Good evening, everyone. Welcome. So I was all prepared to give a talk this evening about Dogen and Zazen. And then this weekend, the president closed down all the airports and threatened people in our sangha. So I thought I should talk about that, too. I thought I should talk about that. And when I give dharma talks, I get kind of greedy, like a dharma billionaire, and I want to talk about everything. So I'm going to try and do a little of both. So I'll start out with case 86 from volume 9 of He Koroku Dogen's extensive record. And Dogen picks as his case. So this is very straightforward, simple case in some ways. Dogen quotes his teacher, Chantang Rujing. He says, Master Chantang said, practicing zen, or sanzen, is dropping off body and mind.

[01:07]

In Japanese, shinjin datsuraku. So that's the whole case. So he picks that as the koan case. And this is 90 case collection of koans. And often in Soto Zen, our Zazen is described as just sitting. That's a phrase that Dogen uses not very often. I mean, there are many ways of describing this practice we've just done of Zazen, of sitting meditation. Just sitting is one of them. But actually, probably the phrase that Dogen uses most often is dropping off body and mind. And there's a complicated, well, not so complicated. There's a story about that, that he heard this from, that he, well, actually, Dogen never mentions this story. There was a story later on that Dogen heard his teacher, Wu Jing, say this when he was studying with him in China and had some experience, some dramatic experience of awakening upon hearing it.

[02:13]

And that's a whole other story. But I just want to talk about this dropping off body and mind. Dogen writes first comments on each of these cases in his 90-case collection in the extensive record. And in this case, he says, playing with this wooden ladle, wind and waves arise with benefaction great and virtue deep. Rewards also deepen. Even when seeing the ocean dried up, cold down to the bottom, do not allow body to die, nor abandon the mind." So what is this dropping off body and mind? Dogen also uses it often as a synonym for zazen and for complete enlightenment. Dropping off body and mind. This is what Dogen says we've been doing. This is, in some sense, the aim of Zazen and the starting point of Zazen. Just dropping off body and mind.

[03:15]

Doesn't mean getting rid of body and mind. Let go of body and mind. So he says, playing with this wooden ladle. So that's an expression that he uses often for Zen implements. So when we do all day sittings like we will later this month, later next month on the 19th, ladles are used to serve soup to help nourish people sitting. It's a common Zen implement in monasteries. We have bells, we have cushions, and so forth, and candles. And he refers to practitioners as wooden ladles. Sometimes he refers to Buddhas as broken wooden ladles. And so we all are a little broken. We all are useful implements. We all are part of the hands and eyes and tools of skillful means of the bodhisattva of compassion.

[04:16]

Playing with this wooden ladle of dropping off body and mind, Dogen says, wind and waves arise. And they certainly do. With benefaction great and virtue deep, rewards also deepen. So there are benefits of our practice. And our practice benefits the people around us. So letting go of our idea of body and mind, of our attachments, coming from our stories about body and mind. We are able to be helpful in this world. We are able to be helpful rather than harmful in this world. Then he says, even when seeing the ocean dried up, cold down to the bottom, when we let go of our attachments to body and mind, do not allow, then he says, do not allow body to die, nor abandon the mind. So also we take care of body and mind. This doesn't mean just to take care of yourself.

[05:23]

In fact, the point is, dropping body and mind, we see that we are connected to all body, all mind. That we are one with all being. That this is the samadhi of all being. Dropping body and mind is to connect with all body and mind. one of our precepts is to benefit all beings. So we do this practice of sitting upright, facing the wall, facing ourselves, facing the wall not to keep anybody out, but to see our connection, our deep connection to all beings. Dropping off body and mind is to drop off all separation. And yet we also, don't allow this body to die, nor abandon this mind. We use our body, we use our mind to be helpful, to be respectful of all beings.

[06:24]

So there's much more to say about this case and verse. Just to say a little bit more, there's a controversy about This story, you know, that is later on, Dogen never talked about it, but later on they say that Dogen had this special satori experience when his teacher said this to him late at night in the meditation hall, and actually said it to somebody who was falling asleep sitting next to Dogen. And Dogen went to, the story goes, to his teacher. and said, body and mind is dropped, and his teacher said, yes, body and mind is dropped, and Dogen said, don't. don't say that so easily. And the teacher said, Rujing said, that's dropping drops. Anyway, letting go is subtle. How do we really let go of our attachments, of our connections, of our stories about who we are and what the world is? How do we connect most deeply to all body, all mind?

[07:28]

If from this seat, from this place, from this particular body-mind, and how do we take care of this body and mind, and not allow body to die, nor abandon the mind of ourselves and of everyone else. So, it's said that Rujing did not, and none of the Soto lineage before, Dogen actually used this phrase, shin-shin-da-tsu-raku, dropping off body and mind. However, Hongzhe, the important teacher a century before Dogen, who we're going to be studying in the practice period, spring practice period in April and May, says a couple of things that are almost like it. He says in his practice instructions, cultivating the empty field, simply dwell on the self and choose suchness, abandon conditioning, open-minded and bright without defilements, simply penetrate and drop off everything.

[08:34]

Today is not your first arrival here. So this is something that we already have, this possibility. Simply drop off everything. Hongzhe also says in another place, attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly, light and shadow altogether forgotten. Drop off your own skin and the sense dust will be fully purified, the eye readily discerning the brightness. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied. So drop off your own skin. So anyway, letting go is very subtle. How do we let go of our personal attachments and see our connection to everything and everybody? You know, it's true historically that this country's never lived up to its founding principles.

[09:43]

And yet, this country has also been about accepting people from all over. Sometimes some people have been brought over as slaves, people coming from Africa, and other people. But we're a country of immigrants. Even the Native Americans before the Europeans came from Asia before that. So Mr. Trump, this weekend, you know, in the name of protecting us from Muslims. had set up this ban of certain countries, not all Muslim countries. He exempted countries where he has business interests, like Saudi Arabia. I take it personally, because people in our Sangha are affected.

[10:48]

We have Muslims who are in our Sangha. We have people who are not United States citizens in our sangha, and family members of people in our sangha, and spouses and partners of people in our sangha who are foreign citizens. And all of those people are threatened because nobody knows what will happen if people with green cards or visas or who are foreign citizens leave and try and come back. So this is something I feel I have to speak to as a clergy person. I signed a statement of mostly Christian clergy persons, but now many so-to-say people have signed the statement criticizing this. airports around the country, including Chicago. Bo was there, went to the Chicago airport.

[11:50]

I don't know if anybody else from here went, but I'm going to call on Bo later to talk about that. I know Ben has been working on immigrant issues. There are many issues. There's so many issues that have been brought up. And there's so much to say. But one of the things that happened is, and I don't know what happened about this today, but there's what's called a constitutional crisis because various courts around the country in Washington, DC, and California, and Massachusetts, and other places, Washington state, said that this was unconstitutional and ordered, and maybe Bo or somebody else knows about what's happened with this today, but ordered the federal government authorities to allow people coming in from those countries, Syria particularly, to be let in, and they refused.

[12:54]

So there's a constitutional crisis now around that. There are other constitutional crises around Mr. Trump not releasing his business interests. So I talk about this in terms of precepts, in terms of our commitment in terms of the Bodhisattva practice to speaking truth, to benefiting all beings, to helping rather than harming, and to not being afraid, and to respectfulness. If any of you voted for Mr. Trump, I know that some people voted for Mr. Trump out of similar reasons why some people voted for Mr. Obama in 2008, because of feeling unhappy with the way our system works in general. But Mr. Trump also has appealed to hatred of minorities.

[13:58]

So this is difficult to talk about, but I feel like I need to talk about it and I want to make this a place where we can talk about this and try and talk about it respectfully. It's not a matter of blame, even to Mr. Trump. He's representing some part of what the whole Republican Party has been representing for some time, and not just the Republican Party, elements of the Democratic Party maybe too have enabled this. But this aspect of hating some people, this is going to inflame, if this is supposedly about protecting us from terrorists, this is certainly bound to inflame actual Islamic terrorists and help them to enlist more young Islamic potential terrorists to hate the United States.

[15:08]

This is a country that the chant we did about sameness and difference is very relevant to this. Each of us has our particular heritage, our particular way of seeing things, and yet there's also this unity of being, well, here, of being Zazen practitioners, but in the ideals of our country, of being committed to principles of liberty and justice for all. Now we have a government that's committed to government of, by, and for the billionaires. I just have to say it. So there's so many things to say about what's going on now, and we're in a crisis situation in our country.

[16:13]

And to pretend that that's not happening, is to ignore body and mind, not to drop off body and mind. So numbers of us went to the march in Chicago a week ago Saturday. And I think there's a tremendous energy of resistance to hatred in our country now. And I think we have something to offer to that. And I'm not saying that all of you should go out to demonstrations, although if you're so inclined, I think there's a way to do that that can be done from a perspective of practice, of calm, of uprightness. I don't think we can, I don't think Zazen is a way of hiding from the situations of our life and of the world.

[17:22]

Playing with this wooden ladle, wind and waves arise, with benefaction great and virtue deep. Rewards also deepen. How do we express respect and kindness. How do we respect caring about people who are being oppressed? So there are many, you know, if so far this is just about, supposedly just about Muslim people, you know, Mr. Trump said that there's made an exemption for Christians from these countries. They're supposedly being blocked. So that's, you know, directly against the principles of the country of religious equality. There's so much more to say. There's so much more that I could say about all the aspects of this. But maybe I'll say more.

[18:25]

But I wanted to call on Bo and then Ben. Bo, you were at the airport. Can you say something about how that was? Yeah. I went Saturday. It was very heartening. Now the rest of the TV, we will let the cops leave. And then, yeah, it was outside for a while. outcome of it.

[19:46]

are doing things they haven't done before. So yeah, and like the general, it felt like this thing over the course of the afternoon and evening on Saturday just kind of was happening. I mean, I know that, I think there was groundwork laid for it by different immigrant organizations and so forth, but then there was this spirit of spontaneity around it too, which feels to me new and different as well. These are, you know, I feel like pretty unprecedented kind of events, at least, you know, in my life. So... Yeah, I heard that in San Francisco, the San Francisco airport was totally occupied.

[21:20]

It was shut down for outgoing planes, for the international flights, the incoming planes. They were, of course, allowed to land. And so part of one aim of nonviolent demonstrations is to obstruct business as usual. And that's one mode of peacefully and nonviolently, but effectively actually having an impact, obstructing business as usual, and this may be a time to do that. Ben, do you want to add? I know you're working locally in terms of immigrant rights issues, and I know that the whole issue of sanctuary cities, which Chicago supposedly is. I was going to mention, I didn't mention, but I wanted to add before you speak, that another thing that happened last week is that Mr. Trump threatened, because Chicago is carnage, which I think means that African-American gangs in Chicago are carnage.

[22:27]

I think that's what he means. And he's not addressing that by gun laws, gun control laws, or providing more jobs or more educational opportunities. In fact, his new Secretary of Education is aiming at eliminating public education, in case you didn't know that. So he's going to send in the feds, is the way he put it. I think he's watched too many of the wrong kind of movies. So we may have federal troops in the streets of South Chicago as a way of ending the carnage. I'll talk about carnage. Anyway, this is a serious situation. Anyway, so the immigrant aspect of this, I've been to a bunch of meetings where I've been with immigrant rights organizers and people representing different parts of the immigrant community in Chicago, and they've made some really important points.

[23:32]

One important one, the terror in your sanctuary city gets thrown around rather loosely. It's important to understand what that means and what that doesn't mean. What that means is that the Chicago police force and other Chicago city employees will not status of people that they deal with. However, there are several caveats in that that actually allow the police, in certain circumstances, to share information with immigration and customs enforcement. And just because Chicago is a sanctuary city in this narrow sense, this does not mean that immigration and customs enforcement raids do not occur all the time. Several organizers also pointed out it's somewhat complicated to talk about Chicago being a sanctuary city when the Department of Justice just issued a report pointing out that the Chicago Police Force has been engaged in what an African-American and Latinos in the city already know, a consistent pattern of excessive use of force against Latinos and African-Americans.

[24:49]

So sanctuary in one sense. And that Illinois has been without a budget for an extended period of time now, so a lot of the services that immigrants rely upon have been systematically cut. So in those, if not many other ways, it's actually problematic. However, at the same time, maybe there's organizing going on with a lot of people in a lot of interesting ways. And the immigrant community, and the LGTBQ community, and the African-American community, people that I've talked to, and the Muslim community have all pointed out that all these communities have a long history of developing ways of protecting themselves. And that this is, in some ways, nothing new, that there are long traditions in which these communities seek to protect themselves from potential harm caused by others. Yeah, the response of resistance in terms of that, this is also a time of great potential.

[26:17]

So I want to just open this up. I think many of you may have comments, questions, responses, things to add. So please feel free. Jeremy. I'm just going to add something. You said that not only does our practice not look like one thing, but our response I was in practice of trying to figure out small ways I can move forward, whether it be donating a couple of dollars every month to a number of organizations if possible. I just want to say that. ACLU is a good one. Yeah, yeah. Response doesn't have to look like one thing. Absolutely not. and befriending Muslims. You know, I've tried to reach out to, you know, we have some Muslims in our sangha, but I've tried to reach out.

[27:23]

And I don't know if we can have some kind of Buddhist-Muslim dialogue. That may not be the point. There are various communities that are under threat now, and how do we respond? We are inclusive here. Everyone's welcome. You don't have to be a Buddhist to come and practice here. I just want to say that. I've said it many times before. If you're interested in Buddhism, I talk about that, but you can come and just sit with us. But yes, Jeremy, that's right. There's lots of ways to respond. And just, you know, the point is, how do we express kindness and love? But for some of us, you know, if you're interested in demonstrations, I'll tell you about that, or contacting Congress people or whatever. Other comments? And one other thing, because I know Jeremy, you raised it to me privately, you know, there's a lot of fear, potentially now, and that's part of how bullies work.

[28:35]

And I'm determined to not be afraid and to talk about this. I think, you know, being afraid to, of what, you know, It's going to happen to Ancient Dragon if we're open about talking about this stuff. They win when we do that. So I just need to say that. Yeah, Ben. that one of the most troubling aspects of what happened to political crisis in our society was the polarization, and that people stopped talking to each other, and stopped listening to each other, and stopped trying to have conversations. And so I think the real fundamental thing to do when it's difficult is to try to keep having conversations even with people who we've sort of paid them to, like, disagree with.

[29:48]

Also, to Jeremy's point, Yeah, a variation on that.

[31:15]

is that amongst the many things the White House website has shut down, all reference to climate, all reference to LGBTQ, and so forth, all reference to the EPA being shut down, they've also shut down the White House comment line. Like, they don't want to hear what anybody has to say. But since Trump is still profiting from his businesses, I heard the suggestion to call Trump Tower, call the Trump hotels, call the Trump businesses, and talk to the people there about his policies, because they represent his business, which is still connected to the White House. So that's a creative way of talking about, giving him feedback, giving his people feedback. Yes, David. so hard to do is not to demonize everybody or anyone.

[32:20]

And I drive a lot in the car, and I was fortunate to listen to Tony Sarabia on WBEZ this morning. We had people calling in. And there were people who were pro-Trump who were calling in about this. And the way he handled it was such a plumb that he didn't demonize anybody. And when somebody made a question of fact that was inaccurate, he would point that out, but not say, you're wrong. The moment we say, you're wrong, we've lost. They've created a hate, and we're falling. And that's, I think, one of the hardest things for us to do is These people, let alone as people who are practicing Zazen, practicing Zen, just be able to go up to people and just be kind to them and try to listen to them and hear what their fears are. Obama said it in his farewell speech that, you know, there is a 65 year old white guy somewhere who voted for Trump because he

[33:22]

And we have to reach out to those people in whatever way we can. And at the same time, do things like call the White House and call the hotel and do all that, but also be able to be open and not to demonize. And I think that's a very important thing to remember. It's very challenging times, yeah. Other reflections, comments, or questions about dropping body and mind? Yes, Evel? It's a good question, yeah.

[34:27]

There's a balance there. There's an aspect of our practice that is focusing. I mean, I think a starting point is we have to sit. So it's a dynamic practice. It looks like we're just sitting there dully, kind of whatever happens. It's not just sitting in the sense of whatever happens is OK. On some level, yeah, whatever happens is OK. But also, paying attention. So part of it is kind of focusing, concentrating, looking at what's going on. But it's not holding on to that. It's just a dropping body in mind. It's subtle. It's letting go, but it's not letting go that's pushing away. So there's this kind of balancing of focus and opening. That's another way to talk about it. Focus on, you know, as you're sitting facing the wall, it's not that you're looking at one point on the wall.

[35:32]

It's that you're aware of the whole thing. And then whatever stories are coming up, whatever thoughts and feelings, You know, we all have these patterns. I mean, that's our usual idea, our usual story of body and mind. That body and mind that we're attached to as a self is there all the time. And doing this practice regularly and consistently, it starts to loosen. But there still has to be the focus. So it's a kind of dynamic balance. where we go into the focus, but we're also allowing it to let go. And we have to find that balance point. And it's not about some perfect balance. It's a dynamic balance. So we come back to posture. We come back to upright. We come back to just how does it feel.

[36:32]

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's right. The balancing act is kind of shifting all the time. So in terms of the stuff we're talking about now and what's going on with the government and all, There's also the balance of paying attention to that, responding to it, if we're called to it, going out to the airport because people are in trouble, but also not getting so caught up in it that we lose ourself, you know.

[37:40]

taking care of washing the dishes and taking out the garbage and doing the stuff we need to do for our own life. And at the same time, there's a crisis happening. How do we take care of the people around us? So that's another kind of balance. But I think it's analogous to the balance we learn on our cushion. Focusing, letting go, dropping body and mind is a way of talking about that kind of dynamic. You know, so those are just words, but it's this kind of opening, opening that also has this aspect of being willing to pay attention. And it happens in our everyday activity and how we take care of our relationships and our work and our family life and our weekly schedule and all that too. So yeah. how we apply the balancing that we learn on the cushion to, you know, the question that Jeremy brought up about how do we, you know, we don't all have the same way of responding to what's going on in the world, but we have to

[38:56]

But we see that we have to pay attention because it's affecting us. It is affecting people in our sangha. People in our sangha have lost their jobs since Trump was elected. People in our sangha are afraid of what's going to happen if they go back to their home country or if their spouses do. It affects us. But how do we also stay in taking care of our you know, weekly activities. So it's, yeah, it's this balancing thing, and it requires our attention. And how we respond has to be creative, as Bo was saying. So this is an ongoing, you know, we're going to be talking about this, we're going to be responding to this for a long time.

[39:47]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ