Good morning and welcome everyone. This morning I'm going to talk about going beyond Buddha. This has to do with our practice and awakening as a living, ongoing activity and concern. There's a phrase that some of you may have heard, if you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him. Well, that's a little strong. And we practice nonviolence. But this is referring to the same thing, going beyond Buddha. So one of my favorite phrases from Dogen, the 13th century Japanese monk who brought this tradition from China to Japan and who I've translated and talked about a lot, Dogen in one writing says, just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha.

[01:12]

So I think this is a really wonderful way of talking about Zazen and our practice. Just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. So when we do this sitting practice, we are giving ourselves to something that we don't know how it works or what the outcome is. We're giving ourselves to something that is dynamically alive. And our sasana is just to experience this vital process. So sasana happens and or we allow zazen to express itself in our body and mind, and we sit and settle. And doing this, a number of people are here for the first time, have zazen instruction this morning. So I would strongly recommend people to do this regularly.

[02:17]

Of course, it's great to have you come and do zazen with us at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate, but at home also, in your spare time. At least several times a week, or every day even. Just sit. It doesn't have to be in some special kusha. Just sit, face the wall, face yourself. Give yourself the space and time in your life the regular time, to just be present and allow this vital process to arise. So people come to satsang because they want calm and inner peace and all of that, and that's fine, that's part of it. There's also the opening and sense of spaciousness that we can feel when we get into the process, this vital, lively process. On the path, it's not a path to somewhere particular.

[03:22]

It's a path that is right here now, this morning. It's a path we walk while we're sitting, while we're doing walking meditation, and beyond. And that's what I want to talk about. He says, just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. This doesn't mean to disrespect Buddha, but it's a kind of way of talking about what Buddha is. Buddha is this, you know, there was the historical Buddha 2,500 years ago, and what's now in northeastern India, and there have been other people who have been considered by many to be Buddhas. But it just means to be awake. And it's also a quality of reality itself. So this question, what is Buddha, is kind of at the heart of Zen practice. How do we actually express this, experience this, enact this, in our lives, in this body-mind? Just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha.

[04:28]

I don't know if there's anybody here, but I wrote that one year on the back of rock shoes for people doing lay recognition. Just experience the vital process of the path. Going beyond Buddha. So going beyond Buddha is a way of defining who Buddha is. Buddha is someone who's always going beyond, always open to deepening and seeing more. So this practice isn't about reaching some particular destination or reaching some particular state of mind or state of being and getting high or anything like that. It's just about actually being fully and deeply present with this reality and facing it. And then how do we engage that? So all of this is just experience, the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha I've been talking a lot about the teaching stories of Dongshan, the Chinese founder, long before Dogen, in the 800s, from my new book, Just This Is It, Dongshan, the Practice of Suchness.

[05:41]

So we did a practice period this spring about this. And I've been talking about it in many other places, just going back from our affiliate group in Albuquerque. And one of the stories, so talking about these stories a lot, one of the ones that I come back to, one of my favorites, It has something to do with this. This is about the student who came to Dongchun, and Dongchun asked him, where have you come from? And the monk responded, from wandering in the mountains. And Dongchun asked, did you reach the peak? And the monk said, yes. And Dongchun asked if there was anyone on the peak, and the monk replied, no, there was not. So Dongchun said, well, if so, then you did not reach the peak. Of course, if there was none, then there had to be This student had reached the peak. But then this student said something really wonderful. He said, if I did not reach the peak, then how could I have known there was no one there? So yeah, he saw through all of our stories about ourselves, our ways of identifying things in the world.

[06:50]

All of this stuff that we usually carry and project onto the world, he saw through that. There was no one there. And so then the part that's relevant to going beyond Buddha, Dong Xuan asked why he had not remained on the mountaintop, where it was so pleasant. And this is a traditional problem in practice, because when you see this reality of Buddha. When you see this reality of suchness or emptiness, or however you want to say it, it can be really pleasant. I mean, maybe not. Sometimes it might be disappointing. But anyway, this student said, quite honestly, that he would have been inclined to stay there on the mountaintop. He liked it. But there was someone from the West, probably referring to Bodhidharma, our founder in China, who was on the altar. or came from India to China. There was someone from the West who would not have approved, and Dongshan was very happy to hear this.

[07:53]

So, it's, you know, whatever realization of Buddha we come to, whether it's in some dramatic experience, or whether it's through just facing ourselves on the wall regularly, or from some understanding of the teaching, that's fine. But Buddha is the one who goes beyond that. In fact, all Buddhas are always going beyond Buddha. That's what Buddha is. Whatever our experience, whatever our understanding, we can always go deeper. So we keep coming back to just showing up and sitting and doing a period of zazen or Sometimes we have all-day sittings or longer sittings. Some people go off to practice periods up in the mountains.

[08:55]

We do a practice period every spring to intensify this. This is lifelong learning. This is adult education. This is realizing that we don't know, that there is more to see, And it's okay to know what you know. It's okay to use your intellect and use your experience and appreciate what you have seen. But there's more. So how do we be willing to open ourselves to that which we don't know, to that which Maybe we can't know. We talk about the inconceivable reality of suchness that our human perceptions, our human faculties, our intellect, but also our spiritual faculties, are limited.

[09:59]

And that's not a bad thing, but it's just that it's limited, and there's more that we can see. So part of what Zazen does is to open us to see how it is that we react to things, what our habits and patterns are. And the more we know that, the more we have a kind of space, spaciousness, to widen our capacity for being helpful in the world and for ourselves and for the people around us. to open up the possibilities of responding beyond our usual habits of reaction and all the ways in which our culture kind of conditions us to react. So this just experienced the vital process on the path. this living path of going beyond Buddha. This is what all Buddhas do.

[11:00]

And then the question is, how do we express that in the world, in our everyday activity? How do we allow Buddha to be... this body to be Buddha's body? How do... and this is, again, a process. It's not something that we figure out. It's not something that some particular experience is going to, you know, settle forever. It's an ongoing path of going beyond Buddha. And I wanted to talk about that today in terms of our forms and rituals. So sometimes people question, you know, all these fancy robes that some of us wear, or these prostrations, or the form for doing walking meditation, or we walk around behind the altar. or the various forms, or during all-day sittings, the meal practice in the meditation hall. Some of us use these wrapped or Yogi bowls, and there's a very formal way of doing that.

[12:05]

And some people, when they come here, they get turned off by that, because it seems very sticky and ritualized and precious or something like that. And it's not. To me, all our forms and rituals are ways of going beyond Buddha. So the frustrations that I just did, and when we do service Monday evening or during all day sittings, everybody does three frustrations at the beginning and three at the end. And some people, why are we doing that? You're welcome to do that on a cushion rather than on the floor if it hurts your knees. We had a visitor here for a few weeks from San Francisco Zen Center. And one of her main comments about being here was that she missed the nine bows they do at the beginning of service at San Francisco Zen Center.

[13:13]

That was something that Suzuki Roshi insisted on. He was our founder. Somebody complained about the three bows, I think, and he said, OK, let's do nine. But this isn't some cultish thing. This is a way of really expressing how we go beyond Buddha to, in our body, enact this deep respect and gratitude we have for this practice. And all of these forms. don't worry about doing it correctly, just follow other people. But really, these are expressions, to me, of going beyond Buddha. They're like zazen. How do we give zazen, this meditation we've just been doing, how do we give zazen to zazen? How do we see that zazen is alive? Of course, practically speaking, Some of you may have been sleepy in this last period.

[14:18]

That happens. Some of you, your minds may have been going very fast. Probably at least a few of you had some thoughts or feelings during this last period. Or maybe there were a few of you who had some spaces between those. So trying to get it right is being caught by Buddha and your idea of Buddha. Going beyond Buddha is to just be with what is happening. So we have techniques of following the breath, or counting the breath, or listening to sound, or repeating a mantra or a line from a teaching story. In fact, I've recommended just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond buddhahood. You can say that over and over to yourself again during the satsang, if that helps you to settle. But the point is really just allowing whatever's happening, to be here, and finding your way of paying attention to that, being present, and settled, taking another breath, and exhaling, and then please take another breath, when it's time, just enjoying your breathing, enjoying your uprightness, just experiencing this vital process

[15:39]

So it's not about trying to get to Buddha, or whatever that is, or trying to be Buddha. It's allowing this awakened awareness to be there. And just pay attention. So how do we express and enact Buddha in our body and mind? How do we just experience this vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha? So thoughts and feelings come up naturally, and we pay attention. But we don't try to do anything with them or figure anything out. But if you realize you're doing that, you're making judgments about your thoughts or trying to figure out something, OK, that's fine. Just experiencing this vital process, taking another breath, being present and upright.

[16:44]

And of course, what upright is, is different for all of us. Each of us has different ways of finding our seat, being relatively comfortable, trying to find a way to be still and upright, more or less, throughout the period of zazen. It's challenging. It's not exactly comfortable. to just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. You might see Buddha and feel, oh, hey, that's great, and feel like you've finished or something, or feel like you know what you're doing. But actually, the world is changing. We meet new people. Our life is alive. Our world is alive. In each new situation, what does it mean to engage this vital process? So, you know, in that story, this monk had reached the mountaintop, he'd seen through all of

[18:06]

the ways in which she was caught and identified in various stories and attachments, and we saw that it was all an illusion, that we live in this realm of spaciousness, actually, and that we're all deeply interconnected. And I would say that all of you have some taste of that. even if it's your first time here. What brought you here was some sense of this possibility of just being present and open and settled. It's a natural thing, actually, for people. It's a natural thing for all beings. Just to engage this body as it is, And then we hear about Buddha.

[19:10]

Oh, what's that? And there are all kinds of sutras and stories and things to study. The point of all that is to bring you back to your seat, to bring you back to just being present, to encourage us. to actually just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. So all Buddhas are going beyond Buddha, always. In some ways, this is a definition of what a Buddha is. A Buddha knows that she is not stuck in some particular definition of Buddha. or some particular experience. So for this monk who had seen through all of this on the mountaintop, actually it was necessary for him to come back and hang out with the rest of us.

[20:15]

This is our practice. We realize that we're not separate from anybody. And as we deepen our experience of Buddha going beyond Buddha, we find that there is this wonderful creative energy that is available. So your zazen is a kind of creative activity of expressing and going beyond Buddha. And it connects with each of you in this room have other creative activities that you do in your everyday life. They may be formally creative, like doing music, I don't know, writing poetry or whatever. But everyday things, cleaning the dishes, cooking, going for a walk, there's some creative energy that is available there. And this zazen practice and this deepening of going beyond Buddha helps us to connect to that.

[21:24]

I think of it as kind of deep under my cushion. But maybe it's all around us. And how do we use that? So the point of all of this is simply to express Buddha in our everyday activity, to be helpful rather than harmful. In our own life, with our own problems, and our own attachments, and our own habits of grasping, or anger, or confusion, which we all have as human beings. live in the world of greed, hate, and delusion. So we have to get to know that and not be caught by our own patterns of grasping or anger and confusion. But also, how do we help others? This non-separation, we see that we are connected to everything in our society and in our world. So you are not just practicing.

[22:27]

This is not a self-help practice. This question includes that. But it's also about realizing, oh, how can I be helpful to friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, the people around us? So this is where this creative energy from coming down from the mountaintop, from going beyond Buddha, really gets challenged. And I'm not focusing on this today, but I've been talking about all of the challenges in our society that we don't know what to do about, that are uncomfortable, just the way Zazen is uncomfortable. We try to find our seat that's relatively comfortable, but we have to be willing to be uncomfortable to go beyond Buddha, to enter into subspace where we don't know what to do, where there's new information or there's new awareness about the reality of this body-mind.

[23:29]

So, you know, I've been talking, not focusing on that today, but I've been talking, recent talks about the stuff going on in our society and the huge economic inequality that affects all of us, the injustice of that, and what's happening to our planet in terms of climate change. damage and not getting overwhelmed by that, even though the science, if you look at it, it's kind of scary. But it's not set how it's going to play out. We already know that there's a lot of damage happening. It's going to get worse. There's no question about that. But there are ways to respond. Last week or so, I found myself involved in a fossil fuel divestment. There are things that we can do to lobby our government, decision makers, the corporations who are making a profit from destroying our habitat.

[24:45]

And then there's the situation of racism in our society, which I've been talking about since Ferguson and since this horrible massacre in Charleston, South Carolina. And this affects all of us. this legacy of slavery and racism. And what do we do about it? Well, it's not easy to know what to do. And yet, the starting point maybe is just to be willing to talk about it, as we have started to do, at least. And thinking about things that we can do. So it's uncomfortable to talk about it. So this saga is majority white, whatever that means, but we know about Charleston and Ferguson and the African-American young men being shot by police. And maybe that's been going on for a long time, but now we have the videos to show it.

[25:52]

And so we're more conscious of it. So this is just one example of how do we express Buddha going beyond Buddha in our society. And it's not easy, and it's uncomfortable for those of us who are so-called white to recognize white privilege, and that we are privileged, and to recognize how difficult it is for people of color in our society now. This is connected to all the other things, that climate damage affects people who are of lower income around the world more than those of us privileged to be in the United States of America and other privileges. Anyway, this is, so I'm just mentioning this as the realm, one realm of Buddha going beyond Buddha. How do we use the awareness? How do we express the awareness that we get from doing this practice regularly?

[26:56]

Of being willing to just be present and face ourselves. To be upright. To feel what we feel. To be willing and ready to respond when we see some way to respond. And there are ways to respond. So as many of you know, I could just keep on babbling up here, but I'm going to stop and pause and welcome any of you to add comments, questions, responses. about this practice of going beyond guru, of not feeling settled, not trying to reach some final destination, but actually be willing to be, being willing to be alive and aware. And sometimes we don't know what to do.

[27:59]

The practice of patience is very dynamic. How do we pay attention but be willing to respond when we see some way, something we can do to try and be helpful? in our own lives and with the lives of people around us and with people in the world. So, comments, questions, responses about any of this, please feel free. And part of what's solved in this practice community is that we have a little space anyway for talking together. Talking about things that aren't easy to talk about. There's just too little of that in our society. So. Dave. So I wanted to ask about bringing practice to your life, because I started to kind of feel like I'm almost two different people.

[29:16]

I know that this process is kind of happening, and I can see how it's changing how I'm relating to other people in my daily life, but I feel like I almost get into a different headspace, I guess, or mentality. when I'm here or when I'm sitting at home, and then I guess I just wanted to ask you about, because I'm still relatively new, what that process of how this kind of streams into daily life, because I want to be helpful, and I want to bring that sense of awareness in and a connectedness to every moment that I'm having, but how, I mean, it's obviously not a switch that just happens. Right. Thank you very much, Dave. Yeah, so Dave is fairly new here, but he's been very regular since he started a couple months ago or so. Yeah. So it's exactly the question. It's the right question for all of us, no matter how long we've been doing this.

[30:20]

And there are a lot of those old-sense stories, the story about the one who's not busy, which I've mentioned here, where That's the question. Are there two separate babes? Is there two separate tie-ins? The one who's calm and peaceful and whatever, sitting on my cushion, and the one who goes out onto Irving Park Road or wherever, gets on the L or wherever, and, you know, there's all these other people. Well, just asking the question is important. and we're not separate ultimately. These are not separate. But it's not like you can mechanically, it's not like you have to go around and say, oh, how do I be Buddha here? That doesn't work. It's a vital process. It's an organic, alchemical process. something that happens without you even seeing it. Maybe people around you will tell you.

[31:24]

One of the people in the group that Yeo Jong leads in Hyde Park, after she'd started sitting for a little while, said, you know, I got on the elevator in my apartment and one of my neighbors said to me, hey, you've been really calm and kind recently. And she realized, and it was from her practice, that she hadn't thought about it. doing this practice and doing it regularly, we get sensitive to how we're responding and how we're acting, and that in ways that we don't necessarily can control. It's not some instruction manual. It's not about turning a switch, as you said, but it starts to, because it's an organic process, it starts to be part of who we are walking around. Thank you for the question. Yes, Juan. And I think after a certain point you start to see that it kind of starts feeding itself. So the more that healthfulness that you do, it just kind of, the more healthfulness leads more to that mindset.

[32:29]

So more of a natural thing. So it's less of looking and it's just kind of, it turns into its own cycle. Self-feeding cycle. Yeah, it becomes a natural thing. It becomes the way we want to be. Another way of looking at this going beyond Buddha is what's, how can you, Whoever you are, whatever stories you think you know about yourself, how can you be the most beautiful you, the most helpful you? How can you, in your situation in your life, actually be expressing Buddha, going beyond Buddha? And again, it's not something to figure out or have some instruction manual, but if you have that sense, it starts to be part of you. And practice works that way. organic alchemical process. Sometimes people go through periods where their Zazen seems kind of dull. Sometimes people come, like Dave, really love Zazen, just really very enthusiastic for a while. And then it sort of seems, oh, this is sticky, and we start to see all of our bad habits.

[33:37]

Or it just becomes dull and boring. There was Philip Whalen, the great Zen poet, and also a teacher in our lineage used to say, if it's not boring, it's not Buddhism. In a way, just sitting for 30 or 40 minutes, whatever, it's boring. Or you can see that it's actually alive. But then how do we bring it? It's up to us to bring this to life. But it's not, like you can't control it. Yeah, so thank you, Juan. It has its own energy. Yes, hi. In my professional training, I learned that there is actually no reptilian brain that's hidden away there. And we have certain actions that are ingrained in that, but we build upon that, the negative actions that we end up doing,

[34:39]

when we don't live with other people in harmony. And it's like the old story about the grandfather speaking to his grandson, saying, I've got two wolves in my mind. One is kind, loving, and peaceful. The other is mean, ornery, and ugly. And they're constantly at battle. The grandson says, well, how do you know which one's going to win? He says, the one I want to feed. Yeah, good. So yeah, we can encourage ourselves and each other. Thank you. Jeremy? I really liked what you brought up today. The nameless monk's response. It astonished me. It was like he was bringing his practice to the Yes.

[35:41]

And his experience. I think that that is, for me, I guess the most important part of the practice is how do I answer all of these questions the way I can answer these kind of questions in my own practice. Yeah, right. We have all these old teaching stories. And this is our teaching and practice is about studying, listening to, hearing, enjoying these old stories, which point us to something. But it's up to each of us to experience that ourselves. Just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. So in addition to that, as a mantra, I used to talk more about, just as you're sitting, just saying to yourself, how does it feel? How does it feel? Just to really look at what's going on, to really question. How is this breath? And when the stuff comes up, all the various thoughts and jumbles and questions and problems in our life, how do you feel about that?

[36:50]

Again, there's this deep creative energy that we can tap into in zazen. And it takes a while. It's a process. It's a vital process. But it allows us to respond from our seat. David? Part of the practice for me is, in a sense of reinstatement of something I've already believed in, but especially in the last period through the new practice, you became strong. And that I'm always going to be me. I'm always going to be me. is to realize my connectedness to everything around me. But who you are is going to change. Who I am will change. We'll always be the same. Right.

[37:52]

And there's that sense of connectedness. And how that comes out in my everyday life is the way I interact with people at work, the way I interact with my family, and then all that sense of connectedness that for me is, today actually I overslept, and I got here late, but I had a choice of either staying at home and sitting at home, or coming here and sitting with people here, even though I was going to be a little bit late, for me it was more important to come here and be with people and share that, share this experience. And it's that sense of being able to Very, very good film. Good.

[38:53]

Thanks for your testimony. Any other? We have time for one last comment or response. Anyone. We need people to... Hi, Libby. Yeah, it's interesting. and how many different ways there are in talking about something so simple. Like all these different metaphors, it's bringing up for people, different people's experience. Like you were saying, each one of us has our own practice. And this sort of just manifests in its own way for each one of us. So for me, what was coming up for me about going beyond Buddha was just For me it's sort of just the dropping away again and again. The willingness, remembering to just be willing to give up everything.

[39:55]

That tightness or holding on to self, or what I think I need, or what I think I'm striving at in some situation, or whatever I think I'm invested in. Just being willing to, just for a moment at a time, let go, and be open to the mystery of what is happening, of just not knowing. And then something else does arise, and it's not like I'm dropping away from the situation, it's just dropping away my expectations or assumptions. or my investment in getting something good out of it for myself or something. So yeah, and then some kind of re-engagement occurs then that I might look from a different place.

[40:59]

Yeah, thank you for that. That gets to a lot of the dynamics of this vital process, this kind of, again and again, kind of letting go of our idea of what's happening. even though that's still there in the background, but we can loosen our grip on who we think we are, what the world is, see what comes up fresh, be willing to see something new. So that's that letting go, dropping off, and then allowing something new to come up. It can happen Inhale after inhale, as can happen in each experience. And we forget about it sometimes too, but we always have the opportunity to just let go. And pay attention to here.

[41:52]

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