awareness, from our deepest love. That's a beautiful line to

[88:14]

conclude the class on, I believe. Okay. Acting from our greatest love. So, I just, you know, again, want to thank everybody for, you know, just the quality of your presence and your attention, being willing to take the time out of your life to be with us on the call, and most particularly to thank you, Taigan, for really just kind of the image that's coming to me is just, you know, guiding us like a mountain guide to these texts in a way that allows us to certainly relax a little bit and to be able to look around at a level that we wouldn't be, wouldn't be able to if you weren't, you know, a trustworthy guide. So, again, thank you so much for your teaching, for your practice, you know, for your love of this literature and for your willingness to share it with us. And everybody, may your practice benefit others, and we'll catch everybody on down the line. Taigan, do you want to say anything to close? No, just please keep on practicing. Keep on expressing yourselves and

[89:21]

sharing your awareness, you know, in whatever way comes to you to do so, as Michael was just saying. So, thank you all. Thank you, Taigan, for taking the time. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Bye-bye. Thanks.

[89:55]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_44.35