Good evening. Last week, Nathan spoke to us about John Cage and, amongst other things, some of his interesting, eccentric, maybe, notation systems. So, what I wanted to do tonight was to talk about one of Dogen's notation systems for Zazen. So Ehe Dogen lived in the 13th century, was the Japanese monk who went to China and brought back the Soto Zen lineage and tradition that we follow here. And really, well, he introduced koan practice and he introduced, there was zazen before, but he introduced it as a particular practice in Japan. So I want to read, I want to read and talk about one of his Dharma Hall discourses. This is number 266 in Dogen's extensive record, which I translated together with Shohaku Okamura.

[01:05]

A couple of you heard me talk about this at the all-day sitting yesterday. Hopefully, I'll have something to add to what I said yesterday. Maybe a few of you heard me talk about this particular short talk before. I have thought of it and been amazed at it in terms of Dogen's sophistication and awareness of his own teaching, but looking at it this week, I realized it's also a kind of notation system is a good way of talking about it. It shows aspects of what our Zazen practice is. This particular talk was given in 1248 so from 1243 till he died in 1253 Dogen had left the capital where he taught for a decade before that in Kyoto and was way up in the mountains in North Japan and built this monastery that's still the headquarters, one of the two headquarter temples for Soto Zen in Japan, Eheji, is the name of the temple that he's also named for.

[02:24]

This particular one in 1248 was shortly after he'd gone to the capital in Kamakura, which was the capital then, and spent about six months teaching to the samurai there, and then came back and spent the rest of his life, until his final sickness, teaching to his students, his monks and other students at Eheiji. Anyway, I'll read it first. It's not that long, but then I want to talk about how this gives us a kind of roadmap or topography of what our Zazen practice is. So he says, sometimes I, Ehe, enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion, simply wishing for you all to be steadily intimate in your mind field. Sometimes, within the gates and gardens of the monastery, I offer my own style of practical instruction, simply wishing you all to disbord and play freely with spiritual penetration.

[03:32]

Sometimes I spring quickly, leaving no trace, simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind. Sometimes I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So I'm going to go back and talk about these four and what his instruction is and how they represent four aspects of what Arzazan is about. But he adds, suppose someone suddenly came forth and asked this mountain monk, what would go beyond these kinds of teaching? I would simply say to him, scrub clean by the dawn wind. The night mist clears. dimly seen. The blue mountains form a single line." So really that's the fifth aspect of our Zazen.

[04:37]

So Dogen was introducing the Zen tradition from China to Japan and translating that. transporting it. We're involved in a translation and transporting of practice tradition that's much more extreme than the translation from East Asia to the West, to 2008 or whenever this is, and Midwest and Chicago. So I'm going to try and translate this or show how this is a kind of notation system for our Zazen. Not exactly that these are practices that we need to somehow figure out or obtain, but really these are the aspects of Zazen. So, he starts, sometimes I enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion.

[05:42]

simply wishing for you all to be steadily intimate in your mind field. So a big part of our Zazen practice is to develop this steadiness, this steady intimacy in our own mind field. Often this is the most difficult part of Zen practice. once we find our seat, once we figure out a way to sit relatively comfortably and settle into zazen, how to be steadily intimate in our mind field. Elsewhere, Dogen talks about how studying the way is studying the self. So part of our sitting is just settling. finding some steadiness, some, not getting rid of thoughts and feelings, but finding some space in which to be, to find some steadiness, some stability in being ourselves.

[06:56]

And part of this is, maybe all of it is, this developing this intimacy with our own mind field. which includes everything, the siren out there, the taste of the tea, the thoughts, the feelings, the sensations, the ache in my shoulder or in my knee, new thoughts coming up. Our mind field actually includes everything. But he says, in your mind field. So each of us on our own cushion or chair is present now with your own mind field, your own realm of awareness. How do we become intimate with that? So part of this is becoming familiar, becoming friendly. with our own habits of thinking. There are our own ways of constructing this mind field that we think of as mine.

[08:02]

This is who I am. We construct an identity. But beyond that, there's also this realm of awareness that we each are as we sit here. how do we get to know and become intimate with our patterns of thinking, of grasping, of desire, of aversion, our patterns of reaction to our habits and the ways in which we settle here, and also our own particular patterns of connecting with the wholeness that's here as we sit. So just becoming steadily intimate in your mind field. This is an important aspect of Zazen. So I'm gonna go through all of these and maybe, I hope there'll be some time for discussion. It's interesting that Dogen says that the teaching, the kind of teaching he does to help encourage this is

[09:06]

himself entering the ultimate state and offering profound discussion. From his own deep settling, from his own connection with the ultimate and the universal, he feels this encourages us to settle and become steady and develop this steady intimacy. It includes forgiving ourselves for being a human being, but also it includes gratitude and appreciation for the mind field, the field of awareness that is on your cushion or chair right now, and that has its own pattern and shifting as we sit for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever. So that's the first one. Second, he says, sometimes within the gates and gardens of the monastery, I offer my own style of practical instruction, simply wishing you all to disport and play freely with spiritual penetration.

[10:18]

This one's very interesting, and particularly interesting for us because he says, within the gates and gardens of the monastery, he offers his own style of practical instruction. So Shohako and I also translated his book about pure standards for the Zen community, and some of you have practiced in a residential context where there are lots of forms to support awareness and intention. it's interesting though that uh... of all of these kind of forms which we may think of as restrictions their regulations they're really not restrictions and regulations that kind of forms with which to pay attention guidelines but he says he he offers that teaching simply wishing you all to disport and play freely the spiritual penetration So in some ways this might seem, well, that's not relevant to us in Chicago coming together Monday nights and some other times because we're out in the world and we don't have the advantage of having that kind of structure in our lives.

[11:29]

But in some ways I think it's particularly relevant to us. So, I think of this one in relationship to the precepts and other guidelines that we have about how do we express this Zazen mind, Zazen heart that we start to become intimate with and steady with as we feel this pattern of sitting in our lives. How do we express that in our activities and in the difficulties of the world, and there's so many of them, in terms of expressing it in response to the problems of the world and our society, but also in terms of your weekly activities, your work and relationships and family and neighbors. How do you express this? What he says is not about following some rules.

[12:33]

He says he does this wishing you all to disport and play freely with spiritual penetration. So the spiritual penetration has to do with paying attention. How do we pay attention to how we are as we engage each other in the world. So this also has to do with sangha, but it has to do with sangha in the sense of the group of us practicing together, but also how do you relate to the people you work with or the people you see during the week. And it's also a part of our zazen, so we have a form for how we move in this room and so forth, and the way and the forms of sitting and the service we do. But again, he says that he wants us to play freely. So Zen may look like this very austere, stern, ascetic kind of practice, but really it's about finding our own freedom, finding our own playfulness.

[13:46]

So when you're all sitting, facing the wall or facing the floor in these lines. If you're taking the form, the mudra, the practical instructions of the sitting practice, part of the instruction is to find your own playfulness. I had a teacher once who said, be wild on your cushion. This doesn't mean that you have to move around or start howling or anything. There are other schools that do that. But in your settledness, in your intimacy with yourself and this minefield, in this uprightness, allow, Suzuki Roshi, my Dharma grandfather, says, allow the cow a big pasture. allow your heart and mind to play freely in Zazen as well as in your engagement with your life when you get up and leave or as we were sitting yesterday when we go down to eat down in the cafeteria or in the various activities that we will have when we have our own temple space.

[15:14]

How do we play freely express ourselves freely, but with spiritual penetration, with attention, with caring. But this is not about becoming some Zen zombie or statue of Buddha. How do you really become steadily intimate with your mind field? So this is the second one, to disport and play freely with spiritual attention. The third one, he says, sometimes I spring quickly, leaving no trace. Simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind. So this dropping off body and mind is another synonym for Dogen of Zazen.

[16:14]

This is part of our Zazen. It's also a phrase because he uses it very often to express total enlightenment. Drop off body and mind. Can we pick them up later? They're always right here. drop them off at the door and pick them up again. Or you can drop them down in your cushion. So this is not about entering the heretical American school of lobotomy zen. This is not about getting rid of your intelligence or self-mutilation or suicide or any of those things. Dropping body and mind is just letting go. So in the song of the grass hut we chant sometimes it says, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Another way of saying, drop off body and mind. So it doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to body and mind, or take good care of our bodies and minds.

[17:18]

We need to do that, but how do we do that? Just letting go. Totally letting go. So this is the third aspect of our zazen, and there's not so much to say about it. Just let go. So we can be playful in our sitting, in our awareness as we're sitting, or we can just let go. The fourth one, he says, this is a little more intricate to describe. He says, sometimes I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So this samadhi of self-fulfillment is a kind of technical term and another name for Zazen, for Dogen. He talks about this in one of his earliest writings called Bendawa Shogaku, and I also translated that in The Wholehearted Way, which is also back there.

[18:19]

This samadhi of self-fulfillment or self-enjoyment or self-realization is a way of talking about this Zazen. Samadhi is a Sanskrit word that means concentration or meditation or settling, attention, focus. and there are various kinds of samadhi described in buddhist literature but this samadhi of self-enjoyment or self-fulfillment uh... he particularly talks about as the criterion for our sitting practice and so how do we uh... as he says to study the self how do we enjoy and realize and fulfill this self that we've constructed or this self that's connected beyond our self-identity to the totality of self, what we sometimes call non-self. So also these three Chinese characters, self-fulfillment means The GGU in Japanese, the G means self, GU means enjoyment or fulfillment, but separately they mean to accept your function, to take on your place, your role in your life.

[19:34]

When we accept our life, when we accept our potential and our qualities and enjoy that, this is self-realization. So to just, not accept passively, but to actually take on and find our own way of responding. Some of you heard David Loy talking about karma when he was here recently. In some ways this is the samadhi of accepting your own karma. Accepting your own situation. with its difficulties and with its richness, using your abilities, feeling the difficulties of your situation. It doesn't mean turning away from sadness or fear or that part of us that is...

[20:35]

how we're connected to humanity, but how do we accept our place in the world, in the totality of self? So he, so Dogen says here, sometimes I enter this samadhi of self-fulfillment simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So part of arsazan is learning to actually take hold of who we are and the tools we have and how to use them and to trust that. So trust might be translated as faith or also just as confidence. How do we learn to trust ourselves and our own qualities of practice and our own ability to engage practice? How do we take hold? How do we So it's, you know, just to talk about it in terms of hands makes it very tactile. Just how do we use the tools we have in our life?

[21:39]

How do we meet each other open hand to open hand? So these are four aspects of our zazen. But then there's this kind of fifth, and in some ways I could relate these to the Soto Zen five ranks philosophy. I don't want to reduce it to that, because it's richer in that system, but after saying all of this, which is quite impressive, the topography of our practice, just first to be steadily intimate in our mind field, to disport and play freely with spiritual awareness, to drop off body and mind, and then to trust what our hands can hold. All of this is part of our Zazen already. You may not have thought of it in these ways, but this is part of what is happening as we

[22:44]

enjoy our own breath and feel our own uprightness. But then, Dogen says, suppose someone suddenly came forth and asked this mountain monk, what would go beyond these kinds of teachings? So, Dogen talks often about Buddha going beyond Buddha. This idea of awareness, awakening, Enlightenment, Zazen, however you want to say it, as this dynamic process, not as something that we figure out or get a hold of or have some deep experience of and then that's it and we're finished with it. It's our life. It's this ongoing process of trying to pay attention, whether you're doing formal Buddhist practice or not, how do we take care of our life with attention, with caring, with kindness, allowing insight. So this is a process of going beyond. However well or poorly you may feel you're playing freely, bless you, with spiritual awareness, there's an endless unfolding of going beyond in each of these.

[23:59]

So, Dogen imagines, suppose someone suddenly came forth Suppose one of his students stepped up and asked him, what would go beyond these kinds of teaching? And Dogen says, I would simply say to him, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind, the night mist clears. Dimly seen, the blue mountains form a single line. So this may be a better dharma hall discourse to talk about in the morning when we're closer to the dawn wind instead of the dusk settling. But anyway, it says scrubbed clean by the dawn wind. So it's not just the time of day, it's this sense of freshness. We might feel this in any Inhale, or maybe even in an exhale.

[25:04]

Scrub clean by the dawn wind. The night mist clears. So he's talking about this process of bringing ourselves back to attention, back to awareness, waking up and saying, oh yeah, here I am. This is where I live. This is this body and mind. We do this every morning. we might realize that we do it breath after breath, too. The night mist clears. Sometimes it hangs around for a while, and it's groggy, and it takes a while to wake up. Sometimes, oh, either way, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind. Maybe I should call you that. So wind also has to do with the teaching and the flavor of our awareness.

[26:07]

Dimly seeing the blue mountains form a single line. So I've talked about this here before. This is a problem for us in Chicago in a way. Well, how many of you have never seen a mountain? Levon, okay. So for you, I would say, dimly seen, the skyscrapers form a single skyline. Or maybe the trees on the horizon form a single line. So all of the discourse of Zen is, you know, the poetic imagery is about mountains and rivers, and that worked in all of East Asia, and it works in California, but we need to develop a new kind of set of images for Midwestern Zen. So I haven't lived here, I haven't been here long enough yet. I'm kind of feeling around for that. How do we include the Great Lake and the pastures?

[27:12]

But anyway, this dimly seen, the Blue Mountains form a single line. Maybe I could say, dimly seen, the Zen students form a single line. So this is also about each mountain or each molehill, each situation, each problem, each aspect of our mind field. Then we see from a single horizon. So we can see that as just this oneness or we can see it, that single line as a circle. This is about our wholeness. So as we awaken, we can see each aspect of our practice, each aspect of our life, each aspect of the difficulties of the world, our perplexity in how to respond, and yet it forms a single, I would say a single circle, or a single line.

[28:19]

So this sense of wholeness is maybe the aspect of Zazen that includes all the others in some ways. So maybe that's enough for me to say now about this notation of Zazen that Dogen is offering here. If any of you want me to repeat any part of it, I can, but if you have any comments or questions or responses, please feel free. Okay. I've always been kind of interested in this blue mountain business. How so?

[29:27]

Most mountains I see are blue. At least, they're not under the influence of some blue snake. Actually, this reminds me that Shouhaku and I, as we were going through this some of the time across the hall from where Adam was staying at San Francisco Zen Center at the time, we had a long discussion about this, actually, because the Chinese character that translates here as blue also means green. But he insisted this was blue here. the Blue Mountains. There's actually, in Western Pennsylvania where I grew up, there's something called the Blue Mountains. Have any of you ever seen Blue Mountains? Uh-huh. So Maura, what is, how is it when you see a Blue Mountain, what is that? It's usually rising from mist, kind of misty, whether it's changing or it's a little foggy. Yeah, in the fog, in the reflection from the sky, or maybe from some water.

[30:34]

Anybody else? Kathy, raise your hand. Well, there's the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I've been in the mountains before where it's like deep green, evergreen trees, and then in different times of the day, especially at dusk at night, it just looks... Yeah, maybe at dawn or at dusk it looks more blue. Dogen also talks, actually quoting from a Chinese teacher in our lineage about the blue mountains walking. Here he talks about them forming a single line. You know, there are lots, part of this kind of Zen talk, you know, it's concrete and it's specific and literal in one way and it's also metaphoric because he also might be talking about the lineage, the line of teachers who often are called by their mountain name. But yeah, it has to do with this kind of space in between. You know, he's talking about Here he's talking about dawn and the night mist clearing and seeing dimly.

[31:36]

So it's that space that I think has a lot to do with Zazen where we're aware and also we're open to the mist in some way. I don't know. Anybody else have any thoughts on these blue mountains? Yes, Nathan. There's a blue mountain range in Peru and they're blue all the time. When you go up to the individual trees, are they blue? No, just from a distance. Okay, yeah, and I think it has something to do with that distance, too. When we step back from the mountains, when we can see the wholeness of it, then they're blue mountains. If we're right up next to a tree, maybe it looks green. Yes, Amina? Again, it's green grass but at certain times of day and when you see it growing and it's tall enough and it's blowing in the wind, it really looks blue almost like water sometimes.

[32:44]

Good. So it has to do with a kind of distance. And in some ways, when we're sitting, we have a certain kind of distance from our life and the particular aspects of this minefield that we're sitting in. So maybe that kind of turning our light within allows this kind of space where we can see our life from the perspective of dawn or of dusk. you can see the wholeness, the oneness of it. So again, this notation of zazen that he offers in these five aspects, I've never seen these five described exactly as the aspects of practice or awakening before. Especially, you know, inspired by John Cage, I feel like this is, you know, this is really what Sozin is about.

[33:53]

Questions or comments or responses, please. Yes, Adam. Well, I think you already said, but when you look out on the Lake Michigan, it very much makes it a single line, that depending on what time of the day and year and the color of the water and the clouds and so forth, it's a pretty interesting study. Yeah, the horizon seems like one single line. If you get close to, if you're right next to the lake, you can see there's waves and it's not just a still mirror. So water does this too. It's really hard for me to hear about interconnectedness, why does he, and I think he says, this mountain monk, and he talks about the mountains in the distance, so I imagine him talking about the monks to whom he's, the monks he's addressing, as the mountains forming a single line.

[35:14]

Why does he say dimly? That's almost, when he talks about dimly seen, I would have thought that you, the metaphor would be, you know, you have this understanding, and you see the interconnectedness of the mountains. Yeah, I don't know. Any responses to my comment before I try? Yoshi, any thoughts? Have you started looking for clarity in these things in writings? Part of this kind of Zen talk is don't worry about understanding it. That's not the point. We recognize something. It evokes something. We can have some sense.

[36:15]

It's not that it's impossible to understand what Dogen's talking about, but really it's listening to jazz and trying to explain each note, you know, or something like that. It's, it's, it's, Duggan says very directly in the Bendowa, the Talk on the Water Practice of the Way, trying to compare different teachings or different schools or different doctrines is irrelevant. The point is, how are they, how is it practiced? How does it, how is it in practice? So that's here too, but the dimly also, I feel like, there's this kind of uh... you know he sees each mountain and then he sees the single line and there's this kind of uh... oscillation between that so it's dim it's not if you just saw the single line then And I'm looking at this line here, so excuse me, but if I just saw a single line, I'd be ignoring Mary and Nathan and Amina and Katie.

[37:24]

But if I just look at them as separate sabbatons and chairs, then I'd be ignoring the wholeness of it and of us. So in some ways, it's dimwits. Yes, Amina? Can you just read the sentence again? Sure. Well, suppose somebody, some student came up and said, what would go beyond these kinds of teaching? I would simply say to him, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind, the night mist clears. Dimly seen, the blue mountains form a single line. Yes, Brad? Maybe there's sort of a contrast between those two. There's this sharp clarity of the script lean. Yes. There's also this kind of soft focus. Yeah, yeah.

[38:26]

There's foreground and background. Did you want to say more? Okay, it's this, they're both part of the picture. And when we're sitting Zazen formally, you know, when we're looking at the wall, it's not that you're supposed to focus on one piece, one little point on the wall. That happens sometimes when you start to see patterns or something, but really it's just this soft gaze, but we keep our eyes open because we're open to what's in front of us and what's around us, just as we keep our ears open. So it's dimly seen. But there's this, this oscillation, this balancing between the sharpness of our life and this more amorphous wholeness. So we're focusing on this last one of these.

[39:28]

Does anyone have any responses to any of the first four? to be steadily intimate in your mind field, to sport and play freely with spiritual awareness or penetration, to drop off body and mind, or to trust what your hands can hold. These are also, all five of these are aspects of our practice. is curious to me. I mean, there's many different ways to consider that. But I think of, is it, it could be interpreted that comprehend what you can or deal with the piece that you can deal with right now.

[40:32]

Except it's not just about comprehending, it's actually It's something that's handy. It's something that you can hold. So it's about using it. It's using the pieces of the parts, the tools of our life. But yeah, it's how do you take each different thing up and then trust that there's some way that you can use it. that you can be with it, that you can rely. Nathan, you had? The other thing I hear in that image, trusting what your hands can hold, is feeling of enoughness. What's in your hands is enough. You don't need all that other stuff that's out there. It's just trusting what's right in your hands. Right, this is so important in practice. This practice is not about acquiring something that you don't already have.

[41:33]

It's not that you have to go down to the corner store, the corner Zendo, to get a six-pack of enlightenment or something. It's what is already at hand. How do you trust what's already here? The tools you already have. This is very important in our practice. And it takes some time to really get that trust to feel, okay, I'll take this. I'll use this. Yeah, it's enoughness. It's what you, the various, whatever's at hand somehow can be applied. This is challenging when we think about the difficulties of our life, the problems of relationship, the problems of taking care of our workplace and the people there, the problems of taking care of the world and our society and all of the calamities and so forth.

[42:44]

But somehow there's enough. So the trust part is important. So it's almost time to take our cushions in hand and put them away. Does anyone have any last reflections? One of the images of trusting what your hands can hold is the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kannon or Kuan Yin, Chenrezig in Tibetan, Kanzeon, who sometimes is depicted with a thousand hands, each with different tools, and using them skillfully without some It's not about technique exactly, it's just taking what's at hand and using it.

[43:50]

All of these five are aspects of our zazen and they're also aspects of the Bodhisattva vow, so we'll close with the four Bodhisattva vows, which we chant three times.

[44:02]

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