This is a workshop given by Taigan Leighton at the Empty Hand Zendo, June 14th, 2003, on Dogen Zenji's Ehei Kuroko. This is tape two. ...from your eyes. So we don't usually think of that, of our eyes as radiating light. Our eyes are, we have this kind of passive idea of of the world, that it's like a TV screen that we're watching and we're kind of going through the motions. But when you're alive, actually, it's true, you know, when you make eye contact, that there's light. So, anyway, that's sort of interesting to me. But it's going beyond. There's this kind of enthusiasm Transcend your personal prediction of future Buddhahood from Gautama. Can anyone say something about that?

[01:02]

I'm Mary. I think it comes right after that quote that for a fisherman, what we would think would be a good day is to escape danger when you are going to the river and for a hunter, it's a good day to escape danger when you are going to the water. And for example, I agree, Dave, you didn't meet anybody with a 40-year-old neck. And it sounds like, don't be so sad if I'm looking for a safe garage or a safe living room or a safe sitting. Don't think you know it's there. I mean, what's waiting there could be just as scary. Yeah, so that do you know there's something that goes beyond is it is about that that That even you know I think

[02:11]

It's funny, the rhythms of Zen practice over time, you know, there are times when we have a lot of enthusiasm for a practice and there are times when it's sort of this plateau and it seems kind of dull. There's times when we feel how there's transformation and unfolding happening and it's very obvious if you see people sitting over time that that happens. But whichever phase your practice is in, Do you know there is something that goes beyond? So that's a good question just to sit with. Do you know there is something that goes beyond? And knowing it isn't that you understand it, but can you feel something going beyond? Can you be willing, can you be open to something that goes beyond? So if you think you know, then you can't learn anything else. So having an understanding means you're finished, but being open to going beyond understanding means that you're still capable of unfolding further.

[03:30]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a particular reference. So thank you. That's a particular reference to something in the Lotus Sutra, which Dogen quotes. It was definitely the most important sutra in Japan. And Dogen quotes more than any other sutra. And actually, my next book that I have to start writing when I get back The California is about Dogen's worldview of space and time as alive and how he uses the Lotus Sutra to demonstrate that. But in the Lotus Sutra, has anyone here read the Lotus Sutra? It's kind of fun, actually. There's a lot of stories in it. There are parts of it that are sort of problem, but anyway, there's a story about Buddha and he's preaching to many beings, and at some point he says to various of his disciples, oh, in the future, in the future, you know, X hundreds of thousands of years from now, in such and such a Buddha land, you will be the Buddha such and such.

[04:42]

And he tells them the name of the Buddha that they will be. So this is this personal prediction of future Buddhahood from Gautama specifically refers to that. Yet in the Lotus Sutra, he does this with many specific, with some of his famous disciples and with his stepmother, Mahaprajapati, who founded the order of nuns and with other people. But eventually, the Buddha says in the Lotus Sutra, well, anybody who just remembers a line of this sutra and really appreciates it, will in the future, sometime in the future, be a Buddha. So we're all kind of guaranteed. Nichiren Buddhism, which developed around the same time as Dogen, is about just the Chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, homage to the Lotus Sutra. So Dogen didn't use that way of revering the Lotus Sutra, but he did talk about the Lotus Sutra a lot. But here what he's saying is, OK, fine. Each of you is going to be some Buddha in some future age.

[05:44]

Get over it. Just today, spread out your bedding and sleep, spread out your balls and eat rice, just to do this life, this body, this mind, right now, today, is the point. Yes? My name is Paul. Don't say hi. Is that, so is there humor in here? Oh yeah, this is... Transgender survivors, transgenders? Yeah. This is, I mean, to me this is very funny. I mean, you have to get into, I mean, Dogen is playing, I mean, Dogen puns a lot, he plays, he turns the usual, he quotes sutras and so on and turns them inside out and plays with them. He's very playful, very, you know, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think he's very funny. And especially, we'll get into some of the months where he's playing with the columns, too.

[06:48]

Let's do, we have a break. Translator just said, get over your personal predictions to bring out the humor. It literally says transcendence. I'd rather save that for the dormitory. But yeah, you could say get over, but that's kind of slang, colloquial American slang. That's the word for transcend. I don't have the Chinese with me, but it's, yeah. I mean, it's the same meaning. We have a break coming up in five minutes, but I wanted to do one more, which is sort of in a similar vein. Number 306. And this one's very short. A lot of them are very short like this. And this one is actually very dense in a way. So dropping off body and mind is good practice, it starts. And that's really funny, because dropping off body and mind is this phrase, shinjin datsuraku, in Dogen that he uses a lot, which is a synonym for him for Zazen and also for enlightenment. So enlightenment means just to drop off body and mind.

[07:51]

There's a story about his own enlightenment experience with his teacher in China where this phrase came from. But just to say dropping off body and mind is good practice is kind of like, you know, like total enlightenment is good practice or just, you know, it's, I mean, it's actually kind of funny. So when he says dropping off body and mind, by the way, I mean, we could talk about that for a long time, just that phrase. Again, it's a way of describing what happens in Zazen for Dogen. It doesn't mean, you know, kill your body. It doesn't mean, you know, there's this heretical school of American Zen. Maybe, I don't know, there's one of the four diseases of Zen practitioners traditionally, according to the Complete Enlightenment Sutra, is to think you can practice by getting rid of all thoughts. Maybe we're getting over it, but that seems to be a kind of common, I don't know if any of you have ever thought that enlightenment would be to just not have any thoughts. That's not the practice, to get rid of your thoughts.

[08:55]

There is this radical school called lobotomy zen, and you can have that operation and then you won't have any thoughts, but that's not enlightenment, so I don't recommend it. Anyway, he says dropping off body and mind is good practice. So dropping off body and mind is to actually be familiar with your body and mind. To actually sit in the middle of this body and mind and really know how does it feel again and again. So it's not some understanding of body and mind analytically or intellectually. It's really feeling what is this body and mind from inside. And that's the real dropping off body and mind. It's not getting rid of body and mind. That's a kind of attachment to body and mind. So just drop off body and mind. Let go. So he starts us by saying dropping off body and mind is good practice. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Piercing your nostrils is, after we've translated that many times, Shoakho and I realized we had different understandings of it.

[10:00]

I thought it meant you know, kind of so you can breathe freely. It turns out both understandings are correct. It clearly means that. But it also is a reference to the ox herding picture some of you may know of. So there's this metaphor of the ox taming the ox as Zen training. And so to pierce your nostrils means to put a, you know, this was before they had, I don't know if they had body piercing and tattoos and all of that. But anyway, they had, you know, to put a nose ring in the ox then he can be led. So to pierce your nostrils is to be able to be ready to be trained, to be willing to go with the training, to be willing to be led by the teachers. So, make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Karmic consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on. So this goes back to a koan in the Book of Serenity. that has that line, one teacher says to his disciple, who also became a famous teacher, Karmic consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on.

[11:09]

How could you demonstrate this in practice? And the student who later became a great master looked at the attendant who was over there and said, Glint. And the student looked up and I forget the next question, then he asks, then he says, oh, that's karmic consciousness is endless. Then he asks another question and the monk hesitates and he said, and the second teacher, the student said, that's, there's nothing fundamental to rely on. So anyway, he's dropping these references to all these koans all the time. I mean, it's just like he had this incredible knowledge of this vast literature of the koans and he's just using it. Anyway, so here, I'll go back to the beginning. Dropping off body and mind is good practice. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. So he's encouraging them. Karmic consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not causes or conditions.

[12:14]

Although this is so, eating breakfast comes first. So, you know, again, just everydayness and first things first. And so there is a venerable tradition of enjoying breakfast. And that takes us to our first break. So we'll take a... or any of the two, we've only looked at a couple of them, Anything, any comments or questions that anyone wants to share or ask? About any of the, you know, I kind of did a quick introduction to Dogen and to this text and to aspects of that in terms of Zen and Somebody asked me in the break about Deoksug.

[13:20]

So I have a theory about this, which I'll share. I've never seen any reference in any of the old Song dynasty Chinese Chan texts or the earlier Tang texts or in Dogon to that as a practice. So I have a theory. One of the things that happened is that when Japanese monks went to China, they met with the teachers. They didn't speak the same language at all, but they had the same writing, because in Japanese it uses Chinese characters. So they would meet individually with a teacher, and instead of talking, they would write things down and pass it back and forth. So, you know, it's not that there weren't, I mean, in China obviously there were individual meetings between teachers and students, but a lot of times I think it happened in small groups when they were, like the Shosan Forum, they had small meetings with a teacher with a small group of students.

[14:23]

So I think a lot of those old dialogues happened with other people nearby. Sometimes they're mentioned, sometimes they're not. There may have been individual meetings and it seems like there was this practice of coming and meeting the teacher when you first arrived at the monastery for monks. But I don't think they had anything like Dokuson where there was a particular form and a particular time where students met with the teacher. And I think it developed out of these Japanese monks who had been meeting individually, passing back and forth this writing, and they came back to Japan and when they had students they would just, they did this individual meeting. So anyway, just a little footnote about that. I mean certainly the teachers and students met, but they didn't have this kind of formal practice if there's a particular time and you sign up or you get in line or whatever. Anyway, any other comments or questions about anything in the first part? Okay. Well, I was thinking next, so, I mean, we could spend a lot of time on a lot of these, but we could talk about dropping off body and mind a lot more.

[15:37]

Let's go to another one about meditation, about sitting, which is 3.37. It's the next one after that, one about breakfast. So actually, this phrase, just sitting, or shikantaza, is famous in Soto Zen as the practice of, you've probably heard of, just sitting, which is done in Rinzai Zen, too, of course, as you do here. You're in the Sowanakagawa Rinzai lineage here, even though the practice may be more just sitting than what is usually now thought of as Rinzai practice of Koans. Which of course is in Soto too. Anyway, this just sitting is a phrase, Shikantaza in Japanese, that's associated a lot with Dogen. He doesn't use it that much actually. He uses dropping off body and mind a lot more. Anyway, in this one he says, Great Assembly, do you want to hear the reality of just sitting? Which is the Zen practice that is dropping off body and mind.

[16:38]

After a pause, Dogen said, mind cannot objectify it, thinking cannot describe it. Just step back and carry on and avoid offending anyone you face. At the ancient dock, the wind and moon are cold and clear. At night, the boat floats peacefully in the land of Lapis Lazuli. So this just sitting is not an object. We can't objectify it. We can't, you know, make it into something we can describe and put up on the wall. We still talk about it, but whatever we say about it isn't it. Thinking cannot describe it. So this just step back and carry on echoes

[17:49]

one of the main meditation instructions for just sitting, which is to take the backward step and turn the light inwardly. So this is maybe another simple, complete, direct description of zazen, just to turn the light within. So when we're sitting, we notice, if you're looking at how does it feel, we feel body and mind. we direct our attention within. So that's kind of essential to Zazen. Of course then what happens when we get up off the cushion, how it expresses itself is also essential to Zazen. But the practice on the cushion in a way is just step back and carry on. So actually step back and carry on as both sides. So our practice is just to sit and to be present in our experience.

[18:51]

And that's enough. And then we carry on. So we have to, the bell rings and we have to get up. So you may be waiting for the bell to ring or sometimes you may, you know, experience wishing the bell wouldn't ring because you're enjoying yourself. That might happen. Some of you maybe have experienced that. But anyway, we do have to get up when it's time for kidney and when it's time to leave and carry on. and avoid offending anyone you face. So sometimes that's difficult, you know. There's this practice of seeing everyone as Buddha, which is recommended. For some people it's more difficult than others, for some of us. But this... Excuse me? But I never would have known that, if Marsha just said that, what that meant. Well, that's not what it means, but that's just what it... So it's not that... So I'm just talking about it.

[19:56]

I'm just... The point of these things is not that you get some understanding of it. The point is, you know, so what comes up for you when you hear this? So maybe I should stop talking and wait for you to say something, but I'm just kind of trying to start this. Yeah. Well, I think our practice is to tell the truth, and some people may not like to hear it. The surprising thing for me to read in this line, it kind of goes back to the radiate light from your eyes. Not that I know those very well at all, but from what I feel, it's been kind of big and heavy in a way.

[20:57]

contact with lightness. Those two lines resonate together for me. It's very soft and being nice to the people around you. Yeah, he does say that a lot. There's a classical line about I was telling Susan, some of you may know the book I translated, Cultivating the Empty Field. There was a Chinese teacher a couple of generations before Dogen, but Dogen quotes him a lot, but he says this kind of stock center phrase about not offending, not mentioning, there's something about not mentioning the name of the emperor. Don't offend the emperor by mentioning his name. There's a kind of secret formal name that you're not supposed to say. So it sort of echoes that for me. is a formal quality of not... In Japanese culture still today there's all these kind of honorifics and all this, there's all this, you know, these various levels of status and all of that.

[22:09]

So partly it echoes that, but in a way it's respectfulness. respect each person, but it's also just meet the person, meet what's in front of you, meet the person in front of you, anyone you face. So, you know, it's kind of when you get up from turning the light within and go out, how can you share that with the people you meet? I mean, I get, for me, it is a little confusing, because it seems that there's a formality in this, which is to go against the natural kind of, you know, you are whatever you happen to be at that moment, which may or may not have been the people, the time, you know, and that's, I mean, but it seems to kind of say that this kind of formality is, and I understand why it's a good thing,

[23:14]

That's a good point, thank you. So that's a real practice question for us. How do we speak our truth? I don't think the point then is that you are what you are and you just let that hang out. There's, you know, I mentioned one of the four diseases of practitioners about thinking you should get rid of all thoughts. There's another one that says that this disease of trying to practice by just accepting things as they are. That's not it either. So just to say, you know, just to, our expression is essential to our practice, our practice, this is a practice, Zazen is a kind of mode of expression, it's a, Zazen, just Zazen, even without speaking is a performance art, but how do you, but we have a responsibility, it's not just that whatever we express is okay, we do express our practice realization right now, but also what is our responsibility to

[24:36]

take care of ourselves and the people around us and the world. So this is Mahayana Buddhism. It's not just whatever, you know, just kind of to vent whatever you are. The practice of sitting, this stepping back and looking within is to be familiar with who we are, with this body and mind, with our habits and our tendencies and our patterns and When we do that, you know, I hadn't thought of that in terms of this line, but your question brings that out for me, that when we're really studying our body and mind from within, we become very familiar with it. So Dogen, in Gendokon, he says, to study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be awakened by all, is dropping body and mind and to be awakened by all things. And people want to go, people run to the forget yourself part, you know, because we all want to, there's this, it seems to be this human tendency and I think our culture encourages it with all the, you know, entertainment modes and information technologies to, to avoid facing ourselves.

[25:49]

So avoid offending anyone you face also means avoid offending yourself when you're sitting facing, facing the wall or the floor, whatever, that's, you know, you're facing your own body and mind and your own habits. So it's not just that then whatever we're feeling we can vent or react or act out. You know, it's not just express, you know, whatever feelings you have. It's actually this practice of studying the self. So you don't have to, so that's enough, just to study the self is the practice. Tolkien says in Genja Koan also, paraphrasing that deluded people have delusions about enlightenment, enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. So just to be really familiar with your own patterns of, your own offensive patterns, your own pettiness and greed and anger and confusion and frustration and that's the practice, just study yourself.

[26:53]

It's not analytical or intellectual, it might include that, but it's How does it feel from inside to be present in this body? So it's not that you, you know, sit and then you get up and just, you know, say whatever's on your mind, necessarily. You might, you know. But how do you express this? So there's this process that Darshan is. It's not about getting something. It's not about becoming somebody. It's about being who you really are. But then how we express that changes when we're really, when we become really familiar with those patterns. When we really can forgive ourselves for being who we are and really see how we're acting and then that we don't necessarily act on those things. So it also means avoid offending yourself. Yeah. Is it possible that offending means something slightly different in the way people are saying it, and the way that we might hear it.

[27:56]

I think that... Probably, yeah. Speaking the truth skillfully may, in some cases, offend someone. And that's not something to avoid, I believe. That it's the right thing to do, that it may be to say something which does offend somebody, nevertheless. It's the right thing to do. This word, the way he's using it means avoid inappropriate offence or disrespectful offence. Can it all sort of fall into place? Yeah, I think that's probably right. I don't have the Chinese with me. I don't forget what character that is. It means offending, but I think I agree with what you're saying. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't say, you know, that you should never, that you should try and please everybody. or say only what other people want to hear. It just means don't be offensive. Maybe.

[28:58]

I mean, I think, and I like how you said it. Yeah. When you said the word skillful, that was sort of what I was thinking about was a skillful means. I mean, that's the point. I think of it as a skillful means. Use appropriate response. And then that was, and because you're teaching monks who are apparently going to go out and teach and stuff. Eventually, yeah. sort of ran through my mind. And another thing that ran through my mind was when I went through Jukai and we had to recite a verse in a case that made absolutely no sense, what we were talking about, and I thought, I've got to think about this in some way that I can work with the person. And beware the tautographic teaching line was the one that, and it seems like if we're being and wearing the tautographic teaching in a way this not offending anyone is somehow part of that. It is being... I don't know, those three things, the skillful and the... wearing the teaching and the... Anyway, that's where it seems to... Yeah, in a way, just step back and carry on and wear the Tathagata's teaching.

[30:15]

Right. Yes? Do you have a question? I don't think he means that. I don't think that's what he means. I mean, I don't, you know, again, I'm just, you know, the point of this isn't what Dogen means. The point is how do we use this. So this is bringing up real, you know, the point is how does this bring up stuff that we have to look at in our practice. So that's what we're doing. So it's not worrying about what someone thinks in a way that you're trying to please everyone, because you can't anyway.

[31:16]

But it's also, you know, it's also being considered, but you can say your truth, you know, and particularly these days when the world is the way it is and our society and government is trying to encourage fear to speak truth to power may be necessary and helpful and we all need to figure out how to practice with that fear. So I think it's good to say your truth, but we can also try and say it in a way that's considerate of that I don't know the whole truth and that other people have other opinions and that we have to listen to each other. And so it's that kind of consideration rather than self-censorship, which I think is not what I would encourage anyway. Exactly, very good, yes.

[32:19]

So consideration and regard, but it doesn't mean, again, How and when we say our truth is important. You had a question, Dulcy? My understanding is that the whole section of the norm, if you see it as referring to anyone you face being yourself, and that's sort of joking. Avoid offending anyone you face. The one you're facing is yourself. Always. But you can also be, but it's also you can meet the other and be considerate.

[33:29]

I mean, he does talk about that and he does talk about taking care, you know, he talks about taking care of others, but essentially in Buddhism, there's not this whole idea of self and others is, you know, in a way it's true, but it's an illusion. We're connected with others, we're deeply interconnected with everybody. So how do we, you know, I think as Mary said, to not disregard, to not to actually be willing to hear the other is what this indicates. Now I'm wanting to go back and look at the original character and see how else to translate it, but actually it just means offending. But then this is how to use this material, to look at this and see, well, what does that mean? And we've been spending a while talking about that one word and how it brings up all this stuff. So this is exactly how to use, not just Dogen, but any Dharma

[34:30]

material that you're studying is what does it bring up in terms of that questioning activity of our practice? What is it that we, where is it that we want to, how is it that we can be upright, you know, in this question of how do we meet the one we face, including ourselves? Yeah, so it's interesting we haven't gotten to that. You know, and this is kind of something that's more typical of Hongzhe. Dogen does it too, this kind of poetic metaphor. So, you know, Zen is not about, as I said, it's not about getting some precise analytical understanding. That's why Zen uses poetry a lot. It's a way of evoking something. Anything I say is going to miss the mark. I'm not going to be able to I can't explain what Dogen is saying to you, but we can evoke together something that goes very deep through these two images.

[35:36]

So, Dogen after a pause said, again talking about the reality of just sitting and dropping off body and mind, mind cannot objectify it, thinking cannot describe it, just step back and carry on, avoid offending anyone you face. At the ancient dock, the wind and moon are cold and clear. At night, the boat floats peacefully in the land of lapis lazuli. So, you know, he's talking about dropping body and mind. And this is this image of, he says in some places, that that's complete, perfect enlightenment, the Buddhist enlightenment. And the ancient dock is an image kind of for the other shore, you know, maybe. And so there are conventions about these images. The land of Lapis Lazuli is the pure land of the Medicine Buddha. The Medicine Buddha, the Healing Buddha. Lapis Lazuli, does anyone know what Lapis Lazuli is? The jewel, yeah, deep. So at night the boat floats peacefully in the land of Lapis Lazuli.

[36:42]

At the ancient dock, the wind and moon are cold and clear. So wind and moon also have references. Wind also means kind of the style of teaching sometimes. And moon is this image of perfection, of wholeness, completeness. So comments or responses to this last part for Dulcet? Yes. First of all, I'm in a whole different place. depending on who you face, because of what's in the process. And then, at the ancient docks, the wind and moon, et cetera, Tiger, that for me was, I just took it concrete to be right here now. The scripture was very deep. I had no sense of history. I didn't know what you were sharing. And so that was just sort of bringing me right back to my, you know. And on some level, you know, all of these images are just that, just, you know, I mean, the koans and these poetic images operate on many levels, including just this immediate, concrete, literal level.

[37:52]

Yes. Yes. I missed the beginning of what you said. In a piece of stone? Oh, I didn't... It's not that he's necessarily inside the stone, the last... Oh, okay. ...in a way that I think the teachings of everyday life and enlightenment are not run up to. They can't say. In a way, you can't float in stone. Something could be floating beneath it to get comfortable. Okay. Well, he's not saying that you're floating in stone. I mean, it's the land of Lapis Lazuli.

[38:53]

It just means it's like the, well, maybe there are lots of, you know, there's lots of blueness or something, but yeah. Okay. Other responses? So you should have the ring remade so that you can wear it. But anyway, I hope I can fit into it someday. But I think it's humorous. Yeah, and I think the avoid offending anyone you face is also humorous. But yes, good. But don't hit people off.

[39:55]

I mean, that's the principle, isn't it? Yeah. Unless they need it. Yeah. Craig. Well, maybe so. Good luck. I don't know if it's a reference to it, just that's what it calls forth for me. How do you translate the four vows here when you say them in English? Okay, I've got a freedom. Actually, that's what I do too. The last character, the do, means literally to carry to the other shore, to carry beings to the other shore.

[41:10]

This idea of liberation or salvation in Buddhism, in Mahayana, is this other shore. And of course, in the Mahayana, we know that samsara is in nirvana. This is the other shore. But there's still this image of reaching the other shore. There's a place where Dogen, actually I'll read it to you, talking about This is from one of these Dharma letters I mentioned. It's not the material you have, but he's talking about not waiting for enlightenment. This is where he's talking about practice, teaching, and expression are all one and the same, and it happened immediately in the same way. And he says, the principle of Zazen in other schools is to wait for enlightenment. For example, there are practices like having crossed over a great ocean on a raft, thinking that upon crossing the ocean, one should discard the raft. The Zazen of our Buddha ancestors is not like this, but simply Buddha's practice. So this is Dogen style, and you may have heard that metaphor of the raft and that you don't carry the raft when you get to the other shore, but Dogen implies, yeah, please, as you climb into the mountains, carry the raft with you.

[42:22]

Anyway, this image of the ancient dock, though, that's not what it means, but that's what it called forth for me, this idea of the other shore. just because he said ancient talk. It might be this sure, you know, as we go over. Yeah, so there's the, this is in Chinese and Japanese culture generally, they think of the ancient emperors and the, you know, the venerable ones and they're certainly much, you know, how can we match the ancient teachers and there's this kind of longing for the great ancient masters and that's part of, whereas, you know, in our culture, anybody that's old, you know, just get rid of them, you know, and anything that's old and, you know. But, I mean, we also have, you know, there may be some of you who think of people in history, I don't know, Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson or, you know, or somebody who, you know, or, I don't know, Aristotle, I don't know, anyway, who you might think of as wonderful, you know, ancient.

[43:27]

But that feeling is very strong in Chinese and Japanese culture. This relates to this whole virtue of filial piety. So yeah, the ancient Buddhas, he talks about the ancient Buddhism. In those lines, the ancient Doc felt like The dock felt like home, it was like coming home and the ancient felt like the home that's always been there. It's not new, it didn't just arrive, you didn't build it, it's always been. That kind of homecoming to where we've always been. Right, so the Zapoton you're sitting on is your ancient dock. And the very word dock implies the journey and docking, you know, your home. It also is like not a place that you can, it's just, it's not a permanent abode, it's a place where you're docking for maybe this lifetime. Let's try another one.

[44:39]

Let's see if we're ready for one that's a little more difficult. Let's see which one I want to do next. Let's just do, let's do 217 first. So this is an example of one where he takes a classic koan, a classic dialogue between two teachers and comments on it. So this one's actually not so, this one's fairly, you know, this one's not so long and somewhat straightforward. But he starts with Yunmen and Caoshan. So Yunmen is a very funny guy. He's one of the founders of one of the five schools Yen Man asked Sao Chan, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy?

[45:43]

Sao Chan said, just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there. So I think it's a wonderful story, you know, it's this place of great intimacy. This is again about studying the self. This is about how do we come to be at home in this body and mind? How do we find, you know, just by sitting upright, become familiar with ourself and our patterns, and this is about studying the self, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy? Just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there. So the place of greatest intimacy we can't possibly know. It's like trying to see your own eyeball. And yet, even though we don't know it or we can't see it, It's still very familiar. There's another koan where a commenter to a koan says something like, why is it that the greatest familiarity feels like enmity?

[46:45]

So if there's somebody you're very close to, you may recognize that feeling of some difficulty with those who you are most close with. Anyway, so Yunmen asked Saoshan, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy? Saoshan said, just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there. And then Dogen, so that's this traditional dialogue, and then Dogen says, suppose this were Ehe, and someone asked me, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy? So this is a traditional way of commenting on the Koans, in the Koan literature that the teacher will, and Dogen does this a lot, where he'll, if he was there, if he was in the dialogue, he would he would, what would he say? And he sometimes would go through all the different pieces of the dialogue and take the position. So if someone asked me, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy, I would just hit her face with my whisk and ask her, is this knowing or not knowing? If she tried to answer, I would hit her again with a whisk.

[47:47]

So this is about knowing and real familiarity and how would it feel to feel Dogen's whisk hitting your face and is it knowing or not knowing? So how do we become most intimate with ourselves and our teacher and the teaching and being upright? So any comments or responses? I find it fascinating to be hit in the face with a whisk. And a whisk is not going to hurt you. It pulls you in short. And it's when we're pulled up short that so often we're confronted with most illness. It isn't always the wrong parties. It's who... It's a very complete statement and it's just pulling the rug out.

[48:49]

And yet, it's about this most intimate, most familiar, most deep connection to ourselves, unmediated. Yes, Craig? It's being in the moment, but being in the moment includes all of the past and all of the future. So, there's this, you know, Ram Dass started some of us off with this Be Here Now business, but, you know, Be Here Now doesn't mean that you, you know, sometimes we misunderstand that as, like, get rid of all the things in the past we regret and get rid of all the things in the future we're afraid of and just be here now and it's very narrow. But actually, I don't think it means that. I think, because actually, right in this present, everything is here. Everyone is here. So, the next inhale each of you is going to take. Has everyone inhaled since I said that?

[49:57]

That inhale could not have happened, that inhale that I said, that you took after I said that, could not have happened if it hadn't been for every single inhale you've ever taken. If you had not inhaled at some point in the past, you wouldn't have had that inhale or this next one. And every inhale you ever will have depends completely on next inhale you take. So if you were to try and, you know, take a period off and not inhale for 40 minutes or 30 minutes, then there wouldn't be any more inhales. So every, each moment completely includes everything that ever was or will be. I mean, not even just your inhales, your great grandmother's inhale. you know, if any one of those hadn't happened before she gave birth to her child that was your, you know, then you couldn't take this next inhale either, and so forth. So, yeah, this intimacy is

[51:00]

includes everything and yet it's very, it's totally, it's so close it's like, you know, just because it is greatly intimate we don't know it's there. Yes? The whisk is made of horsehair. Well, sometimes, you know, yeah. But it's not, you know, there's not even, it's hardly a sound, you know. So in my tradition we have whisks when we get number transmission. We don't use them very often, we just use them for doing ordinations, lay ordinations, very fancy ceremonies. Apparently Dogen, actually I've seen pictures of his whisk, they have it at Eheji. When I went to China, I went to this place in Beijing where they have this huge, four floors of little antique shops filled with all this old stuff, including all these ritual devices.

[52:09]

Some of them are, I think, Dogen's whisk. There was a stick this big, and then there's this black horse here. Originally it was made of horse hair. The one I have is made of something synthetic. No horses were killed in the production of this whisk. So, yeah, it's just, At the end of Fukanza Zenju, does he say a whisk, a stick, a blow, a word? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That refers to just being hit by a whisk, you know, used as... But anyway, in Heikuroku, Dogen often holds up his whisk, you know, or sometimes he draws a circle with his whisk, or a number of times at the end of his Dharamhala Discourse, he'll throw down his whisk. I don't know how to translate that. I think he probably means he puts it down, but literally it says throws down. So sometimes maybe, or he throws down his staff. I mean, he's just using this stuff as, I mean, these ritual objects are just part of the performance art. I don't know. I don't know.

[53:09]

I don't know that he ever did that with anyone. He maybe just described it in this place. I don't know. But he might have. There seems something particularly intimate about a whisk on a face, which feels different than a whack on the shoulder, which is part of our training mode. What could be more intimate than your own face, to feel it so that it seems an appropriate touch? What I'm really confused about is it's not that the answer is just a gesture, But he says, is this knowing or not knowing? Right, good. So it's not like he says, what are you doing? He says, is this knowing or not knowing? It's a question. And if you tried to give an answer, I'd hit you again with a whisk. Is this knowing or not knowing? So please become intimate with these questions.

[54:20]

So I'm going to do another one. I'm going to jump ahead. I'm not sure which of these to do. Let's see. There's two that I have in mind. We'll get to both of them. OK, let's do the one about the teacher first. This is just kind of historical, number 185. So this is a little bit of the history. Many of Dogen's students were from this older um, um, kind of, uh, sort of Zen school, proto-Zen school in Japan called the Darumashu. Daruma means Bodhidharma. And so this is just an historical thing and that, you know, these, the Dogen's not, in, in, in Shobu Gento too, Dogen's not trying to present some doctrine or philosophy. You know, a lot of modern philosophers read Dogen, and starting in the 1920s, some Japanese nonsoto people tried to present Dogen as a great native Japanese philosopher, which he is in a way.

[55:29]

But it's not that he's presenting some position or some doctrine or some philosophy. He's working with particular students. So I was going to say, especially in the ones where there's a koan and then he's responding, You know, the way to read these things is to visualize Dogen sitting up there on the seat with his whisk or whatever, his staff, and then there's these monks standing, you know, and some of them we know who they were, you know, there's a number of them who we know about, and some of them are these students who became themselves great teachers. And then, you know, to visualize the story itself, so one of the ways to work with a koan, it's not just, so you asked about Soto way of working with koans, and this isn't just Soto, but another way besides focusing on a turning phrase or a head word like moo or something is just to actually see the whole scene of the koan. So in the one we just did, So I'm digressing from the next one, but anyway, we'll come back to some like this, which is to actually see the scene of the dialogue of the monk and the teacher in the story and imagine, you know, and look at what's going on, really look at each line and what's going on and why is the teacher saying this?

[56:42]

Why is the monk asking this? What is it about that particular monk that this teacher would be saying this? And so there's that story within a story. There's that story. And then there's Dogen telling the story to the particular monks who are standing there listening at this Dharma Hall discourse. And then, of course, there's us talking about it here in Rai in 2003. Anyway, Dogen's particular students, many of them, some of the ones who had kind of this background in this place in Echizen where Eheji was established, many of them had been in this Darumashu school and it seems like in that school there was this teaching that once you understand that there is Buddha nature, once you have Kensho, once you understand Buddha nature or have heard about Buddha nature, then that's it, you understand and you don't need to practice anymore. So a lot of Dogen's teaching is actually about countering that particular misunderstanding of these students from that former school. But this is interesting because it's a place, this refers to some of those people.

[57:43]

So this is a dharma hall discourse given at the request of head monk Ekon in memorial for his late teacher, Wayfarer Kakuan. So Kakuan had been one of the disciples, let's see, I've got a note here. Coughlin was an heir of the founder of that Dharamshala school, Dainichi Nonin, who Dogen criticizes very strongly, but Kakuzon Ekon had been, was one, died actually before Dogen. He came to study with Dogen and he brought many of his students and they became students of Dogen and they included Kōnejo, Tetsugikai, four or five of the seven major disciples of Dōgen came from this school and had been students of this guy Kakuzen Ekan and Kakuzen Ekan here asks Dōgen to do a memorial discourse for his previous teacher, Kakuan.

[58:47]

And Kakuzan Ekon himself never received transmission from Dogen, but he recommended to his students, you should stay and study with Dogen. And a number of them did eventually receive transmission, not from Dogen, but from Koen Ejo, his successor. So this whole thing about lineage and teachers, there's a lot of interweaving all through the history of Zen. of different teachers studying with a particular, students studying with a particular teacher, but then also other teachers. So that all is relevant to this. So, okay, I'll just read this. After offering incense, Dogen took his seat, held up his whisk, okay, and said, who can equal Ekon in their conduct of filial responsibility? So Ekon is this, actually a teacher who was asking for a memorial for his teacher, Kakalan. Today's memorial dedication will be clearly examined by the departed sacred spirit. The deep determination of the disciple yearning for his lay teacher is known only by the lay teacher.

[59:50]

The lay teacher's compassion while sympathizing with his disciple is known only by his disciple. How can someone else know it? People without such a relationship cannot match it. So it is said, it cannot be known with mind, it cannot be attained without mind, it cannot be reached by practice enlightenment, and it cannot be measured with spiritual power. Having reached this ground, how can it be calculated? Then Dogon pounded his staff and said, only the staff always knows it distinctly. Why does the staff always know it distinctly? Because this is the case, all Buddhas in the past are thus. all Buddhas in the present are thus, and all Buddhas in the future are thus. Although this is so, this is exactly the affair of the Buddha ancestor's realm. How is this the true principle of knowing and repaying our debt of kindness?" So this, only this staff always knows it distinctly.

[60:51]

You know, it's like that, in that present moment, of the staff pounding the floor, that's total present moment. And yet, that's where we know this connection of teacher and student, this deep connection. And so he says, only the teacher can understand the disciple and the disciple's effort. And only the disciple can really know the depths of the teacher. So after a pause, Duncan said, alas, for the days of the past, as the teacher becomes a single piece of emptiness. So looking at, you know, this is the teacher departing, the teacher's passing away. Confused by flowers in the eyes, the great earth is red. Blood and tears filling my chest, to whom can I speak? I only wish that the teaching of this staff would spread widely. These are the very sayings that know and repay our debt of kindness. So Doge is not even talking about his own teacher now, he's talking about the student of his former teacher.

[61:55]

What is this matter of going beyond Buddhas and ancestors? So here we have it, Dogen threw his staff down before the platform and descended from his seat. So here we see, in Shobo Genzo, you don't really see Dogen's feelings as a person and his commitment to the teaching and his feelings. So we can feel Dogen's feelings towards his own teacher here, but he's actually talking about Kakuzen looking back at Kakuan, even though he criticizes the teaching that they got from Kakuan. He's still this deep connection of teacher and student. Those are not literally there, so there are interpretations. Actually, we've changed the form of this where the bracket says Dogen. It doesn't say Dogen, but there's a kind of part that we now have in italics that's kind of the stage direction. But then, I'll ask for the days of the present. Literally, it says, I'll ask for the days of the past.

[62:58]

I'm sorry, a single piece of emptiness. but he's referring to the former teacher becoming a piece of emptiness, passing away. So in this section there's places where we have brackets to indicate what's implied A lot of times, so just a note about translating this, a lot of times in Chinese and in Japanese, a subject isn't there. They don't use pronouns. The subject could be singular or plural. Sometimes they differentiate, but often they don't. So a lot of times, translating it to make it coherent English, you have to supply a pronoun. Sometimes you can get away with keeping the same ambiguity. But anyway, there are places where in context it's very clear what is meant. And so anyway, those places with the brackets are places where we added something to the literal text, but it's clearly what is implied. Either it's clearly what is implied, or sometimes it's our interpretation of what he's referring to. But it's not literally in the text.

[63:59]

So responses to these questions. It's a little bit longer than the others we've had. Yeah, so there's this expression. Flowers in the eye, there's actually a whole essay of Shobo Genzo which is called Kuke, flowers in the sky, and it also means flowers of emptiness. So literally it refers to, sometimes it's used for cataracts, it refers to some distortion of our vision, some distortion of our understanding, some delusion. But Dogen in the Shobo Genzo essay, Kuge, which is very good. It's in Tom Cleary's book, Shobo Genzo Zen Essays, which is one of the better anthologies for getting into Dogen. Dogen, you know, often he takes phrases that are commonly understood as negative and turns them around and shows them as positive.

[65:06]

So he talks about flowers in the sky as the dharma, that the dharma is continuously these flowers. So that's flowers in the eye, but I think it's echoed in this flowers in the eyes. Literally, it means not seeing clearly, confused by flowers in the eyes. But it also, for Dogon, often what's apparently negative has a positive meaning. He does that a lot. But actually, often that's there in the Blue Cliff Record too, which is one of the main Koan anthologies, where there's a lot of irony in this whole literature. In the traditional Koans themselves, you shouldn't take them at face value. Sometimes when it seems like somebody wins and somebody loses, or somebody's being praised and vice versa, or criticized, you have to kind of feel what is really meant and often it's the criticism is actually ironic praise and vice versa. So it's there in the tradition, but Dogen really goes further with it. But literally when he says, confused by flowers in the eye, the great earth is red.

[66:09]

Flowers in the eyes is kind of an image for his tears. The great earth is red. So it's a distortion, but it's also something wonderful. And the great earth is red is like an image for the earth is bleeding. Maybe, just a comment, this is one of the most emotional passages of Dogen that I've seen. There are others like this in Heiko Roku, but yeah, it's certainly one of them. How is this the true principle? Is that a typo? What's the paragraph at the beginning? Oh, yeah, you're right, it is. It should be Principle LE. Where are you pointing at?

[67:14]

Just before after the pause. Second paragraph. Yeah, it should be printed. Thank you. Yeah, I hope I need to check that. In fact, okay, I need to make a note to check that in the copy editing which is already done on that. Well, that section has already been copy edited and I hope he corrected that and I need to check that. Thank you. I'm sure there will eventually still be errors in this when it becomes a book, but anyway, yes. So this is very emotional, but it's talking about this phrase repaying our debt of kindness means our gratitude to our teachers, so that's why we share what we can from our teachers. But it's interesting here in the interweaving of this when Dogen's doing this for Ekon, for his teacher, Kakuan.

[68:31]

And of course, Dogen was probably grateful to Kakuan and to Ekon for bringing him all these wonderful students, even though he had to, you know, sometimes in some of Shobo Genzo, he gets very vitriolic even about criticizing some aspects of and it's directed at the teaching that they, the misunderstanding is from this previous teaching that they've been involved with, actually. And still here he's respecting this teaching. I don't know what filial means, and could you talk a little bit about where it says, it cannot be known with mind, it cannot be attained without mind? Uh-huh, good. So, let's see, where does it say filial? So this is a, yeah, filial responsibility. So this is a basic Confucian, but just basic Chinese cultural and Japanese cultural virtue. which is respect for the ancients, again, respect for the ancestors. So all Chinese and Japanese people still mostly have an altar in their home where they have pictures of their ancestors.

[69:38]

There's this kind of feeling of gratitude for those who've gone before. So it's in America where we're always moving around and we don't know our... How many of you know something about any of your great-grandmothers? Okay. So only about half. And if it's a great-great-grandmother, any of your... Yeah, very few. So we just don't know that. But in Chinese culture, they make a big deal about respecting the ancestors. Nowadays, kids don't even respect their parents a lot. But anyway, this is just part of Chinese culture and part of Dogon's cultural milieu. So that was taken into Zen though, the whole thing about ancestry in Zen. It wasn't important in India. They didn't care about lineage in India. When it came to China, as Zen started as a movement to bring the Buddhist teachings into our everyday experience, then it also adapted this kind of Chinese, and all the Chinese Buddhist schools adapted this kind of idea of lineage and ancestry.

[70:51]

But what it's basically about is this responsibility. So Maureen is there. Responsibility and obligation. Yeah, and it's actually, you know, it's responsibility. So the Chinese word on, which means, one way to translate it would be benevolence and gratitude for benevolence, but it also means obligation and there's a kind of onerous side to it. Yeah. Yes. It means feel. Yeah. It means feel obligatory. It feels no choice. Yeah, but a lot of Japanese literature is about the side of it where it does feel obligatory. It can. But what he's saying here is that this is this gratitude. It's just the natural response. Yeah. No, it's going beyond, no, it's actually carrying it forward.

[71:58]

So we don't hold on to the teachings of, you know, the thing is that Zen is alive. It's not just about some historical artifact about something that happened in 1234 or whatever, 1245. This is 1246. It's our own practice, so we practice just on our own cushions, studying ourselves, but we're grateful not just for our teacher, but also the whole lineage of teachings. for all of the ways in which Dogen wrote all this down and other people made copies of it. It continued so this can help our practice. But going beyond this, how do we carry it forward ourselves? How do we take care of our own lives? How do we become Buddhism ancestors?

[73:19]

How do we carry this forward? Formally, in terms of lineage and all of that, but in that way, and that's all that that's about, but also in terms of our own lives, in terms of the people that we meet, in terms of our family and our co-workers, and just in our own lives, how do we go beyond Buddhas and ancestors out of gratitude to Buddhas and ancestors? So that's the full responsibility. It's not just that we have a picture up on the altar. I knew Maureen and I can see Maureen here. So it is very emotional. That's okay. That's our life too. So we face our emotions and we face That's beautiful and yet the point of that is how do you take care of your life?

[74:28]

Go beyond the Buddhist ancestors, go beyond Maureen and Susan, how do you be Craig? So you asked about this other part which is… Right. Right. When Maureen ordained me, a backhoe arrived on the property to bury the piano. And we had to stop the ceremony while the backhoe dug a hole. So this is very auspicious today. Only the lawnmower. So it cannot be known by mind, it cannot be reached by, where is it? So let me go back a little before that.

[75:30]

The late teacher's compassion while sympathizing with the disciple is known only by the disciple. How can someone else know it? People without such a relationship cannot match it. So it is said it cannot be known with mind, it cannot be attained without mind. It cannot be reached by practice enlightenment. It can't be measured with spiritual power. So this relationship, which is really our relationship with ourselves, this is again about this great intimacy. We can't, even with Buddha mind, So in, Ben-Dorad Dokin says that even if all of the Buddhas and Ancestors, so he's talking about the way, this is this, I translated it with Shoakun the Wholehearted Way, and he's talking about how wonderful our Zazen is, and how it affects, how it actually, when we sit Zazen once, all of the space becomes enlightened.

[76:35]

It's just a wild statement, and he talks about the intimacy and the mutual influence and benefit and help from the lawnmower and the lights and the candles and the rug and everything that happens when we're shooting zazen. And it's like not part of our worldview to think that way. It bends everything. And then he says, even if all the Buddhas and ancestors got together for thousands of years and tried to express how wonderful this is and even if they got all of their computers with massive hard drives and calculated endlessly, they couldn't measure how wonderful this is. So it's that kind of statement. It cannot be known by mind. But it cannot be attained without mind. So we actually, we don't know it, but yet There's a way in which it is very intimate.

[77:38]

There's a way in which, so he uses the word for attain, but it's not like a gain or accomplishment, it's just like we connect with it through mind, even though we can't know it. But it cannot be reached even by practice enlightenment, which is a very, you know, so this intimacy, Even our practice of enlightenment, even our realization, even the enlightenment of the practice that we do, even our practice of enlightenment doesn't reach it. So I don't know, but what other questions do you have about it? Okay. Other comments? It's interesting in the sense that the staff makes a sound, it's an expression but it can't be moved without the hand.

[78:45]

It's alive, it's not just an idea of the staff, it's not just some staff up on the altar, it's boom. Well there's a relationship between the hand and the staff. Yes. Okay, one more before lunch. So I wanted to do that one in honor of Maureen, but let's go to number 200. Unless you have another? I have a non-physical question. Should I tell the Tenzos to ring the bell at 12 o'clock in the evening or should they wait for a signal from you? Oh. Normally we're sitting and they come and, you know, they indicate... That's okay. That's all right. And I might say another sentence or two. So we're not going to finish 200, but I wanted to do one that we break in the middle of.

[79:48]

I'll just read it first. In the middle of it, there's a koan and then there's Dogen's response. In studying the way, the mind of the way is primary. Well, I'll say something about that. When he says mind of the way, that's an expression in Zen for bodhicitta. So it's doshin, literally, the mind of the way. But it also implies bodhicitta, which is this initial aspiration for awakening, this initial impulse or aspiration towards practice. The bodhicitta is primary, so whatever it was that first brought you to practice, whatever was the first inspired you to even think about practice. This is primary.

[80:52]

So it's good to remember that. And if you've been practicing a while, it's easy to forget. And it may be that that's not why you're practicing now. But there was something in that first impulse, you know, whether it's just, you know, I mean, there's this aspect of this practice that's therapeutic and we all are damaged and need help or in some way or other. But there's also, you know, right in bodhicitta, something that's in our first impulse that was about You know, all beings. It was about something very deep and elemental. They're not separate. But anyway, all of that's implied, I think, in this sentence. And studying the way, the mind of the way, is primary. This temple in the remote mountains and deep valleys is not easy to reach and people arrive only after sailing over oceans and climbing mountains. Without treading with the mind of the way, it's difficult to arrive at this field." So I think he's literally talking about Eheji, you know, which was quite remote, was very hard to get to. But he's also talking metaphorically about this mind of the way, this, you know, whatever it was that brought you to the empty hands endo.

[81:56]

Without treading with the mind of the way, it's difficult to arrive at this field. To refine the rice, first the bran must be removed. This is literally true in China and Japan. The word for rice means food. Rice is like bread is for us. And you actually have to take the husks off the rice. Anyway, to refine the rice, first the bran must be removed. This is a good place in which to engage the way. And yet I'm sorry that the master himself, Dogen, does not readily attend to others by disposition." So here again, he's being personal. There's a lot of ways to read that. I'll keep going. However, by day or night, the voice of the valley streams happens to be conducive for carrying water. Also in spring and fall, the colors of the mountain managed to be conducive for gathering firewood. I hope that cloud and water monks will keep the way in mind. So the word for monk in Chinese or it's pronounced in Japanese means literally clouds and waters.

[83:05]

It's like floating around visiting teachers like clouds or it's just free flowing like clouds and waters. So literally it says monks but it's the word for clouds and waters and here obviously it's part of the imagery of what he's talking about. So he says going back a little bit, by day or night the voice in the valley stream happens to be conducive for carrying water. Also in the spring and fall, the colors of the mountain manage to be conducive for gathering firewood. I hope that cloud and water monks and practitioners will keep the way in mind." So this is going back to this mind of the way and studying the way. And there's another reference in there, so the voice of the valley streams and the colors of the mountain goes back, there's an essay by that name that Dogen does in Sherbo Genzo that refers to another story, the famous great Song Dynasty Chinese poet, Su Tongpo, in Chinese, when he was awake and said that the colors of the mountain are the body of Buddha, the voice of the valley streams is the voice of the Dharma.

[84:10]

So this kind of feeling of nature. So there's lots of levels going on here. He's talking about just being here at Eheji in this beautiful place way in the remote mountains. And he's also, so he's talking about it in a literal way also, just here at Eheji. even though he apologizes, he says he does not readily attend to others by disposition. So I wonder, you know, how to read that. I mean, maybe Duncan was really kind of shy and he had trouble relating to students sometimes. Or he wasn't so, you know, he's saying he's not, he wishes he was more attentive to his students and their real needs. Anyway, you know, and he may be being just kind of saying that in a rhetorical way. It's how to interpret that. It's clearly much more personal, though, than anything in Shabbo Genzo where he's talking about it.

[85:11]

And there's others I hope we'll get to today where he's talking about his own teaching style. So this is about his own teaching at Eheji when he's training these monks. So that's kind of the first part. And then there's a koan, I remember. So there's a lot more we can say about that first part. But then he adds this story. So again, visualize Dogen sitting up on the high seat on the altar, and his monks, Koen Ejo and Tetsugi Kai, and all these other monks are standing there listening to this. And then he tells the story. A monk asks Shoshan, all the Buddhas come from this sutra. What is this sutra? Shoshan responded, speak softly, speak softly. The monk asked, how should we receive and maintain it? Shoshan said, it can never be defiled. So that's a reference to another story, which I have to tell you. I'll finish this before lunch, which is good, because I want to kind of, you know, we'll pick it up after. But this is a wonderful story.

[86:11]

You know, all the Buddhas come from this sutra. What is the sutra? Well, first of all, a sutra is something said by the Buddha. That's the definition. A sutra, a scripture, is what the Buddha said. So this monk, again, in all these koans, a monk asks a question of the teacher. Sometimes they give you the name of the monk, if he later became a famous teacher, or she occasionally. But usually they're just anonymous. So I have this image of this monk wandering around, visiting all the teachers in China. Anyway, this is a really good monk. It's a great question. All the Buddhas come from this sutra. What is this sutra? And that actually is a complete statement. What is the sutra? So just that question is complete in and of itself. Shoshan responded, speak softly, speak softly. That's a wonderful answer. I love that. Speak softly. So, you know, that could be a reference to kind speech.

[87:13]

You could read it as saying, Be quiet. Don't let them hear you ask that question. I mean, there's lots of ways to read that answer. Speak softly, speak softly. And it also just, you know, this is the true sutra that the Buddhists come from. Anyway, I'm saying too much. I'm sorry. I don't want me to explain this. I'm just throwing out possibilities here. The monk asks, how should we receive and maintain it? Shoshan said it can never be defiled. So there's a story, I'll come back to that story about it can never be defiled. Then Dogen says, suppose someone asked me, hey, what is the sutra? So here he does this thing where he's in the story, after reading the story to the monk. So we have to take, there's this introduction, which there's a lot there, and then there's this traditional koan, and you could spend a lot of time just considering, playing with what's going on here in the story between Shoshan and the monk.

[88:19]

I mean, I just started with it. But then Dogen does his commentary. Suppose someone asked me, what is the sutra? I would say to him, if you call it the sutra, your eyebrows will fall out. So just like when in our culture we say, if someone lies, you say that their nose gets long like Pinocchio, they say their eyebrows fall out if you lie. So, wait just a minute. I would say to him, if you call it the sutra, your eyebrows will fall out. As to how should we receive and maintain it, I would say, reaching back for your pillow in the middle of the night. So that's a reference to another story. So when we reconvene, I will tell you these other two stories that are part of the references in this. And then we'll come back and look at this more. But you already have enough to start looking at it. So please, as we take our lunch break, speak softly. Speak softly. But you're free to speak.

[89:21]

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