I don't know what it is, but the last two or three years when I first come back to Creston, I'm allergic to something. Maybe I should try to find out what it is. But for the first week or two, my eyes and nose, my face runs. So I'll need about five boxes of Kleenex around me. You outdid yourself by giving me especially ultra cold. I don't know what it is. He bought me a bunch of Kleenex books. They look fine. I haven't opened them yet. Yeah. What a wonderful way to be greeted when I first come back by all of you. And what made Dan think of this? But Dan thought of it and proposed it to me, so how could I resist? And I've been looking forward to it for some months now, coming back.

[01:02]

So I asked Dan if he'd say something for a little bit, what made him think of doing this and what he'd like to see. When I first discovered it, it... I know in the early days that Tatsuharu Suzuki Roshi often included Dovin in his lectures, and that's when I first met Suzuki Roshi. But going way back into my memory, I recall that I stayed at the Kokowa Zen-do in Honolulu, a Zen-do that was established by Robert E. Kennedy in the early 60s before I went to Japan. And at that time, Robert Aitken had worked up a broadside, I believe, with Kaz Tanahashi's translation of the Genjū-Kō. And so it was something that we read periodically from time to time in our Zazen-kai weekend meetings.

[02:12]

And I also had the opportunity to study with Yasutani Roshi a little bit. And he comes from a mixed Rinzai and Soto lineage, and he, of course, also spoke of Dogen a lot and included in his Sashin instructions those who were so inclined, as I found myself, to Shikantaza, which is something that's central, at least a very integral part of Dogen. So from my earliest days of encountering Zen practice, Dogen has been there. And I guess I really began to whiten my appetite with Suzuki Roshi's Lectures at Tesahara. And it, of course, presented by Suzuki Roshi, who embodied so much of, so clearly, these wonderful teachings that it really did inspire me to take it further.

[03:15]

At that time in the mid-60s, there was not a lot of help in English. And I guess he was aware, Suzuki Roshi must have been aware of my interest in Dogen because when I finally took the pre-straightenation event, the name that he gave to me in Kronkow means something like turning toward Duncan, following the way. Anyway, that intensified it a little bit more. Then, after he died, and I was living in San Francisco, under Baker Roshi's auspices, we founded the Mountain Gate Study Center. which was a way to both for those of us who were so-called senior students to further our learning and study of these matters to take on

[04:16]

While various of us students took on different things, somebody took on the study of the Abhidharma and the various interests, I was always drawn to the study of it. And one of the things that I did, I availed myself to at that time, Carl Bierfeld, who did this wonderful translation that we will be looking at. This was in the early mid-70s, was living in Berkeley, I believe working on his doctorate. of which this was an offshoot of this, Doug and his community was an offshoot of. And I had the opportunity, more or less once a week, one afternoon a week, to go over to Berkeley and to go over the text that I would be working on at the Zen Center, in classes there, to go over it in some detail with Carl. And one of the things that I loved about Carl is that he had these wonderful language skills. He could read He read the Dōgen in this classical Japanese. He could also read, over the centuries, the various people, Zen teachers in our lineage who commented on Dōgen.

[05:25]

And as well, Carl could read the Chinese source material that Dōgen was reading and studying and referencing in his Shōbō Genza. Anyway, during that time in San Francisco, Of course, Baker Rushing was so busy doing many things and there were so many students, there were hundreds of students, that we... I was hoping, and it didn't happen too often, to have the opportunity to study these things with him, but it didn't turn out that way quite. Anyway, so one of the things that I have so wanted to do with, um, is to find an opportunity to take on some study of Dogen, which of course incorporates The great depth of study and research, of course, coming out of the practice that Roshi has, I believe, if I may say, his love of the Chinese, Tang Dynasty columns, and so forth, of which there are many collections that he's

[06:37]

given detailed studies of which, in my wanderings of the world, I missed. So when we discussed this past spring how we might do some kind of in-depth study in a conversation that he and I had, we came up with the idea of weaving some of those Chinese koan studies into the doga, which is... Anyway, so this is more or less what I've got. Thank you, Dan. Russell, could I have a glass of water, please? Hi, everyone.

[07:56]

Yeah, I can remember when I first started practicing with Sukeroshi, he used to suggest to me that I study Dogen at the university. Of course, nobody even hardly knew who Dogen was at Berkeley when I was in graduate school. And that I should translate Dogen and stuff like that. And he, I think, wanted Dan to do that too. He wanted Paul Rosenblum to do that. And thanks. Both Paul and Dan were. better equipped to do it than myself. And I didn't, I actually didn't, until I read David Chadwick's biography of Sukhya Rishi, which is quite good I think, and will be out in February with a mad rush.

[09:08]

I went through the whole thing for him, and I went through all the Dogen Sukershi quotations and edited them. But anyway, he's done a wonderful job, and I think you'll all like it. In fact, they may... I should tell you now before I forget, they're going to try to get us some copies. So if you sign up at some point, we might be able to get some here. They'll be maybe in hardbound for a year or more, depending on how it sells. And maybe if we can't get them for free, they're going to try, but that's too optimistic. I'm pretty sure we can get them for 40% off or something. Anyway, I didn't realize what he was asking me, because he never actually put pressure on me, he just would mention everything.

[10:11]

But it turns out that his main scholastic, scholarly teacher was a man named Kishizawa Roshi. And Kishizawa Roshi was the main heir of a Dogen lineage within the Soto school. And Kishizawa's Roshi's teacher was the previous kind of holder of the Dogen lineage within the Soto shu. So, now I realize, when I think back, that he was wanting me to do that. I mean, geez. But he wanted somebody, so he had to take what he could get. But, uh, But I made a decision not to do it. I mean, I think if I realized what he was asking and the position he held... He was always very funny.

[11:13]

I have this piece by Tanahashi-sensei. Have you seen this little piece he did? Two pages. It's a funny little anecdotal thing he wrote. I think I have it here. I brought it from Johanneshoff. Where he talks to Tsutsurushi... In the days when I studied with Suzuki Roshi, we went through the whole Genjo koan. I mean, we went through the whole Blue Cliff Records, a hundred cases. And this he went through with his teacher, Kishizawa Roshi, as well. So that's mainly what I studied with him, plus other things, and I emphasized the Abhidharma. I'm talking about this because, you know, it's not just studying it, but putting our study in a context, so I'm talking about the context now.

[12:15]

Anyway, this little piece, if I find it, I'll give it to you. Kaz said, Because Kaz comes to us through, he was, he translated 12th century, 13th century Dogen into contemporary Japanese. And so he showed up, he says I met him in, I don't know where I met him, but I met him a long time ago. We became friends, and the Zen Center supported him for a long time, to just study and do scholarship. But in any case, when he first met Sukhiroshi, he said to Sukhiroshi, do you teach Dogen? He said, I don't understand Dogen well enough, so we have to study koans. But this was typical of Sukhiroshi, of...

[13:21]

being the heir of this Dogen lineage and yet saying he didn't understand Dogen well enough to teach it. But then later he did talk about Dogen and he did talk about Dogen all the time a lot and illustrated his lectures on koans with Dogen. Why I didn't is Maybe if Sukershi had been younger and I'd been younger, I might have done it, but I felt I had so little time with Sukershi, I just wanted to concentrate on practicing with him. And I knew if I went to the university, it would be full-time. I was in the university already, but if I then took on a program, it would mean I couldn't spend time with him the way I did, because I spent almost some time every day with him for a long time. And... And that was more important to me, because there was always this threat of his going back to Japan and so forth.

[14:27]

But I also had a feeling of... Practice has got to be... If we're going to do practice in the United States, it can't be based on scholarship, individual scholarship. I mean, I certainly recognize that... the immense depth and range of, over centuries, of the scholarship that allowed Buddhism to come into China, and how much we depend in the West, too, on the many books since I started practicing which have been translated, and many of them quite well now. In the early days, translations were pretty bad, but now they seem to be very good. But anyway, part of a parallel decision, along with feeling I didn't have much time with Sukharshi and that time was more precious than studying, in an academic way, I also felt I want to see if practice can be done just from being with Sukharshi and from practice itself, not necessarily knowing anything.

[15:51]

I don't know if I've succeeded. I've succeeded at not knowing much. But we'll see. Time will tell whether the way we're practicing together makes sense. But I felt that if I... Like, there are some scholars around who are very good. It's very clear for them, unless you know, you know, sort of 10th century Chinese and 12th century Japanese. There's no hope. There's no Westerner who can understand Buddhism. And I didn't want to, although I was in a position to do scholarship, I wanted to do formal scholarship, I felt then people, if we have some practice together, people think they have to do that too. And I didn't want that to be the case. Yeah. So this is to say... Also, that, you know, I'm not a scholar and I don't know the original languages.

[17:04]

I was asked to do the introduction to, years ago, the Blue Cliff Records when it first came out. And I said I wouldn't do it because I didn't know the original language. I didn't think I should write the introduction if I didn't know the original language. But I do feel confident enough, at least, in studying, practicing Dogen with you. And... But if someone was here who knew the Japanese of Dogen's time well, like if Kaz was here or Carl, you know, they might have... They definitely have things to offer us. But at the same time, I might disagree with them from the point of view of practice. Usually I would agree with them. And they might disagree with me. So what we're doing here in studying Dogen is we're not trying to study Dogen as what did he really mean.

[18:14]

Sukershi said 80% of Dogen is application anyway. Application meaning historical circumstances in which he taught. What we're studying is really our studying of Dogen. using Dogen as a, trying to understand what he meant, and also, and trying to understand what we would mean if we said the same thing. And I, you know, I like this anecdote about Dogen that at one point he, in some place, although I don't know, I've never seen it, but at some point he turned a kanji, a character, upside down. to express something that he couldn't express by leaving it right side up. And there's at least one or two points where he said, the traditional translation is such and such, but this isn't right, I know, and so it should be such and such.

[19:22]

And now contemporary scholarship has proved that in these cases he was right, that his own understanding was better than the traditional translation. So I think what I'm saying is we'll do the best we can, but we also in the end have to trust our own practice in understanding these things. In this biography, this little anecdote about Sukershi at Komazawa Buddhist University, one of his teachers said, academic study is explaining things. True study is letting things explain themselves inside you. We'll try to let things explain themselves inside us. Now, does everyone have a copy of...

[20:32]

The Lancet of Meditation. Did you Xerox one and send it out? What did we do? We were hoping that people would find out how to acquire them. Is there anybody who doesn't have one? You all got the book? Everyone did? Okay. So we'll probably, maybe tomorrow, I think the best thing is to actually look at it sort of line by line. I don't know how far we'll get. We might get to third lines this weekend or something like that. And it might be good, maybe we could try putting out the low tables or a couple in here and see if that helps. I don't know. We're trying to figure out how to make a room like this work a seminar. A man named Richard Ashcroft of a group called Verve, rock and roll group.

[21:46]

I read this somewhere. I don't know the music. But he said something like, this article I read, he said something like, there must be something. He stopped being a drug addict and so on and so forth. And he said, there must be something, he says, there must be something there in all this corruption that makes life worth living or something like that. And Ezra Pound says something like in Camptown 95, in the midst of this organized movement and he's referring to government as organized cowardice and institutions. He says, in the midst of all this organized cowardice, there is something decent in the universe. And I think Dogen is basically saying the same thing as these two guys, but he has a little different resources.

[22:49]

And so I'm asking ourselves, and I think each of us ask ourselves these kinds of questions, and what... So what I'd like us to think about is how does Dogen answer this same question? Now we have these wonderful facilities here, Crestone and also in Yohannesov now, and we've never done anything quite like this before, so I like this as an experiment to find out if we can do something like this and how we should do it. Because, again, we have this place, and if we can together think of ways in which to study and practice together, develop our study and practice together, this is at least one experiment in that direction.

[23:52]

Now, this morning, there were a group of college students from Colorado College. Twenty or so, was it? Fifteen. Fifteen? Fifteen. Anyway, they're part of a large part of the Zender this morning. Some of them sat pretty well. Some of them wiggled quite a lot. But I think we had to sit 40 minutes, two 40-minute periods, and that's pretty long for, you know, freshmen, Zen freshmen, you know. And I gave some Zazen instruction while we were sitting. I said a few things, simple things. And I said... Something like, sitting zazen is introducing, I don't know if that would be different than I said this morning, but I said something like, sitting zazen is introducing your body to your true body.

[25:18]

Or introducing, educating your body, or coming to know a body of clarity and energy, something like that. And I also said that 40 minutes was a long time to sit, but if we were asleep, 40 minutes is not very long to be still. In fact, sometimes even longer than 40 minutes we can be still when we're sleeping. So it's not our body that's the problem, or at least part of the problem is our consciousness that makes it hard to sit still. And so that's, you know, fairly common size and instructions for me to give. But it does raise some questions. I don't know, do we have two bodies?

[26:23]

What do I mean introducing your body to your body? And is your posture a body? This is all brought up in Dogen's Seated Buddha. Are you sitting zazen or seated Buddha? How can a posture educate us? What could Dogen mean by that? I think it's a radical idea. You know, and nobody, this, this, what, what Carl Bielfeldt in his book and his translation tries to approach is nobody understands very well.

[27:32]

I've talked to Tom Cleary about it. I've talked to Carl about it. No one's quite sure how to translate things like not, not thinking and non-thinking or what they really mean by it and so forth. And, um, So I think, for me, I approach Dogen with some, like I was approaching something unknown and precious. You know, I'm not sitting here thinking I know or we know or we're going to find out, but I think we can approach this. This is the nature of something like this because Dogen found a way uniquely in Buddhist history to be quite philosophical, and at the same time put his guts, you know, open his mouth, open his writing so you see his guts. And yet at what point, so there's something that goes beyond him in what he's writing.

[28:37]

And so there's probably no end to it, you know. And I want us to look at it also in the larger context of Dogen's writings, to the extent we can this weekend, with a few things, like the first sentence of the Genjo Koan, which is his kind of most... Usually the fascicle taken is the most quintessential expression of his teaching. He says, as all things are the Buddhadharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, birth and death,

[29:46]

Buddhas and sentient beings. And I think for us practicing, we can read that not just as all things, but when for us, when all things are the Buddhadharma, there is practice, birth and death, delusion and realization, and Buddhas and sentient beings. Now if we just take a phrase like that, then he goes on to say, the Buddha way is to leap beyond the many and the one. This is Dogen sort of trying to do what he does. But let's just stick with that first sentence. Win all things of the Buddha Dharma. we could do nothing else for the next year or two.

[30:51]

When all things are the Buddha Dharma, what's Buddha Dharma and when are all things Buddha Dharma and what does that mean? And can you realize? I mean, to practice in the way Dogen intended, we do have to go very slowly. He expected us to read a different way. In fact, if you really want to study something like this, You don't go to all until you've finished with when. So you could just practice with when, with a sense of this moment as a when. All things when? All? I mean, how does this when all things? And when are all things also the Buddha Dharma? And when that's the case, there are both Buddhas and sentient beings.

[31:52]

You're not just here with sentient beings. You also live in a world in which Buddhas are possible, in which you can imagine a Buddha being present in our age or here. If you can't imagine a Buddha being present here, in our age, the Buddhism doesn't really mean anything. with some antiquarian study. That's certainly not what Dogen intended. And what the West needs for sure are people who make practice their life and people who make life their practice. Make their life. make their life practice. And both kinds of commitments and visions, efforts, support each other.

[33:02]

But Dogen is really speaking to that, not a practice of well-being, but a practice of non-being. I mean, there's nothing wrong with well-being, but Dogen was interested in the practice of non-being because he wanted to continue the lineage. And when you do transmission, one of the things you study that's transmitted is the architecture of the monastery, the architecture of a practice place. Because you should know how a practice place works, what are the procedures, how people practice in it.

[34:05]

There are other things, there are six or seven things that should be transmitted, but one of them, interestingly, is how you design a monastery. how you put buildings together, how you make it work. Because the place where you practice, the site of practice, that supports practice, is part of the lineage and how you continue the lineage. And that's implicit in what Dogen is writing and talking about. So we can work on when we feel that a Buddha is... Buddhas aren't just some kind of nice creatures from the past, but are an actual possibility for you and an actual possibility within our society. Only then are all things the Buddha Dharma. So it works both ways.

[35:07]

When all things are the Buddha Dharma, there's practice and birth and death and realization and delusion. There's mostly, when you don't know things of the Buddha Dharma, there's mostly just delusion, Dogen would say. Yeah. So I think while this weekend we should have in mind this, when all things of the Buddha Dharma and, and Another phrase I'd like to give you from Dogen is, he says, the true human body is the coming and going of life and death. So in this lancet, I mean he's, and with Basso and Nanako, there's this

[36:07]

emphasis on the body in a way I think quite unusual in our society, a kind of somatic intelligence, a trust in a somatic intelligence. And again, Dogen doesn't make any sense unless you come to a feeling in yourself of... and a trust of somatic intelligence. But the true human body is the coming and going of life and death, he says. Now, this is the last thing I'll say this evening. As I've said many times before, and I've talked about this phrase occasionally, a body in Buddhism doesn't mean the stuff.

[37:21]

It means what makes the stuff alive. If there was a corpse here in front of us, that's not a body. What makes that alive is a body. Dogen says the coming and going of life and death is a true human body, but what makes this alive is not... What are the boundaries of what makes this alive? I mean, there's food and clouds and other people and your parents and friends and teaching and so forth. So there's no boundaries of what makes this alive. So Dogen says to express this no boundaries, this body of no boundaries, he says it's the entirety of the coming and going of birth and death. The true human body is the coming and going of birth and death.

[38:24]

And Dogen expects you to... Now when I look at you, I see my true human body. And this isn't just an idea. Again, if you don't... get the feeling of this and what Dogen means, really means by this, is not just kind of words you skim over, then you can't go very far in trying to understand what he's talking about. So this is something else we could work on. When you hear something, you hear your true human body. When you see something, you see your true human body. That kind of knowing. And then he says... The next sentence is, the coming and going of birth and death is the true human body. And the coming and going of birth and death is where ordinary people drift about. And drifting about is a good translation for the word samsara.

[39:29]

So when you drift about, coming and going of birth and death is the true human body. And the coming and going of birth and death is where ordinary people drift about and where great sages are illuminated. So it's exactly the same situation. It's where... Because, you know, you also have to understand in this Dogen's view, because his view of what the world is, is inseparable from a statement like this, and his view of the world is that there's nothing outside this system. There's no outside creator, outside place. Whatever is, is here and is included in everything. So this is all we got. And it's both where we drift about or where we're illuminated. I like the wisdom in words, the hidden wisdom in a word like trivial, which means three roads, trivia,

[40:38]

So it means trivial things are actually a choice. Because you come to a point where it goes like that. There's also, I've mentioned this then, saying, when you come to a fork, take it. That's to leap clear of the one and the many. So, when all things are the Buddha Dharma, when all things are a choice, when all things are a Dharma gate or a samsara gate, when all things are where ordinary people drift about and simultaneously where great sages are limited, what is the difference? Does Richard Ashcroft know?

[41:42]

Probably not. Does Ezra Pound know? He didn't seem to. Do we know? I don't know. I think we've got a chance. At least on this path we have the resources, our provisions. We have the provisions. So when we sit tomorrow morning, we bring our true human body to the sitting, as sitting Zazen and seated Buddha. We can try to look at, not by my talking, but look at the text tomorrow. And what I'd like to do is, want to do is have as much discussion among each other as possible about this.

[42:49]

Because I think that discussion and hearing each other is more fruitful than hearing me. And maybe I should not participate in some of the discussion because maybe the discussion will be freer if I'm not there. But if it seems free when I'm there, maybe I'll stay. So we'll see. I don't know quite how to... In Europe, when I do seminars, practice weeks and other things, which are a mixture of sitting and discussion, I leave part of the time. So the discussion happens. And partly also, people can all speak German, so I don't have to worry about my ineptitudes. But anyway, we'll have to see tomorrow how it goes. But anyway, I'd like to look at the text in some detail and try to understand what Dogen means by seated Buddha.

[43:58]

So to all you seated Buddhas, good night. May our intentions be believed as a trait of greed.

[44:20]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_86.04