Good morning, everyone. This is Julia Kanrosati. I'm the Administrator for QLM, and I'm here this morning to welcome you all to our new telecourse with Hyden Leighton, Dogen and the Lotus Sutra. Risha Sensei is in Sweden right now. She may be joining us for the call momentarily, but we wanted to get started this morning. And to begin, I'd just like to welcome Taigan. Taigan Van Laten is a Southern Zen priest and teacher. He's a scholar and the author of many well-known books. He's an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki, and he's the Dharma heir of Tenshin Zen Anderson. Taigan is based in Chicago. He's the founder and the guiding teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. We like that name, Ancient Dragon Venngate, in Chicago. Hi, and welcome. Welcome to our call. I'd love to know if you'd like to tell us anything more about yourself.

[01:03]

That's good. Hi, Julia. Hi, everyone. Welcome. So, just a little bit of an introduction to the course, and then I'll get into the material today. Basically, the subtext, if you will, of this course today and the next two weeks is the Mahayana or Bodhisattva background of Zen, which is very basic to all of Zen. I'm going to be talking about Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, especially in terms of his connection to the Lotus Sutra, but Hakuin, the founder of modern Rinzai Zen also was very devoted to the Lotus Sutra. So I want to talk over these three weeks and build to talking in the third week primarily about Dogen's very dynamic cosmology of space and time as actual awakening agents, Bodhisattic agents, reality itself in terms of space and time, and how that is based on, in many ways,

[02:16]

reading and interpretation of the Lotus Sutra. What I want to do today is a brief survey of the wide variety of the sources of Dogen's teachings, and then I want to introduce the Lotus Sutra, talk about some of the key themes, and then just mention some of the Briefly, some of the major chapters and what they contain in the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is a kind of strange text. It's a text full of stories and calls to the imagination. It's not a didactic text at all. In some ways, there's no Teaching there, it's an inspirational text. It's a kind of inspiration to the imagination and to playing with the teaching.

[03:20]

So I'll be talking about the Lotus Sutra. I'm also gonna talk about Dokin's, Dokin talks about the Lotus Sutra throughout his teaching, but I'll talk particularly about one of his essays from Shobo Genzo, one of his major works, and about turning the Dharma flower, and that essay which talks about, amongst other things, how to study, how to read sutras from the perspective of Zen. And then I want to talk about the idea of the Buddha field and taking one's Dharma position, which are important for Dogen. So for this three-week course, I have a lot of material I want to present, and I hope there will be time for discussion afterwards. So bear with me, there won't be a test, but I do want to present a lot of material. So, first, I want to start with talking about the range and variety of the sources for Dogen's teachings. And I should mention that the material I'm talking about is based on parts, anyway, of my book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time.

[04:36]

Dogen and the Lotus Sutra from Oxford University Press, and also that this presentation is based on the presentation I did last November in France, and there's some people on the line from Zen River, I don't know if Tenke is one of them, but some of the Zen River people were at that presentation, so this'll be maybe a review for you all, but anyway. So, Dogen was, and my own work of writing and study has been basically trying to track all of the different sources and inspirations for Dogen's writing. So, Dogen had read the whole Buddhist canon by his early teens. He was a remarkable person. But the Lotus Sutra was by far the most important scripture for him. It's the sutra that he cites most often.

[05:41]

It was deeply influential to his teachings. So, I'll come back to that, but amongst his other sources, first is the Xiaodong or Soto lineage. He brought the Xiaodong lineage. Xiaodong is the Chinese way of saying Soto. He brought that from China to Japan and he he denied that, you know, he didn't talk about being, he was considered the founder of Soto Zen, but he denied even that he was teaching Zen, he just said this is Buddhism. But anyway, this lineage was very important to his teaching. So he cites many of the figures in that lineage, but I'll mention three, especially the, the person considered the founder of that lineage, Dongshan Yangjie, Tosan Ryokai, who I talked about last year.

[06:44]

He wrote the Song of the Jewelmare Samadhi, or Hokyo Zamai, and is the initiator of the Five Degrees, or Five Ranks, and I wrote a book just, This Is It, Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness. So Dogen refers to Dongshan a lot. He also refers to Dongshan's predecessor, Shido Shichan, or Sekito Kisen in Japanese. It was in the 8th century. Dongshan was in the 9th century. Sekito was the author of the Sando Kai, the Harmony of Difference and Sameness. You have a different way of saying that in Mizumi lineage, but Song of the Grass Hut. He also referred a lot to Hongzhe Zongzhui, Wanshi in Japanese, who was just a century before Dogen, but the most important Saodong teacher just before Dogen. He's the initiator of the Book of Serenity, or Shoya Roku Koan collection, and also wrote beautiful, kind of lyrical prose about meditation.

[07:47]

I translated some of those and called it Meditating the Empty Field. So anyway, this particular lineage was important, but also Dogen, another source for Dogen was the whole Koan literature from all of the different Chinese Chonic lineages. And really we could say that Dogen introduced the Koan literature to Japan. Dogen had an astonishing mastery of all of the Chinese Koan materials. So these days we know of the, of course, the gateless barrier, Mumon-Khan, the Blue Cliff Record, the Book of Serenity, also the Rinzai Record, and there are others, the Tangling Vines that Tom Kirchner has translated from Japan. But Dogen had, there were many, many, many, many other koan collections in China that Dogen studied and had mastered, some of which, most of which have not been translated into English,

[08:55]

some of which have been lost even in Chinese. Dogen just had this, not only knew all of these stories, but he had this amazing mastery of it. In his writings, he just throws off lines from these Koan collections and from these stories of the ancient Chinese masters. So really, the whole Koan literature was his lexicon in a way. Then another source, so I mentioned the Soto lineage, the Koan literature, but also Japanese poetics and aesthetics. Of course, Dogen was Japanese. As a Japanese monk, he went to China and spent four years there and came back to Japan and founded a monastery eventually near Kyoto and then kind of in the middle of his career moved to the far north mountains, set up a monastery, eventually a Heiji monastery, in the far north mountains of Japan.

[10:03]

But he was very well versed in both Chinese literature, all the Chinese classics, but also the Japanese poetics. So this is important in a lot of ways in terms of understanding Dogen. The Japanese aesthetic tradition, in a way that is congruent with the idea of bodhisattvas and the idea of the Mahayana, where nirvana is in samsara, nirvana is not a kind of escape from the suffering of the world and the impermanence of the world. Japanese aesthetic celebrates the phenomenal world, it celebrates impermanence. All of the volumes of poetry about cherry blossoms, for example, celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossoms just as they start to fade. So there's a kind of... Part of Japanese culture is appreciation of the beauty of impermanence and proclaims this

[11:18]

this beauty, and this is part of Dogen too. And I should say that this poetics and aesthetics was also very, very strongly influenced by the Lotus Sutra, which was the dominant text in Japan in the period before Dogen. So in that way also, Dogen is very influenced by the Lotus Sutra. So along with those influences, Dogen again was very much used the whole Buddhist canon in the early sutras, but he was especially used the Mahayana sutras, the Bodhisattva texts, including the Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, like we have in English, the Diamond Sutra, the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines. There are many versions of the Perfection of Wisdom. including the Heart Sutra.

[12:20]

So that was one source. The Avatamsaka Sutra, the Flower Ornament Sutra, is another source. That was the basis for the Chinese Huayen teachings. So again, I'm giving you a survey of all of this that will not be a test, but just to kind of give the range of what's in the background here. The Flower Ornament Sutra, give rise to the, it's a very flowery and I would say very psychedelic text about the range of practices and awarenesses and activities of bodhisattvas, of enlightening beings. But in the Chinese Huayan school, they used that material in a kind of more philosophical way to talk about the interconnectedness of all particulars. So through seeing, they developed a way of talking about the mutual connectedness and non-obstruction of the ultimate reality, universal reality, and the particular phenomenal reality.

[13:33]

So the mutual, radical interconnectedness, interconnection of subject and object. So each event is the product of this interdependent co-arising of all things. And this kind of perspective is part of all of Mahayana, but is very much fleshed out in that Huayen teaching. This is apparent in Dogen's view of reality, and also in his kind of, we could say, environmental teachings. So, for example, this is expressed in his Self-Fulfillment Samadhi text, which is part of his the Bendowa talk on Wholehearted Practice of the Way, one of his earliest writings, now considered part of Shobogenzo. And in that, Dogen talks about how even when one person sits upright in zazen, displaying the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, even for a little while, everything in the entire dharma world becomes Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment.

[14:44]

So I've been amusing and reflecting and playing and struggling with that sentence for decades. What does it mean for all space in the universe to awaken, to become enlightened? So this is part of what led me to reflect on Dogen's use of the Lotus Sutra. He talks about that in that text, the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi. section of Bentois, in terms of the mutual, inconceivable guidance of a person sitting in Zazen, and fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all of the things of the space, of the environment, and that there's this kind of relationship between these things. We'll see this as maybe reflected in the underground bodhisattvas I'll come to in the Lotus Sutra.

[15:47]

So we can see this in a lot of Dogen's teachings as a kind of reflection of various Mahayana teachings, but Dogen especially celebrated the Lotus Sutra. He cites it by far more than any other sutra throughout his teaching career. from the beginning to the end of his career. So, Dogen's background was as a monk in the Japanese Tendai school, which considered the Lotus Sutra as the highest, the most exalted of all of the teachings of Buddha. So, the Tendai school comes from the Chinese Chentai. It was centered on Mount Hiei, which still looms over Kyoto northeast of Kyoto. And that was where Dogen was first ordained and started his practice.

[16:52]

And just in terms of talking about the influence of the Lotus Sutra, not just Dogen, but Eisai, the Rinzai founder, Honen and Shinran, the founders of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, Nichiren, who founded the Nichiren branch of Buddhism, which especially venerates the Lotus Sutra and chants its name, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. You may have heard that as a practice of homage to the Lotus Sutra, but they also studied the Lotus Sutra and many different branches of Nichiren Buddhism. Anyway, they all started as monks on Mount Yei in the Tendai school. And the Tendai school was really dominant in the culture of Japan before Dogen from roughly 800 to 1200. Dogen was born in 1200 to 1253. That was where he was first trained. He eventually left Mountier and studied briefly at the Rinzai Monastery, Keninji, down in Kyoto, and then went to train in China, where he met his Soto Zaodong teacher.

[18:14]

But even after he came back, throughout his career, throughout all of his Zen writings, he still refers to the Lotus Sutra regularly. He doesn't talk about it so much as he has quotes from it. There are a few of his essays where he actually refers to it prominently, and I'll talk about some of those, but he also, Dogen also talks about how to use study of the sutras. So, you know, in Zen, there's this famous admonition attributed much later to Bodhidharma Zen as being direct, pointing to mind beyond words and letters. This has been interpreted in various ways. There's an anti-intellectual strain in some of Zen. I practiced in a monastery in Japan where there were numbers of American Zen people there, but they were not allowed to read, period.

[19:25]

This is an extreme example. If magazines came in the mail, they were confiscated. And the Americans there had to ask permission to get books to study Japanese, because the teacher there, who was very good, I liked him, I did one session there, but he didn't speak any English. Anyway, that's an extreme example. There are various lineages within Soto in the Zuki Roshi lineage. Part of, one of the characteristics of that branch of 20th century Soto is emphasis on zazen, but also study. And I think this, clearly this goes back to Dogen, but he talks about study not as about learning doctrine, but as a support for practice. And it's very clear the way he talks about it. And I'll talk about that a little later in terms of the essay, Hoka Tenhoka, the Dharma Flower Turns the Dharma Flower.

[20:31]

He also, there's another Shogo Genzo essay called Konkin Sutra Study, which also talks about the Lotus Sutra, but especially about how to study sutras. So, how to study is an important, as much as you do study of texts, is an important issue in Zen. It's not about Even though I'm an academic and have a PhD and all that stuff, I'm focused as a practitioner and the point for us as practitioners is to use the teachings of this study to support and encourage and inspire our practice. So that's an important thing to say. But again, Dogen was trained in the Lotus Sutra as a young monk and keeps referring to it till his very last breath. his very last teachings throughout his teaching career. So, I wanna shift now to talking about the Lotus Sutra itself.

[21:37]

And maybe some of you are familiar with it, but I think probably a lot of you aren't so much. And again, part of my subtext or even agenda in presenting this is that I think, in a lot of Americans then, we don't, recognize the extent to which Zen is very much grounded in the Bodhisattva teachings, the Mahayana teachings. It comes out of that. So, the Lotus Sutra is a challenging text in lots of ways, and there are parts of it that are off-putting. A lot of people get turned off by it, at least the first reading. Haakon, for example, when he was a young monk, read it and thought it was, and just dismissed it, thought it was really trivial. And then he came back and read it when he was 40 and thought, oh, this is the king of all the sutras. So anyway, that's just one example, but I've seen this in my own students also.

[22:42]

So... So I wanna start by just talking about two of the key themes, and then I want to go through some of the main, not all, but some of the main chapters, and there's a handout that you'd have in the extra materials, which includes some of the descriptions of these chapters. But first of all, so I wanna talk about two main themes. First, skillful means, and then the Buddha's inconceivable lifespan. So the idea of skillful means, Basically, this is just about responding helpfully to the different needs of different beings. So, uh, this is presented as the inclusive one vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra. And, uh, basically recognizing that all the various teachings and practices of the Buddha are part of the single great reason for Buddha's appearing.

[23:47]

So this is in Chapter 2, it says that there's one single cause for Buddha's to appear in the world, and that's to relieve suffering, help all beings enter the way to awakening. So in the first half of the Sutra, there are many colorful parables to illustrate various aspects of skillful means. And this is a challenging teaching. Sometimes it can be presented as a very, you know, I think it can be presented in a way that's very relevant to us in a world of interfaith religions and pluralism and how to see the usefulness of many, I think we could apply it not just to the different Buddhist teachings and practices and traditions, but to various different spiritual traditions. And again, the idea is that all these, this was very much relevant in China.

[24:49]

I should add, actually, as background, the Lotus Sutra is a Sanskrit text, but it wasn't so important in India, and it's there in Tibetan Buddhism, but it's very much not important in Tibet. It became extremely important in East Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Partly, so I'm gonna give a little historical footnote before I continue. The first real Chinese school of Buddhism is the Chiantai School, which became Tendai in Japanese, in Japan. And this was founded by a really great teaching figure named Zhiyi, in the modern spelling, Z-H-I-Y-I, in the 16th century. hundreds, five hundreds. Again, there will not be a test. But he synthesized all the different, there were so many different teachings that came into China.

[25:53]

It's kind of like the problem we have in the West with all the different schools and teachings and sutras and texts from Buddhism. So India and China are very different cultures. And The Chinese, you know, Buddhism came into China around 50, around the year 50 in the common era, or a little before, and it was very confusing. And so they had a similar problem to us. And this teaching of skillful means is very relevant because the idea that there was one vehicle, that it's all part of one vehicle, all of the different teachings are aimed at the single purpose of awakening beings and helping relieve suffering. And so they're all included. And Zhu Yi synthesized all of the different teachings into one system, but this idea of skillful means can be used in a kind of more democratic way or in a more kind of

[27:09]

a hierarchical way, which is one challenge of it. And in the Chianti School and in all the other East Asian schools, they develop these systems of classifying the sutras, but they put their own favorite sutra as the highest. So it includes all of them, but then it includes some of them as lesser that are, but still are part of it. So that was offensive to some others anyway. So this teaching of skillful means is tricky and difficult. And I'll talk about that in terms of some of the different stories about it. But at any rate, it's an important idea. One aspect of that is that the Buddha, Shakyamuni, taught for 40, 45 years. for example, as compared to Jesus who taught for three years. So there's a huge, huge, huge, huge, larger amount of teachings from Buddhism.

[28:13]

How do we make sense of that? We have the same problem. There was a huge cultural gap between India and China. There's an even huger cultural gap between all of the Asian cultures and the West. So this is, you know, very relevant to us. So, okay, the skillful means is about recognizing the differences, different needs of different beings. And so, then you see that the different teachings are useful for different beings. Okay, the second part of the Sutra is about a revelation that happens in the middle of the Sutra, in Chapter 16. So, earlier in the Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha... So, the Lotus Sutra is supposed to be one of the last teachings that the Buddha gave before he passed away, along with the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which is just finally being translated into English. Mark Blum at the University of California, Berkeley has just translated the first volume of, I think, three or four wonderful sutras.

[29:22]

That's considered in the Tendai school equally lofty with the Lotus Sutra. Anyway, those are the the two final sutras that Buddha is supposed to have given. Okay, so throughout the first part of the sutra, along with talking about skillful means, Shakyamuni Buddha has been telling his disciples and bodhisattvas that they will become Buddhists in the future. And in fact, any of them who cherish the Lotus Sutra will become Buddhists in the future. But he's also been asking, who will come back and keep the Dharma alive in the distant future evil age after his demise. So in Dogen's time, they thought they were in the future evil age. We can well imagine that being here in various ways with all the things that are going on. If you look at the newspaper or look beyond the newspapers to climate damage and so forth.

[30:24]

Anyway, in chapter 15, A group of bodhisattvas who had been visiting from a distant world system to hear the Lotus Sutra offered a return in the evil age. And the Buddha says, no, that's not necessary. And then suddenly, from out of the open space under the ground, simultaneously spring forth huge numbers of experienced, dedicated bodhisattvas. The regular disciples ask where these previously unknown great bodhisattvas came from, and Buddha declares that he himself has trained all of them. Then, and they, you know, then they wonder at this, and in Chapter 16, Buddha reveals that, in actuality, he's been awakened and practicing through an inconceivably long lifespan, for many, many ages past, since he became a bodhisattva, and he will continue in the future, um, twice that long. He, so he appears to live a limited lifespan, to have been born in the

[31:25]

and left the palace and have gone wandering and awakened under the Bodhi tree and now about to enter Parinirvana only as a skillful means for the sake of those beings who would not practice themselves if they thought and would not be diligent about their conduct and attentive to practice if they thought that the Buddha was always present. So, this is pretty wild stuff. This is not what most of the, what is not what most Buddhists thought before they read the Lotus Sutra. So, in the Soto school liturgy in Japan and some places in America, the closing verse from the Lotus Sutra on the Inconceivable Lifespan chapter is chanted, and also the closing verse from the chapter on the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kanzeon, uh, chanted, and I included those in the handouts, those chants.

[32:29]

So, uh, Dogen used the Lotus Sutra especially to express his worldview of Earth and space and time themselves as awakening agents in the Bodhisattva Liberative Project. I want to, um, kind of briefly, because I want to get to some of the, some of how Dogen talks about the Lotus Sutra, um, but I want to go through some of the chapters. So you have a handout about that, and I'll just I'll mention these briefly. So in Chapter 2 is about skillful means, that's where he talks about, where the Sutra talks about the single great cause for Buddhas appearing in the world is to help beings onto the path. It also has a section that Dogen frequently cites about only a Buddha, well it says in the Sanskrit original, it says only Buddhas can really fathom the true nature of things. Kumara Jiva, the great translator into Chinese, said, only Buddhas can fathom this.

[33:34]

And Dogen kind of reads this as, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the true nature of things. And he uses this as a model for Dharma transmission. I should mention that skillful means, the way it's presented in the Lotus Sutra, is really talking about the Buddha's skillful means, where he's has this kind of omniscience. Even so, skillful means is a matter of trial and error that includes making mistakes, but as a bodhisattva practice, which it also is, it very much involves patience and trial and error and trying things. Skillful means is not an instruction manual. We pay attention and try to practice, try to be helpful rather than harmful. So there are a bunch of, so I'm gonna just mention some of the parables in the early part of the sutra that reflect aspects of skillful means.

[34:39]

In chapter three, there's a famous parable about a burning house. And the children, the father comes home and finds his children in a burning house. And it's a very colorful story, but just the basics. He tries to entice them out of the house because it's burning down. This is a parable. This is a metaphor for the world of Samsara, which is burning literally these days. And they don't want to come out because they're having too much fun playing with their toys. And so he tells them about all these wonderful, splendid vehicles. a goat cart, and a deer cart, and a Porsche, and a BMW, and anyway. So they come out of the burning house only to find there's just one great vehicle. So this is a metaphor for the one vehicle. And it makes a big point of saying that the father isn't really lying to the children. He's using skillful means to get them to safety.

[35:42]

So that's it. Chapter 3. Chapter 4 has a famous parable about a prodigal son. Father and son are separated. The father goes on to become very wealthy. The son is destitute and in his wandering he happens by the father's estate. The father sees him and has his assistants try to bring him in. The son is terrified of this rich palaces and runs away, so the father has some of his assistants go in rags and offer him a job literally shoveling shit in the fields of his estate and gradually over many, many years he is given higher positions until he's managing the estate and as the father is dying, he reveals to all the people in the town and to the son that he's actually a son and he inherits the estate.

[36:54]

This is stated as a metaphor for all of us being children of Buddha, but ignorant of our true state. And so we have to do all this work to be willing to actually realize that we already have this birthright of awakening. So that's an interesting story about skillful means and about the nature of awakening. In chapter five, there's a parable of the plants, which I like a lot, the universal dharma ring that falls equally on all plants and nourishes them to grow in their own ways. So this is a kind of more universal way of talking about skillful means. Chapter seven, there's a parable of a fantastic castle city. So there's a metaphor of again of the Buddha as a caravan leader, and he leads a bunch of merchants on a long trip across the desert. They are tired out and wanting to turn back, and so he conjures up this kind of beautiful oasis city, and they all feel wonderful and refreshed.

[38:08]

and after a while he tells them, actually, this is just an illusion, and there's a long way to go still, but they're refreshed enough to proceed. So this is used intentionally as a metaphor for the arhatship, for personal liberation, and that to true Buddhahood in the Bodhisattva path, and to universal liberation, there's further to go. There's another parable in chapter eight, of a friend who's visiting another wealthy friend. The wealthy friend has to go. They're up late drinking and the guest passes out and the host has to go, but he sews a great jewel into the clothing of his friend and then leaves. Years later, they run into each other and the guest is still destitute. the host is upset and points out that he still has this jewel in his pocket, so to speak.

[39:14]

So again, this is a metaphor for how we already have this capacity and reality of awakening and just don't realize it. Chapter 11 is very strange and one of my favorite chapters, and I'll just say briefly, there's as the Buddha is preaching the Lotus Sutra, suddenly from out of the ground arises this beautiful stupa covered with precious jewels. It's a stupa that contains an ancient mummified body of a Buddha from a long, long, long time ago, maybe a previous Big Bang or whatever. It rises up into the sky and out of it comes a voice that says, well done, well done, Shakyamuni Buddha. And the Buddha reveals that this is from an ancient Buddha named Abundant Treasures who appears whenever the Lotus Sutra is taught.

[40:15]

And it says so right in the Lotus Sutra. So there's this quality of the Lotus Sutra. It happens in other sutras too, but the Lotus Sutra especially refers to itself a lot. And this self-referential quality is important in Dogen's teaching, too. Anyway, this ancient Buddha appears floating in mid-air above Vulture Peak, where Buddha's giving this teaching. So basically the Buddha then rises up and the door, just to make it briefer, the Buddha then ends up sitting next to the ancient Buddha and then the whole assembly rises up and most of the Lotus Sutra is called the ceremony in mid-air. The whole assembly is floating in mid-air watching this scene.

[41:20]

So there's all kinds of fantastic stuff I mean, fantastic in the sense of fantasy and imagination that happened in this text. Chapter 12 on Devadatta, we could spend the whole time talking about, and it's very controversial, but basically, well, there's a lot going on, but basically there's a, And the eight-year-old, one of the Bodhisattvas asks if it's possible for somebody to become enlightened very quickly, and Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, says yes, he knows of the Dragon King's daughter, and this eight-year-old girl appears, and she offers these precious pearls to Shakyamuni, and then she says that just that quickly she could become a Buddha, and she does. This is extremely radical. She's female, first of all, which was, you know, in this patriarchal time, it was considered that women couldn't be Buddhas.

[42:27]

She was a child. She was not even human. But actually, the most radical part of it is the instantaneous achievement of Buddhahood. So the idea before this was that it required many, many, many kalpas, ages of lifetimes of practice and cultivation before one could achieve Buddhahood. This ushers in, this is a kind of break from Indo-Tibetan Buddhism to East Asian Buddhism where there's the idea of Buddhahood in this very body and realizing Buddhahood through faith and through sudden awakening. There's many other things to say about this and this is controversial in terms of women's studies in Buddhism. That's a whole other topic though. I'll leave that for now. We can talk about it in discussion time as much as we have. Going through some of these others quickly. Chapter 15, I already talked about the bodhisattvas suddenly springing forth from the open space under the earth to remain present to help in future evil ages.

[43:36]

Chapter 16, inconceivable lifespan where Buddha reveals that he's been awakened and practicing through an inconceivably long lifespan or will remain twice that long. He appears to pass into nirvana only as a skillful means to encourage beings. So this is an important source for Dogen's teachings about time and temporality. So there's a famous Shobokenzo essay by Dogen called Uji or Being Time. But also he talks about time in terms of this inconceivable lifespan. And then in the later part of the Sutra, there is a whole series of specific Bodhisattvas who are talked about. One of them in Chapter 20 is Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva. He has an interesting practice. He bows to everyone, all the other monks, and says that they're Buddhas to be and that they will become Buddhas and he will always respect them. They are often very annoyed and

[44:40]

and chastise him and throw things at him, but he just goes to a distance and says, yes, you'll be a Buddha. If you imagine somebody in your Sangha going around telling everybody how they're going to be a Buddha, you might imagine this could be annoying. But he was a favorite of the 19th century Soto monk and poet, Ryokan, who wrote verses on all of the chapters of the Lotus Sutra. Anyway, Chapter 25 is the Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva, Regarder of the Cries of the World, Kamsayona Kanon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, and this Bodhisattva is frequently mentioned by Dogen, and in the handouts is the closing verse of that chapter. And finally, in Chapter 28, is the encouragement of the universal sage, Bodhisattva.

[45:43]

That's Samantabhadra, or Fugen in Japanese, another important Bodhisattva, kind of devotional Bodhisattva. I think of him also as the activist Bodhisattva. He rides a six-tusked magical white elephant. He's further celebrated in the Closing Sutra that's sometimes added. There's an opening and closing sutra sometimes studied with the Lotus Sutra, they're in the translation by Gene Reeves that I recommended. So, there's a complex visualization there. He rides on this magical six-tusk white elephant. So, that's an introduction to the Lotus Sutra. So, I'm going to catch my breath. And I do wanna talk some about Dogen and his use of the Lotus Sutra. I'm just gonna proceed and we'll have time for questions afterwards, including about the Lotus Sutra and about Dogen's sources.

[46:54]

But I wanna talk about one of the, so Shobo Genzo is probably the best known largest collection of Dogen's writings, True Dharma, I, Treasury. There are others, I'm also going to be referring to Ehe Koroku, or Dogen's extensive record. One of the essays in Shobo Genzo, there are 95 in the, there were various different versions of Shobo Genzo, but in the modern collection of all the different essays, there's 95. One of them is called Hoke Tet Hoke, or the Dharma Flower Turns the Dharma Flower. And this is based on a story from the sixth ancestor, Huena. So in that story, Sogen tells, the sixth ancestor was visited by a monk who had memorized the Lotus Sutra. And memorizing long sutras was a kind of traditional practice back in times when they did not have easy access to books, and this was something that monks did.

[48:08]

So this monk comes to the Sixth Ancestor and tells him that he's memorized the whole Lotus Sutra and he's an expert in the Lotus Sutra. And the Sixth Ancestor tells him, you don't understand the Lotus Sutra. And the Sixth Ancestor says, that there's this distinction between, so the Dharma Flower, we call it the Lotus Sutra, but in Japanese, literally, it's called the Hokekyo, or the Dharma Flower Sutra. So, Sixth Ancestor says there's a difference between the Dharma Flower turning us, which is delusion, and our turning the Dharma Flower, which is realization or awakening. So this goes back to what I was saying in the beginning about how we use study of the teachings of the sutras. Do we turn the teachings or are we turned by the teachings? And this is a really important point.

[49:13]

So being turned by the teachings, Dogen calls delusions. We can see this in all kinds of forms of literalism and fundamentalism where the teachings are taken literally and as dogma, as opposed to using the teachings. So, basically in these three weeks, I want to show, I want to kind of illustrate how Dogen uses and plays with and interprets the Lotus Sutra teachings. So he says, so he says to this monk, Huining says to this monk, that when Dharma Flower Sutra, the Hukikyo, turns us, that's delusion, but when we turn the dharma flower, that's realization. Now, Dogen goes through both sides of that, but he also ends up saying that ultimately these are non-dual, because Dogen is always doing that. He's also showing the non-duality of things, and that both are simply the dharma flower turning the dharma flower.

[50:14]

So, Dogen clarifies how this story implies the necessity for an awakened approach to active, practical applications of sutra study. rather than being caught by reified scriptural formulations in a fundamentalist manner. He says, quote, we should rejoice that the Dharma flower is turning from age to age. The Dharma flower is turning from day to night, as the Dharma flower turns the ages and turns the days and nights. He uses this this again to talk about time. For Dogen, the reality of the Dharma flower and of the Buddha's enduring lifespan transforms the very earth and time itself. So here's a comment by a Japanese scholar, quote, without turning the Dharma flower, there is no Dharma flower turning. As the Dharma flower turning then gives birth to the next turning of the Dharma flower.

[51:24]

single true matter transmitted in succession from the ancients in their remote past until long into distant future ages is the alternating interchange of turning the Dharma flower and the Dharma flower turning." So again, there's the turning the Dharma flower, which is awakening, and the Dharma flower turning us, which is solution. So let me read Dogen's quote again. Dogen said, we should rejoice that the Dharma flower is turning from age to age, and the Dharma flower is turning from day to night, as the Dharma flower turns the ages and turns the days and nights. So, in the light of the Lotus Sutra and Dogen's view of it, studying the sutra and personal experience of realization and practice are not contradictory, but mutually supporting cooperative activities. Again, the point of studying Lotus Sutra or any other teaching is to support the experience of realization.

[52:26]

The scholar who I'm quoting is named Jigito Takasaki says, the purpose of turning the Dharma flower is to turn the deluded mind into awakened mind. Without the deluded mind, both the Dharma flower turning and turning the Dharma flower are useless. without turning the deluded mind into awakened mind, both turnings would be meaningless. So this is like, you know, the single great cause of the Lotus Sutra, that the point of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas appearing is to help suffering and deluded beings awaken. So the deluded mind is the point. There is suffering, we know that. This is the First Noble Truth, that there is suffering or dissatisfactoriness or misalignment, and facing that is why it's a noble truth. So for Dogen, it is in the practitioner's appreciation, active expression of this non-dual unfolding reality that the Dharma flower finds its true blossoming.

[53:40]

Another important Soto scholar, Genryu Kagamishima, says, Quote, there is no way to be released from the deluded mind other than penetrating through the deluded mind. Quote. So Dogen finally expresses his non-dualism and offers deep consolation by saying that being turned by the Dharma flower, which is, he calls delusion, is also part of the one vehicle. So Dogen says, do not worry about the mind being deluded. So this reminds me, of course, of Genjo Koan, where Dogen says, deluded people have delusions about enlightenment, I'm paraphrasing. Enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. So again, Dogen says, do not worry about the mind being deluded. So this essay, The Dharma Flower Turns the Dharma Flower, Hokaten, Hoke,

[54:41]

quite lengthy. He has an extended creative section on the mind and realization, we turn the flower of dharma. This is the section on awakening, on the enlightened aspect. And he begins by saying, the multitudes, Dogen says, the multitudes of the thousand-fold world that spring out of the earth have long been great honored saints of the flower of dharma, but they spring out of the earth being turned by circumstances." So this is referring to the underground bodhisattvas who spring out in chapter 15. So they spring out of the earth being turned by circumstances. In other words, when they're needed. This is future evil age. And turning the flower of dharma, we should also realize, he says, springing out of space we should know with the Buddha's wisdom not only earth and space, but also springing out of the flower of Dharma itself, of the Lotus Sutra itself.

[55:50]

In turning the flower of Dharma, we should realize the one time in which Buddha is living. Turn by disclosure, display, realization, and entering, we spring out of the earth, and turned by the Buddha's wisdom, we spring out of the earth. So, this one time in which the Buddha is living is interesting, and I'm going to come back to that in week three, but how Dogen sees the Buddha's lifespan, how Buddha sees these underground bodhisattvas as coming through circumstances and how Buddha sees this one time of the Buddha's life as related to us in our practice is, you know, shows his creative use and his creative turning of the Lotus Sutra. So I'm going to come back to this Hokey Tenhokey turning of this

[57:00]

Turning the Dharma Flower essay in the third week, when he says, turn by disclosure, display, realization, and entering, we spring out of the earth, we spring out of the earth, and turn by the Buddha's wisdom, we spring out of the earth. So it's not just these ancient bodhisattvas in under the ground, in the open space under the ground, but Well, just to preview where I'm going with this, and I'll be talking about this a lot in the third week, the way Dogen uses these stories is to talk about how it is that the Buddha's long lifespan depends on us, and how it is that the the underground bodhisattvas relate to us and how it is that time itself and space itself and the earth itself are related to our practice and how we awaken in them.

[58:20]

This thing he says that the Buddhist says, that Dogen says about, turn by disclosure, display, realization, and entering. we spring out of the earth, and turned by the Buddha's wisdom, we spring out of the earth. This is the, this phrase is part, that disclosure, display, realization, and entering is what the Lotus Sutra says many, many, many times, is what they encourage people who are reading and faithful to the Lotus Sutra to do. to disclose, display, realize, and enter into, and help others to disclose, display, realize, and enter into the truth of the Lotus Sutra. So the Lotus Sutra is talking about itself a lot. Some scholars say, well, there's no real teaching in the Lotus Sutra because it doesn't really ever get to the teaching. It just talks about how to disclose, display, realize, and enter into it.

[59:27]

And that affects Dogen's teaching a lot in ways I'm gonna talk about next week. But for Dogen, the ultimate emptiness or impermanence of all things and events does not diminish the need to fully engage in practice the present conditions or the present particular phenomena or the conditioned world. The importance of not seeking liberation outside of the grounding of immediate everyday circumstances. So this is part of this teaching of where he says we should know what the Buddha's wisdom, not only earth and space, but also springing out of the flower of Dharma itself, that this arises out of conditions. And again, this relates to what I said about Japanese culture also, but also it's very much part of the Mahayana, this ultimate emptiness or impermanence of all things, this awakening to reality is about the grounding in our immediate everyday circumstances, and that liberation is not outside of that.

[60:45]

So, there's one more section I want to talk about, and so I think we will have some time for some discussion. Again, I have a lot of material I wanted to present, but I want to talk a little bit today about the idea of the Buddha field. So this is very traditional, going all the way back in Buddhism, in traditional Mahayana Buddhism. Whenever a Buddha awakens, the world around that Buddha is constellated as a Buddha field. This is, in Sanskrit, it's called akshetra, and the land itself is purified and illuminated. So, this idea is very important in terms of Pure Land Buddhism, where there are Buddhas who have their own Pure Lands, and the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan is Pure Land Buddhism,

[61:50]

The version of that in Japan is that they chant to Namo Amida Buddha, who has this western paradise in Pure Land, and some forms of Pure Land Buddhism are about being reborn there, but other forms are about seeing how that is present here. Anyway, this idea of a Buddha field is really important in Buddhism, and I think it's really important in modern and western Buddhism in terms of seeing uh, how Buddhism is important, the importance of environment and environmentalism in Buddhism. So, again, when a Buddha awakens, a Buddha field is constellated. Land itself becomes a Buddha field. So, Dōgen uses the story of the Bodhisattvas springing forth from the open space under the ground as an image to express and develop his own understanding of Buddha lands.

[62:55]

And I want to talk about this in terms of a particular short teaching, a dharma hall discourse from 1241. Actually, this is before he moved to north from Kyoto. This is in Ehe-Koroku, which is the other main uh, a large text by Dogen, Dogen's extensive record, which I translated with Shilaka Okamura. And Dogen speaks poetically of the spiritual fertility of the earth in this short, so this is made up mostly of short sermons that he gave to his monks. They're very formal, short talks, but in some ways they're interesting because they're, even though they're formal, they're more personal sometimes. Anyway, he speaks in this one of the spiritual fertility of the earth when all beings abide in their Dharma positions with the Buddha's enduring presence.

[63:58]

And this idea of abiding in your Dharma position is something that Dogen talks about a lot. The idea that, you know, whatever your situation, and you can understand this in various ways. whatever your, going back to monastic practice, whatever your position in the sangha, whatever your position in the monastery in that practice period or that time, to really occupy that, to occupy your position. We can understand it more widely in terms of occupying your situation, your karmic situation in this lifetime. So abiding in your dharma position, it talks about in various ways. But in this particular, uh, Dharma Hall Discourse from 1241. Excuse me. I have that I think this is in the handout that you have. This is number Dharma Hall Discourse 91. He starts this before the section that's quoted by citing Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, where Shakyamuni Buddha says, since I attained Buddhahood, I always remain here expounding Dharma.

[65:10]

So, referring to his lifespan. And Dogen concludes, all dharmas dwell in their dharma positions. Forms in the world are always present. Wild geese return to the north woods and orioles appear in early spring. Not having attained suchness, Already suchness is attained. Already having attained suchness, how is it?" After a pause, Dogen said, "...third month of spring, fruits are full on the Bodhi tree. One night the blossom opens and the world is fragrant." That's the whole talk after he quoted Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra. Often in these little talks I'll have something to say and then there's a pause.

[66:17]

I'll read it again. All dharmas dwell on their dharma positions. Forms in the world are always present. Wild geese return to the north woods. Orioles appear in early spring. But having attained suchness, already suchness is attained. Already having attained suchness. How is it? Third month of spring, fruits are full on the Bodhi tree. One night the blossom opens and the world is fragrant. In the last couple weeks here in Chicago, having spring, the leaves have come out of the trees and blossoms are opening. So just to note that this particular dharma hall discourse given to us monks in 1241 in grounding the proclamation of the ultimate suchness of a Buddha's awakening right within the concrete, natural expressions of this land and earth. When he heard it, one of Dogen's major disciples, we know this historically, Tetsugikai, had his first major awakening.

[67:24]

Later, Tetsugikai became the third abbot of Eheji. So, this is about being the ultimate awakening right in the particulars, the third month of spring. One night, the blossom opens and the world is fragrant. So, that was a lot of material, and we have a little bit of time for comments, questions about Dogen's sources, about the Lotus Sutra, about, I just started to talk about how Dogen uses the Lotus Sutra in his teaching So, I'm going to open this up now to comments, questions, responses. Brian in Boulder. Hi. Thank you for the overview. Just a very pragmatic question. Between now and the next class, how would you describe the best way to repair? In terms of what I'm going to cover in the next section, really that's the best way, but for any of you who want to, you can look at

[68:39]

some of the, I'm gonna be referring to some of the Dharma Hall discourses. So look at the excerpts in the handouts from Dogen's extensive record if you want. If any of you want to browse around in visions of awakening space and time, that would be relevant. But, you know, I'm just trying to present, again, this context of the Bodhisattva background and the Lotus Sutra background, particularly in Dogon. So, yeah. That's really all I have to say. Okay, thank you. Layla in Boulder. Good morning, Taigan, and thank you so much, Roshi, for this teaching.

[70:01]

It's so profound and also, as you say, huge, huge amount here. We're trying to bring this into some kind of coherence with my experience right now, like day before yesterday, being involved in an action, a protest down in Denver at the BLM office, who was auctioning off public lands for fracking. Oh no, bless you for doing that, thank you so much. Oh well, to everyone who was there, it was big action, it was very good, and luckily it was non-violent. And this thing that you were talking about, all beings receiving the Dharma according to their capacities, is really what an edge for me right now is how to, how does my Dharma, many teachings I've been blessed to receive, and my own practice, Help me go into a space like that and really understand what the capacities are.

[71:02]

How to be a benefit in a situation like that. Yes, I think about this a lot. I'm actually giving a talk later today at a Korean center here in Chicago about bodhisattva social engagement. And, you know, I think that, so one thing to say is that particularly how Dogen responds to the Lotus Sutra, and a lot of Dogen's teachings are very relevant to environmental awareness and resources in terms of environmental teachings. The last section of the book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time, that I mentioned, this is all taken from, you know, parts of, I have a whole section on social ethics and ecology and how his worldview of, you know, the whole, the idea of the bodhisattvas springing forth from the earth implies that the earth, you know, again, these are not didactic teachings.

[72:12]

These are inspirational teachings. So how does the earth itself give us resources for seeing how to, you know, so, I don't have answers to how we're going to force the shift from fossil fuel to the renewable sources of energy that are available. Technologically, we have all that we need. Specifically, say a little more about the specific action you were doing. protect the land from being... What was the Bureau of Land Management planning to do with this land? Yeah, they were auctioning off parcels of public lands with coastal communities for fracking. Yeah, the fracking is terrible.

[73:12]

I mean, it's just... We have to... Fracking should be... It just poisons water. It creates... It contributes to... climate damage? So probably, yeah, so probably, you know, maybe 400 people came out. So there was a lot of high energy and they were holding the meeting, the auctions in a small room. And so not allowing people in except by ticket, which was a very few people. And there were police guards. between the protesters and the people who were allowed in for the auction. And so there was so much, yeah, it's like how to be, how to bring my own energy into a space like that. And what I heard you say is the earth is teaching us how to do this. So, wow, that kind of flipped my head around.

[74:14]

I'm not sure how to listen for that. Well, you know, we have a tremendous resource in our practice. We have a tremendous resource in terms of, you know, it's not that we should not feel anger towards, you know, the fossil fuel companies that, you know, have known since the 70s what they were doing, but blaming and, you know, and demonizing individuals isn't helpful. You know, how do we see that this is just a function of ignorance and we have to educate? And so, you know, I've been an activist, so this is... You had a question, but you're going to get all this. You know, I remember that, you know, angry chanting back during the Vietnam War, and I'm still, you know, involved in just working on organizing a meditation workshop for activists here in Chicago. some of whom may be going to the political conventions going on in July.

[75:21]

Anyway, we have to see how to act together. And one of the things about the lifespan of the Buddha is that we have a tremendous resource in terms of seeing bodhisattva time. We have these long lineages of practice. We're talking about Shakyamuni Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago. We're talking about abundant treasures who lived, I don't know, maybe a few big bags ago or whatever. We have a practice that has that wide view of time. And so, of course, what's happening now is urgent. Just to lay some stuff on you, because this is stuff I was looking at for this talk I'm giving this afternoon. Currently, we have the highest level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 15 million years.

[76:24]

It's really urgent, and yet, in terms of how to change things, we have to see that there's lineages of social change. how things change doesn't happen through political leaders, it happens through movements of people like you and all the people who were there with you. So I'm just giving my opinions now from the perspective of my understanding of bodhisattva ethics. So to see things in terms of a long time span I think helps and helps us be a little calmer, a little steadier, to know that things do change. They do. You know, in my lifespan, relatively peacefully, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, apartheid ended. Very recently, gay marriage has become legal in many places. That was unthinkable, what, five, ten years ago? Things change. Change happens.

[77:30]

We can change from fossil fuel. and eliminate fracking. So I just want to say that and I'll add, I don't know if any of you know the writer Rebecca Solnit, brilliant, brilliant writer who's a practitioner at my home temple in San Francisco, but she was here at Ancient Dragon recently speaking in Chicago and told a story about being, she's a friend of Bill McKibben who was the founder of 350.org 350 is organizing a lot of actions now to try and stop fossil fuel and to encourage fossil fuel divestment. And excuse me for anybody who disagrees with my opinions about any of this, but the question was asked. He told a story, though, about being at the Paris Climate Conference with Bill McKibben in December, and they were sitting on the floor wearily after a lot of conferences and she had been talking, to preface that story, she was talking about how personal actions are not enough right now.

[78:42]

Having a vegan diet, driving a Prius, having a low personal carbon footprint, it's just not enough. Not that those aren't good things, but what's happening to the climate is something that is a Sangha event. It unites all of us. It has to do with all beings. It's inclusive. So how to respond skillfully to different beings in terms of this is the dilemma of skillful means. Anyway, she was sitting with Bill McKibben on the floor outside one of these conferences at the Paris Climate Conference, and a young woman came up to Bill McKibben I asked him what she could do as an individual, and Thelma Kibben said, stop being an individual. I don't know. Anyway, that's the story. I'm hearing about your meditation workshop for activists, and also know that I'm going to go back into your book, Awakening Space and Time, and thank you so much for all you've done all these years.

[79:55]

So grateful. There's another hand up. Howard? Oh, good morning. Thank you. Hi. I am right... I right now have the luxury of sitting next to the Gallatin River, and in Montana, and on my cushion, and just thinking of the practice of learning the Dharma. Yes. In my future, And because of my experience, that extends in addition to, you know, doing some work for local environmental or very little work, but involvement to what extent I've been able to in a local environmental group, a couple of them. In addition to that, I would like to hear anything you could, you know, would like to say about either Dogan's comments or your own.

[81:02]

about the practice of wilderness. In other words, what does Dogen have to say about actually devoting an amount of time to actual direct experience of nature, and not through language, just... And not in the house, sitting on your cushion. In nature. Good, good question, interesting question. I have a few things to say about that. First of all, Tolkien wouldn't have talked about that because there wasn't anything else. I mean, Tolkien grew up in what was then a big city, a capital city, Kyoto. So one thing I'll say is that, but there wasn't a word for nature. There was the word landscape, sansui. So he wrote, Mountains and Water Sutra, which I talked about at one of these telecourses a couple years ago, I think.

[82:08]

But that was just the world. They didn't have a world for nature as separate from, you know, the artificial. You know, we think of nature as separate from our lives, and that was just the world they lived in. Dogen wandered around China by foot. That was the way he walked. That was the way he traveled. He didn't have cars. He didn't have email. In terms of, so another thing to say, though, is that, you know, I live in Chicago and there's wilderness right here, too. Trees, there's weeds that come up through the concrete. There are birds. So just to say that the world of nature is everywhere, including in us. But in terms of the practice of wilderness, the main thing I would say is to recommend a really wonderful book, one of my favorite books, one of my favorite Dharma books, called The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder.

[83:17]

I cannot recommend it highly enough. I totally agree. Well, I've read that book over and over. Yeah, good. Well, then I don't have anything to... I don't know that I can say anything more than what Gary says in that book. That part of that book, part of practice of... So the practice of the wild is about also recognizing our inner wildness. So even when you're sitting in a room in a house on your Zafu, there's the inner wildness and allowing that. I'm reading a book by Rebecca Solnit who I mentioned. called now, which is also relevant, called A Field Guide to Getting Lost. She has another wonderful book that called Wanderlust, A History of Walking. So those are both relevant. But yeah, to be, and one of my Zen teachers used to talk about getting, being wild on your cushion. So-

[84:21]

I have this strong feeling that in order to work to protect this planet, that we have to become wild. Yeah. We can't. I appreciate your comments very much. Thank you very much. Yeah, but going back to what Leila was asking, being wild to protect the planet doesn't necessarily mean just yelling at demonstrations. In fact, that may not be helpful. Or maybe it's helpful sometimes. There's not one right way to respond. Let me add that. That in terms of social engagement there... Sorry, go ahead. I think of it as just making the attempt to... It's seemingly impossible, but making the attempt to just leave language behind for some brief period. Well, we can use language. We can use language creatively. I mean, Gary Snyder has a section in that book about wild language and how language itself is a wilderness system.

[85:30]

But, you know, one of the things about Saucon is that it's a creative act and practice is a creative act. And how to... Wildness also implies to... respond creatively, artistically, respond in unexpected ways, respond, you know, not with antagonism, but with what needs to be said. Speaking truth to power is part of one of our precepts, but also with respectfulness. So to be respectful to everybody involved in whatever situation is there, but also Zazen supports creative activity, and all of our creative activities support Zazen, and there's not one right way to respond to whatever problem, personal or global,

[86:43]

is going on. We each have our own particular capacities and talents and interests, so use that. Gary talks about the path as sauntering off the path. To follow a path is to, you know, to get lost around it. I realized that I was... I got Jean Reeves' translation, as you recommended, and began reading it a few days ago in earnest, and realized that one of the great capacities that just sort of jumped out at me immediately was this capacity to name everything as a Bodhisattva. I was delighted and amused and entranced by all of the names of the bodhisattvas that appeared in the first introductory portion.

[87:47]

And I'm just curious about, if you can tell us a little bit about this tradition of just naming infinite bodhisattvas. It's such a great gateway to turning things around in any moment. So you're talking about all the names of bodhisattvas in the Lotus Sutra itself? Yes. Yeah. Like, I'd love to be called Flower Banner Bodhisattva. Okay, I'll call you Flower Banner Bodhisattva. This is true in the Lotus Sutra, it's true in a lot of the Mahayana Sutras, the Bodhisattva Sutras, the Flower Ornament Sutra even more so, but you know, in a lot of them, there are pages and pages of names of different Bodhisattvas. There are pages and pages of names of different Samadhi states, and it's very, you know, it can be very flowery, and, you know, some people get turned off by that. And that's okay, you know, but one way of understanding it, you know, in the Lotus Sutra there are Bodhisattvas who come from many different world systems.

[88:55]

So I don't know what that means, but, you know, it might mean different solar systems, different galaxies. It might mean different, and I tend to think that this is part, that this is it, different dimensions. So in modern physics, in some of the speculative physics, in string theory, which is pretty controversial, but in quantum physics also, there are many different dimensions. So maybe that's where these different bodhisattvas come from. But in the sutras themselves, they talk about, like in the underground bodhisattvas that spring out of the ground in chapter 15, there are huge numbers of them. And each of them, so many of them have hundreds of thousands of bodhisattvas, each with other bodhisattva attendants. Some of them have tens of thousands of bodhisattvas.

[89:58]

There's even more who have only thousands of bodhisattvas attendance, and even more who have hundreds, and there's some who don't have any. So there's these huge proliferations of numbers of different bodhisattvas. Some of them are named, some of them aren't in some of the sutras. There's also in, excuse me, particularly in the Flower Ornament Sutra, the Avatamsaka, they talk about bodhisattvas, innumerable myriad bodhisattvas, An English word that means literally 10,000. And there are myriad bodhisattvas on the tip of every blade of grass. There are myriad bodhisattvas in every atom. So this is a way of seeing the world. This is a worldview, cosmology, that sees reality itself as just, you know, physical reality. I don't know if you could even call it just physical at that point, but physical reality as imbued with all of these beings who are, whose purpose and function is just to help relieve suffering and awaken beings.

[91:10]

And, you know, so, so we don't really, you know, one of the, one of the responses to Layla about tracking and what to do and to Howard is that is to realize not just in time, but in space, we don't really know. going on. You know, we know what's going on on the level of the dimension of what we can see on this planet and, you know, in, you know, this world system and this, you know, we have nation states and governments, but on the level of other dimensions, on the levels of atomic reality, there's stuff going on. And I think part of what these Mahayana visions provide as a way of not knowing that, but just, you know, this is why the imagination is so important in all of this. And I'm going to talk a lot more about that next week in terms of some of the fantastic stuff that Dogen says, and some of his dreams or fantasies or whatever you want to call them.

[92:21]

But reality is much deeper than we can understand. You know, and this is clearly true in these Mahayana Sutras and modern physics is echoing that, right? So, what's going on in the room you're sitting in right now? Much more going on than you can be aware of. It's not that our intelligence is that we should get rid of it or that it's not useful. We should use it, you know, for the sake of uh... helping beings and so forth but uh... you know if their bodhisattvas popping they can pop out of the ground you know what uh... what is happening on the level of what we can see is just a little part of what reality is but this is you know this is what part of what all these sutras point to and this is part of what is clearly there in dogen

[93:28]

And I think it's possible to be deeply encouraged by that. Not that, you know, not that everything is, you know, that, you know, the other side of saying that is that not that we should, and this is why the Buddha pretends to, or pretends to, on one level, it's true that the Buddha died 2,500 years ago. So the Buddha is present, and the Buddha, you know, is gone. Because it's up to us to keep the Buddha alive. So this relates to Leila's question, too. We have the ability to respond, and we have a responsibility. we can say that there are all these other dimensions of reality happening that we don't know about, but also, and this is part of what Dogen does with all of these teachings from the Lotus Sutra, it does depend on our static response.

[94:42]

And it's not, so that is not one right way to do that. We don't know what to do in some cases, but our practice is really important. Thank you. Okay, well I guess next week we will resume and next week, just to give a brief preview, I'm going to talk about Dogen's discourse and rhetorical style and how it owes a lot to aspects of the Lotus Sutra and Mahayana ideas of enactment and performance and proclamation and the self-referential part of the Lotus Sutra. and illustrate that from various of Dogen's teachings and this whole business of how the Lotus Sutra refers to itself and how that relates to our Zazen. If I have time, I'll also talk more about vision and imagination and the fantastic Zen and Mahayana.

[95:48]

So, thank you all for listening. And we'll do it again next week.

[95:55]

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