Good morning, and welcome, everyone. I'm Taigen Leighton, the teacher here at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. This morning, I want to talk about one of the most important texts, best known texts, from Ehei Dogen, the founding teacher of this branch of Buddhism commonly called Soto Zen. who lived in the early 13th century in Japan and brought this tradition from China to Japan. So Genjo Koan, you're welcome to follow along in your chant book, pages 16 to 18. Genjo Koan, in the translation we use, is called Actualizing the Fundamental Point. I'll talk more about this word Genjo Koan later. So for some of you, this will be a review Most of you, this will be an introduction to this text. And I'm just going to hit a few of the parts of the text that I consider most important.

[01:13]

But we'll have time for discussion, and you're welcome to bring up other parts of the text if you'd like. So this is a text written early in Dogen's teaching career, which extended from 1233 to 1253, the first decade in Kyoto. The second decade, he moved way up north into the mountains and founded the temple Heiji. which is still one of the headquarters temples of Soto Zen. Anyway, I want to start with the second paragraph. So just a few sentences. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

[02:16]

Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion, throughout delusion. So actually, all you need to know about Buddhism is in those three sentences. You can forget. I mean, there are libraries full of other things about Buddhism, and a lot of it very good. But if you just remember those three sentences, then that's enough, actually. So to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. This is our usual way of being. We carry ourselves. That is to say, we carry, well, what is ourselves? We carry what? how we think of the world, we carry our projections, we carry our usual preconceptions, our usual idea of the world and ourself and this self and our sense of the world that we have concocted from

[03:28]

all kinds of things, from our education, from our genetics, from our experience, everything that we think of as the self. We bring that forward and project that onto all of our experience of all the myriad things so-called out there. And this is what Dogen defines as delusion. So this is a very clear definition of delusion. On the other hand, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening, or sometimes called enlightenment. That everything arises and experiences, that all the different things come forth and experience themselves. That's what we call awakening. Now, that's not something that happens outside. We are part of that. That's not some external object. All the different things arise and experience themselves.

[04:29]

We are part of all the myriad things. We are a piece of all the myriad things. When we see that there's nothing outside or inside, when everything arises just as it is, and during a period of zazen, all kinds of things are happening. We are thinking and so forth. There are experiences that we have. We inhale and we exhale and we face the wall and we have visual sensation and we hear. It's not so much to hear in this meditation hall, but we can hear sounds. Anyway, all of that, everything that arises and all the thoughts about what we're going to do tonight, and what happened yesterday, and so forth and so on. Everything that arises, all of our experience. The sound of a truck going by. And as we go out from the meditation hall, everything that happens, when it all arises and experiences itself, experiences all that, when everything experiences everything, that's what's called awakening.

[05:45]

So Dogen goes on to say that those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhists. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. So Buddhists are those who are greatly awakened about their delusions. So what's difficult about sitting for 30 or 40 minutes and just facing ourselves and facing the wall and facing all things is that we see our delusions. We see our confusion. And to be really awakened and clear and face and accept and be present with our delusions, that's what's called Buddha. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings or deluded beings. So to have lots of delusions about enlightenment, that's what's called delusions. So again, that's a very handy sentence to remember.

[06:56]

But then he says, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization who are in delusion throughout delusion. So the point of our practice is not to get rid of delusion and get a hold of awakening. Oh yeah, now this is it. This is the big enlightenment. No. We don't try and we don't have some preference for awakening and get rid of delusion. Awakening is to be awake to both, to be present in delusion, throughout delusion, to go on awakening beyond awakening. So one of Dogen's favorite phrases is about Buddha going beyond Buddha. So awakening is not some one-time experience or understanding or realization and then we're finished. No. Awakening is an ongoing process. So again, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion.

[08:02]

To project yourself and your own ideas onto all the different things, that's delusion. that everything comes forth and experiences everything itself, all the different things, is awakening, including us, including our delusions. Those who are greatly awakened to delusions, to their delusions, to all delusions, that's what's called Buddha. Those who are greatly deluded about realization or enlightenment are deluded beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing, who continue awakening, beyond awakening, and who are in delusion, throughout delusion, who are completely willing to be deluded throughout their delusions. So again, these three sentences are worthy of Deep study.

[09:05]

And you can ignore the rest of this text and just focus on those three sentences. But of course, I'm going to say some more about some of the other things. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, he goes on to say, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. Buddhas don't go around saying, hey, I'm Buddha. When you see Buddhists walking down the street, they're not going around with a sign saying, hey, I'm Buddha. They don't do that. However, there are actualized Buddhists who go on actualizing Buddha and awakening again and again. So again, that paragraph, you could just memorize those first three sentences, and that's enough. But I'll say some more. And I want to leave some time for discussion and responses and questions. But I'm going to skip a paragraph and go to the one that says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. This may be the most famous statement by Dogen.

[10:09]

To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. The trace of realization, no trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So to study the Buddha way is to study the self. That sentence also is just enough. When we sit facing the wall upright, inhaling and exhaling and enjoying our inhale and exhale and facing the wall and facing ourselves and facing all things, this is to study the self. That's what's happening on your seat, where there's this self that is delusion and that is awakening, that is not separate from the myriad things arising.

[11:10]

So again, it says then to study the self is to forget the self. And I think Zen students sometimes think that, oh, I should forget the self. But studying the self is itself to forget the self. When you really are paying attention to what's going on on your seat, that is studying the self. And that is forgetting the self, because you're not You're not constructing some new self. You're just, oh, what's going on here? It's kind of like phenomenology, to put it in Western philosophical terms. You're looking at what's going on here. Study the self. And in that way, there's a forgetting of the self, which is to be actualized by myriad things. Again, that's the myriad things coming forth and experiencing themselves. You go beyond your idea of the self. You're actually there really studying the self.

[12:18]

Now I want to talk about this word study here, but just to finish that paragraph, when actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the body and mind of others, of all beings, drop away. So it doesn't mean that we get rid of this body and we get a lobotomy or something. It means that our idea, our attachment to this body and this mind drops away. So this dropping off body and mind, letting go of body and mind, this letting go is another important phrase for Dogen. And so again, there's no trace of realization. We don't walk out and say, hey, I'm Buddha. There's no trace. This not holding on to realization continues endlessly. So this studying the self, studying the Buddha way, this is to not be caught by subject and object.

[13:31]

It's not that you are studying some self over there. So Buddhism, and especially in Dogen's teaching, we talk about non-dualism. It's not subject studying object. That's a false distinction. That's our usual, so our usual grammar. In most languages, certainly in English, we think in terms of subject, verb, object. And we're caught in that. Our usual way of being in the world is subjects verbing objects or trying not to be verbed by subjects out there. We're caught in that kind of discriminative thinking. It's not that that kind of discriminative thinking can be useful.

[14:33]

We can use that for beneficial purposes. It's not that you should get rid of discriminative thinking. But to not be caught by it, to not be caught by subject-verb-object, is what this studying the Buddha way and studying the self is about. So this gets back to Genjo Kōan. This studying is not a discursive studying. This is this physical studying, this yogic studying. So this is a physical practice. We sit upright. We enjoy our inhale. We feel our exhale. We appreciate the space at the end of the exhale. We sit upright. We sit like Buddha. We sit as Buddha. Whether we're sitting cross-legged or kneeling or in a chair, we are sitting as Buddha. This is a physical practice, a yogic practice.

[15:34]

So genjo koan, genjo means to manifest or express. Koan, the word koan, as many of you know, is used for these old teaching stories that come from ancient China. And teaching stories are still being created, but these koans are objects of, you know, Dogen was an expert in this traditional body of teaching stories, he was a master of that, and he uses them, he talks about them in many of his writings, and we study these traditional teaching stories, many of them from the 800s in China, the great masters back then. They go beyond our usual subject-verb-object logic, which is part of why they're so valuable. They cut directly through our usual sense of logic. They have their own kind of logic, the logic of awakening.

[16:38]

And they're about direct pointing to mind beyond subject, verb, object, beyond words and letters we say. Although then there are libraries full of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries and so forth. So we have a library back there with many, many commentaries about the koans and commentaries on those commentaries. Anyway, that's not what the Genjo Koan koan means here, though. Koan also means just what's most important. So Genjo Koan as a combined word, as Dogen is using it here, means to express what's most important, to express what's most important right now in each situation. So when Dogen says to study the Buddha ways, to study the self, he's talking about, he's using, actually, genjokon is a verb, to genjokon each situation, to genjokon

[17:42]

The question that may come up in zazen, or the question that's the problem that is in your life this week or this month or that you're dealing with this year or this lifetime, it's a verb, to examine, to study. So it's a physical study, a yogic study, to genjo koan, what's going on? So that's why to study, the self is to forget the self. It's beyond you or me or any individual. It's this genjo koan-ing. What's happening as I'm sitting here? How do I take care of the situation that's the problem this week? Some situation with a co-worker, or a friend, or a family member, or some problem in my life. How do I genjo koan that? How do I get to the heart of that? And how do I open that up? And how do I see the myriad of things coming forth and experiencing themselves in that situation?

[18:50]

So this is the genjo koaning of that. So in some ways, I feel like it's enough for me to just say that. But there's a few other passages in this text that I'll mention. A couple paragraphs after this, Doken says, when you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eye closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent, but when you practice intimately in return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So this is about how we imagine, how we project ourselves forward and experience the myriad things. We think that we are some stable self, that this boat is.

[19:53]

The shore is moving, you know, and we're here. But actually, everything is changing. So there's more I could say about that, but I'm going to keep going to the next part that I want to talk about. A little further on, he says, enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dew drops on the grass or even in one drop of water. So this is a metaphor for myriad things come forth and experience themselves. In each thing, the whole is there. All of awakening is in each situation when we can jako on it. We can use each situation. At the end of that, a little further down, he says, each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

[21:02]

So Dogen's writings are very poetic. He also has writings that are poetry, but even his prose writings are poetic. The next sentence is one that is also one of the, you know, key passages in this text, when dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. So when dharma means the teaching or the truth or reality itself, when dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. So that happens sometimes. That's OK. When we're not really completely filled with reality, we might think, oh, everything's OK. And this is maybe our common way of being. And maybe that's OK. However, when dharma, when the truth, when the teaching fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.

[22:10]

This seems counterintuitive, maybe, from our usual logic. Something is missing. So this is pointing to what we sometimes call the first noble truth. Sometimes that's translated as the truth of suffering. It's not. That's sort of an adequate translation. It's that there's lack, that there's a misalignment at the heart of the way things are. Things are changing. Even if you solve some problem, something new will come up, or somebody else will give you their problem. So we're alive. The world is alive. things are changing and there is loss, there is sadness as part of the reality.

[23:22]

When Dharma fills our body and mind, something is missing. And, you know, so there's some sadness. Sometimes there's big sadness, sometimes the world is a real mess and there are Wars and famine and suffering, massive suffering all over. Wildfires driving 100,000 people out of their homes in Los Angeles or whatever. But even when things seem to be working, something's missing. Dogen gives an example of this. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular. It does not look any other way. And this is not just true of oceans. So have any of you gone out into Lake Michigan where you can't see any of the land around?

[24:25]

I haven't done this, but I understand that it's possible to be in the middle of Lake Michigan and not see Michigan or Illinois. Eric Shaking said yes. So when you get out to that place, it looks like it's this big circle. And that's our experience. But the ocean or Lake Michigan is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. So when we see the shoreline, there are many details. The features are infinite in variety. So when we really look closely, when we ganjo koan each situation, many details. And always something is missing. We can't quite see all of it. Our human perceptual capacity is limited.

[25:27]

So there's so much in this text. I'm not going to cover all of it. Let me just see if there's something in the next part that I want to mention. Oh yeah, there's another thing. And the part about a fish swims in the ocean and talks about fishes and birds. It says, when their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. our own range of how we practice, our practice range. Sometimes it's large. Sometimes we can cover wide ranges. Sometimes it's small, and we just take care of one little piece of something. And actually, sometimes it's good to enjoy our limitations, to actually take care of what is within the scope of our limitations. Sometimes we can open our view and see much more widely and actually find a way to take care of much more. But both are part of genja koan.

[26:33]

And then just a couple of passages further down below that. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing genja koan, actualizing the fundamental point, manifesting genja koaning reality. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs. manifesting Ginger Cohen, actualizing the fundamental point. Then the next paragraph, here is the place, here the way unfolds. So here we are. So how do we take care of our life and our world right here in this situation? That's the point. Right now, myriad things are coming forth and experiencing themselves, and we're included in that, and that's awakening. But also, in the next moment or in an hour, we might realize, oh, I'm carrying myself forward and projecting it onto all the things and experiencing in that way.

[27:36]

That's delusion. Okay, well, be there in that delusion, but then we have to get to know both sides. not be caught by awakening or caught by delusion. So that's a little bit about this text. Comments, questions, responses. If you want to bring up other things in the text, you can. Please feel free. Yes? Yeah, good question. What does it mean for things to experience themselves? What does it mean for everything to experience everything? That's right. Yes. What does that mean? How does that work? How does it work when everything just really, when all things are together with all things? And it's a wonderful question. How do we, how does that happen? How does it happen that the whole world sees the whole world? Or we could take a little bit of the whole world.

[28:36]

How does it happen that all of us here in this room, this circle, appreciate deeply everyone here? And not just all the people here, but, you know, the cushions and the table and the lights. How is that? What does that mean? I'm not going to define it or explain it. That would be to denigrate it. To give it some meaning would be to project myself onto it. That would be my interpretation. But can we just dig it, that everything is here, expressing itself together somehow? I mean, it's a great question. Thank you. from the late Zen teacher of yoga, Steve Stuckey, in which he recounted a funny episode where he went to a dancing school to take lessons so that he could dance with his daughter at her wedding.

[29:47]

He was kind of nervous, and he confessed to the instructor that he was a little anxious about this. She didn't know who she was telling this to. It's been my forever example of, you know, when Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. She's like, oh yeah, try that, that'll help you. That was my feeling about practice when I first started, was like, okay, I'm gonna sit down and I'm just gonna, you know, and that's all that's gonna happen. And what I discovered pretty quickly which made me feel like I was doing it wrong for a long, long time, is that it's, you know, it's messy. Zazen is messy. You sit there and it's not just this peaceful, you know, relaxing experience. It's like, you know, you get pulled in all these different directions. And learning to, you know, be okay with that and relax with that.

[30:49]

Yeah, the great Zen sickness is when you think that everything is just wonderful and cool and beautiful and, you know, and there are times when, you know, you might have that feeling and that's, you know, it's okay to have that feeling, but don't, don't hang out there. Yes, hi. Could you say, is it, would you say that Identities that we might develop, let's say, because one is born female or male, or straight or gay, or black or white, or wherever you are in the class or economics of things, that all those factors impact your experience and so impact your awareness. And so that whole kind of thing could be a myriad of things. but that there's also a way of being aware of how all of your experience or identities or groups that you might identify with could inform your awareness and the circumference of your awareness.

[32:11]

But at the same time, that's sort of limited and there's something bigger than that. Yeah, good question. Yeah. So it's not that you should get rid of your delusions or your limitations. Those aren't delusions exactly. They are aspects of the identifications of self. So he doesn't say to get rid of the self. We study the self. We know the ways in which we identify, are identified, are conditioned by all the ways in which we're born into the world, all the ways in which we have various identities. And yes, of course. So we look at that. We study that. When he says to study that is to forget the self, we don't get caught by that. But we have to actually acknowledge and appreciate the various identities, the various limitations.

[33:18]

And how do we use that to go beyond that, but also to take that on? So it's not about getting rid of limitations. Right within the particulars of our identifications, the particulars of how ourselves are limited, we can find our way to express the way that the myriad things experience themselves. The myriad things include the myriad identities experiencing themselves. So we can't go beyond, we can't experience all of everything coming together unless we really study all of the particularities.

[34:20]

We don't get rid of the particularity. We don't try to expunge those limitations. We embrace them in a way. But then by doing that, we can go beyond. And we can see new possibilities. And we can use them in new ways. So it's an important point. Thank you. Yes, David. Hi. And are you saying within that, you know, I find myself now more than before being maybe I would say gentler at work, if I could use that term, you know, and more respectful of other people, but at the same time,

[35:39]

how that relates to the genjo koan. Yeah, so how do you genjo koan? How do you manifest the key points, the key issue of that situation? So to see the limitations that you have embraced by taking on that work and that study, to do your best to take care of that. So the passage about when your need is small, your field is small. When need is large, your field is large. So you're taking on a larger field. Part of how to do that is to be gentle with yourself and to try and take care of that as best you can.

[37:02]

But if you have some idea of doing that perfectly, of never missing a deadline, that's kind of a delusion, right? So you have to try and do your best and at the same time, if you miss a deadline, How do you take care of that? It's each situation. Each part of that situation requires Genjo Koan, requires taking care. So that's good. You're stretching your practice. But there's also this place where I didn't read this part, but I'm talking with this whole long passage about the birds and the fishes. A fish swims in the ocean and no matter how far it swims there's no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky and no matter how far it flies there's no end to the air.

[38:05]

If the bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water, it will die at once. So you have to stay in the realm that you're in and do your best to work in that. So good luck. Yes, Xinyi. The last week, I mentioned that I was interested in the first camera. Yes. Not right now, actually. I can say something about it, I'm not going to explain it. I find I've had a wonderful thought about how to fix a problem that I've had for a long time.

[39:14]

I think I'm just going to do it right afterwards. Oh, great. How wonderful. But there'll be some other problem, you know. Yeah, I know. I'm excited. But you know, there's this thing that the sixth ancestor said in his sutra that, and this is relevant, that in our settling, in our study of the self, in our samadhi, that samadhi and prajna are one. So the settling and the insight come up together. So it's natural that during this, when we settle deeply, when we're willing to study the self, when we're willing to face the wall, and face our inhale and exhale, and be present and upright, physically, yogically, that insights do arise. And you may realize, have some realization that helps you with some, that can jocone some problem.

[40:20]

And that's great. So that's the natural part of the process of genjutsu honing. So you're testifying to that. So just to go back to your, I'll try and just say something about this first paragraph. As all things are Buddhadharma, there is delusion and realization practice, birth and death, and there are Buddhas and sentient beings. So that's kind of saying there is the, not just the phenomenal world, but this whole process of, well, delusion and realization as separate things. As the myriad beings are without an abiding self, as there is no self, as there is no fundamental thingness, there's no delusion, no realization, no Buddha, no sentient beings, no birth and death, just vast emptiness. The Buddha way is basically leaping clear of the many and the one.

[41:25]

This is the non-duality I started to talk about. I didn't finish that thought. Thus, there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and Buddhas. This is the non-duality of duality and non-duality. This is the ultimate non-duality. First there's a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. This is going beyond our idea of non-duality, where we think, well, we go beyond seeing duality and non-duality as separate. So what's brilliant about this first paragraph, he says, and yet, even when we see that, in attachment, blossoms fall, and in aversion, weeds spread. In our life, within attachment, blossoms fall, beauty fades, lives end.

[42:29]

And in aversion, when we don't like something, these weeds spread. So this is the reality of that first noble truth I was talking about. So our actual life includes that, even when we see through. delusion and enlightenment, and don't get caught by the difference between delusion and enlightenment. Even when we don't, even when we go beyond seeing delusion and enlightenment as separate, even when we're willing to be present with both, still, here we are alive, and things happen. So that's just a quick gloss on that. I don't know if that was helpful or not. There's much, much, much, much more that can be said about that first paragraph. There are many more interpretations. And there are at least a couple of really good books about this text, Genjo Koan.

[43:34]

So anyway. So time for one or two more comments or responses or questions or anything. Yes you may. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they may not happen at the same time. Well, it could be the same person. It could happen. And maybe, oh, that's an interesting question. Yeah, it's not different people. But they're not some people who continue being awake throughout awakening.

[44:39]

And then there are other people who are totally deluded and keep being deluded. No, it's about each of us. And maybe sometimes we are in awakening beyond awakening. But maybe they're the same thing. Well, that's what I'm wondering is I don't know what it means to be in delusion throughout delusion. Chris. What I've been thinking about since you mentioned it originally, it kind of resonates with that. The original version of Ganjo Poem that I read was actually from a book that you suggested to me by Norman Waddell. Yeah, there's a number of translations. I'm not sure that this is the best translation, actually. But go ahead. Regardless, the way that it's translated in that one, and it seems kind of falling further into delusion on the other.

[45:48]

But, so I haven't really considered it in the way that you mentioned today, or at least the way that it appeared in here, in what you were saying, of a big, you know, they're kind of two sides of the same thing, you know, that, because that is, going beyond awakening and letting go and so on, and on the other side you have people falling further and further into delusion. But you phrase it, being in delusion and throughout delusion can also have the meaning of just being there in delusion. Right. Yeah, fully seeing the delusion, yes. In any contradiction, I think, of doing what people normally think about things, the realization is akin to, like Dave, an attachment of self, a definition of self, where the being, the illusion, the drop illusion,

[47:31]

Yes and yes and. So part of why how Dogen is so brilliant is I don't know that Sometimes, anyway, in Dogen's text, it's not that there's necessarily one right interpretation. There may be, you know, unhelpful interpretations, but part of what is brilliant about Dogen, as in a lot of the best poetry, is that one can play with it and see it in different ways at different times and bring yourself into it and look and and try different ways of seeing it.

[48:37]

So there are many I think there are a number of books about this text, Genjo Koan. I recommend the book by Shohaku Okamura, and also the book edited by Mel Weitzman, which has a few different commentaries. But we'll close for now. And thank you all very much. There's, of course, much, much more to say about this.

[49:01]

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