for these five days of Sashin, I've decided to talk about Genjo-Koan, Dogen Zenji's Genjo-Koan. That's why this morning we recited the Genjo-Koan. And I think every day for service we'll recite Genjo-Koan in order to make us more and more familiar with what I'm talking about and with what Dogen's talking about. So since we don't have very much time, this translation that I'm using is a translation of my Zumi Russian. Genjo means something like manifesting in the present.

[01:16]

And koan has several meanings. Koan means public case, you know, like in the koans, Zen koans. Rinzai's And Hakuin's interpretation of Koan is a public case which you use as an example and as a way of studying. Dogen's use of Koan can mean that, but here, Ko here is something like the absolute, absolute quality of life. And An is a certain position.

[02:28]

Dogen talks about each phenomena having its position as a dharma, or its dharma position. and so in this sense koan means the relative and absolute inseparable and it's like the more I think about it it's like Dogen's expression, Dogen's way of expressing In Soto tradition, there's the Sando Kai by Sekito Kisen, who was a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch. Sando Kai is something like

[03:32]

the relative quality of the absolute and the absolute quality of the relative. And... or... reality and phenomena completely at one. And... Tozan, real guy, with his Hokyo Zamai is his way of expressing the same understanding. And I think that Dogen's Genjo Koan is his way of expressing this understanding. So it's each one is from his own personal understanding expressing this same truth. So in this way, koan is not so different than santo kai or hokyo zama, the relative and absolute at one.

[04:56]

Even though all things are one intrinsically, Each phenomena holds its own position in the universe, which is, at the same time, an absolute position. Nothing can take the place of a speck of dust. And each one of us, you know, nothing can take the place of Ram or Meli. So I'll read, I don't know if I'll be able to get through the whole Ginjo Koan, but I'll just go as I go. When all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, buddhas and creatures.

[06:02]

When the ten thousand dharmas are without self, There are no delusion, no enlightenment, no Buddhas, no creatures, no life, and no death. The Buddha way transcends being and non-being. Therefore, there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures and Buddhas. When the Dharma fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. For example, when we view the four directions from a boat, On the ocean, where no land is in sight, it looks circular and nothing else. No other aspects are apparent. However, this ocean is neither round nor square, and its qualities are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It seems circular as far as our eyes can reach at the time. Likewise, the 10,000 dharmas are so. Though there are many aspects of a secular life and a religious life, we only recognize and understand what the power of our penetrating vision can reach.

[07:06]

In order to appreciate the 10,000 dharmas, we should know that although they may look round or square, the other qualities of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Furthermore, other universes lie in all quarters. It is so not only around ourselves, but also directly here, even in a drop of water. So Dogen starts out with three, four sentences, four statements. One is, when all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, buddhas and creatures. When all dharmas are buddhadharma, as we know, The word Dharma has many meanings. It can be used in many ways.

[08:07]

Dharma with a capital D means the law or Buddha's teaching or absolute truth. And in a small With a small d, it means, in a general way, all phenomena, and in a specific way, the various elements, irreducible elements, which constitute our body and psyche. So, this is a small d. He says, when all dharmas, all phenomena, are buddhadharma. Now dharma is the phenomenal side, and buddha is the absolute side, in this sense. Buddhadharma.

[09:11]

When all dharmas, when all phenomena, are buddhadharma, or seen through the wisdom eye of buddha. And so the word when means when you see all dharmas through the wisdom eye, the absolute eye of Buddha, then there is this. Then we see this. Do you get that? It sounds pretty intellectual. When all things are seen through the eye of Buddha, then there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, Buddhas and creatures.

[10:21]

So this is a kind of dualistic understanding, right? Because we have opposites. We have enlightenment and delusion. Then he puts in the word practice, but there's no opposite for practice. That's a kind of interesting thing. He uses the word practice, but he doesn't use it, he doesn't state any opposite for it. But the others are all opposites. Enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, Buddhas and creatures. So when all dharmas, all these things, all phenomena are seen through Buddha's wisdom eye, we can see in this way that all things are separate and opposite, just as we see them in our normal way. So he's saying,

[11:26]

Just the way we see things is reality itself. And then he says, when the 10,000 dharmas are without self, there are no delusion, no enlightenment, no buddhas, no creatures, no life, and no death. The one reason why he uses the word dharmas, he doesn't say I or we. He doesn't say when I am or when we are or when you are. He says when all dharmas are. Meaning here is in The way that we study Buddhadharma is through dharmas, not through persons.

[12:35]

Strictly speaking, in Buddhism, when we study ourself or study meaning of life, it's always through the dharmas, not through I, you, he, she, it. although we use those terms all the time in a convenient way. So this statement is saying the same thing from a different point of view. It's like taking the skin off or taking the clothes off. But when you look at it this way, there are no enlightenment, no delusion, no creatures, No Buddhas, no creatures, no life, no death. The self, in other words, there's no self. This self of the first, or this understanding of the first statement, and the second statement, is really there's no self in things.

[13:53]

Sometimes there are many ways to look at these three sentences. One way is as a kind of progression, you know, to say, to look at the phenomenal side and then the absolute side. That's one way of looking at these two sentences. The first sentence states how things are in the relative way. And the second sentence states how things are in absolute way. complete negation like the Heart Sutra. And then the third sentence says, the Buddha way transcends being and non-being. Therefore there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures and Buddhas. So in a certain way you can see that as After you've made the first two statements, everything exists, nothing exists, then things exist and not exist at the same time.

[15:05]

Both existence and non-existence take place at the same time. These are three levels of understanding about our life. Sagan Gyoshi had a famous statement by Sagan, who was also a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch. He says, 20 years ago, before I was studying Zen, I looked at mountains and I said, those are mountains. And I looked at rivers and I said, those are rivers. And after studying Zen, I no longer saw mountains as mountains. I no longer saw rivers as rivers. The first one pertains to the first statement. The second one pertains to the second statement.

[16:09]

And then he says, now that I've had some realization, I see that mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. But what that means is, yes, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, at the same time, mountains are not mountains, rivers are not rivers. It's like when we try to think about life and death, or illusion or delusion or enlightenment. To use Dogen's examples, If we talk about enlightenment, the tendency is to think that we've transcended delusion. Enlightenment is a state in which we've transcended delusion. In some way, that's true.

[17:14]

When we think about it, we think, well, there's enlightenment and delusion. There's life and there's death. That's the usual way. that we observe things. But in the second sentence he says there's no, in this case when you look at things there's no enlightenment or delusion, no life and death, or birth and death. What is there then? Can we go around thinking that? Can we just walk around thinking, well, there's no birth and death. Is that what you think about? Is that true? Is it false? In our practice, in Zazen, in Sishin, we need to come to the realization of no delusion, no enlightenment, no birth, no death.

[18:49]

What Dogen is really talking about here in all these three sentences is how we approach what he's talking about in these three sentences is through zazen. And he's talking about the selflessness of all dharmas and the selflessness of our self. How we discover or how we uncover our true self. We say true self is no self, no special self.

[20:04]

And after we realize no self, no self is a kind of enlightenment. If you have an experience of enlightenment, you'll realize that there's actually no self. what we call our person, is really no self. And then, what do you do after that? Are you changed somehow? Then, you live your life in the world. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. Your automobile is your automobile. The safe way is the safe way. Anger comes up. And then the last sentence, he says, however, flowers fall, giving rise to attachment.

[21:26]

and weeds spring up, arousing antipathy. I didn't read that before. My page was turned over and I read the wrong part. Flowers fall giving rise to attachment and weeds spring up arousing antipathy. No matter how much we know, no matter how smart we are, no matter how we try to do the right thing in this world, things are just as they are. Things go as they go. Enlightenment, flowers stands for enlightenment and weeds for delusion.

[22:37]

So he says, flowers fall, giving rise to attachment. We become attached to some idea. When we become attached to some side of enlightenment, immediately it disappears. And when delusion rises up, we get very angry. So Dogon is giving us this view of our life. One view is like looking at our life with our clothes on.

[23:46]

Another is like looking at our life as bones. or as just the inside, you know, as it really is and not just as it seems. And then he's saying both of these are necessary. In Buddhism, there are two tendencies. There's this tendency to reduce everything to elements. which is Abhidhamma, the study of reducing. It's a kind of reductionism, reducing everything to its elements. And if you continue to reduce everything to its elements, you tend to think that life doesn't have any substance to it.

[24:56]

And it's important to do that. It's important to see how everything is composed of elements. But the other side is that we live in a kind of dream. And if we don't understand or pay attention or... I can see people are dreaming now. If we don't give some reality to our dreams, our life doesn't work. So we have some problem, I think, in Buddhism, in our Buddhist way. To see, you know, enlightenment is to see everything as it really is. And we feel that if we really see everything as it really is, then we'll be able to live our life in a correct way, which is true.

[26:09]

But that correct way also includes our delusion. So in this way, you know, delusion means some dream of life. some dream about life which allows us, gives us some direction. Looking at reality gives us fundamental understanding. But with fundamental understanding we don't necessarily have a direction. Direction is like a dream. What do you do after you have real understanding of enlightenment. After enlightenment, how would you act? Well, you still act in the realm of delusion, which is the realm of dreaming. Dreaming means our idea about what to do.

[27:19]

So we create a dream in our mind, and then we act it out. That's called our life in the world. Some kind of dream appears in our mind, and then we act out the dream. And as we act out the dream, we continue to dream. And so we're dreaming and acting and dreaming and acting. And if our life is only based on dreaming, then that's called really the realm of delusion. Because there's no reality to it. We act out things without looking at what's real. It's true. And if we only stick to what's true, then we can't really do anything. So, when we see, when all dharmas are seen through the eye of Buddha, we realize

[28:22]

reality and yet go back into the dream. So, in Sishin, we stop our dream. Actually, our dream is to sit here for five days. That's what our dream is. Our dream is to sit here for five days and bow to each other, bow to the cushion, do kin-hin, sit with our legs crossed, eat meals, and we've planned that all out. We dreamed it up, and now we're acting it out. And so, through our enlightenment, we created this dream, and we're acting it out. And we take it very seriously.

[29:26]

It's a matter of life and death. How we do. But at the same time we should realize our delusion. Thogen talks more about this later on. More about enlightenment and delusion. So this opening statement contains the germ of the whole Ginjo Goan. These four statements, four sentences, are expanded on in each little part is taken up and explained in some way. Maybe Gendry Cohen is a little too intellectual for Sashim.

[31:06]

Do you think so? Okay? Anyway, there are many layers. Each thing Dogen says has many, many layers. And this is considered the axial work for his whole Shobo Genzo. All the other, not only is the rest of the Genjo Koan a commentary on these four sentences, but the whole Shobo Genzo, his whole 95 fascicles, seems to be a commentary on Genjo Koan. So it's important for us to have some understanding of Ginja Koan, to understand what Dogon's understanding was, and also our own practice, which directly comes from Dogon, or indirectly.

[32:16]

But the question, how do you define reality? Define reality? I don't know if you can define reality. The other day, Daniel went to the planetarium and he stood up and he said, Space is real. I didn't know what to think of that. Well, ask me again tomorrow. Okay? ♪ Listen to him sing ♪

[33:32]

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