Today I want to present a little tale from Dogen's Ehei Shingi. Shingi is different than Dogen's Shobo Genzo. Shobo Genzo is Dogen's philosophical and poetic, and Teisho presents his unique understanding. And Shingi is more like the practice side, how one practices, the practica of practice. What is the work of the Tenzo? What is the work of the work leader? What is the work of the Ino or the Zendo manager?

[01:06]

What is the work of the gardener and so forth? But of course, what is that work not just what do they do, but what is the meaning of that kind of practice. So every position in the monastic life is a position of practice, no matter what the work is, and you have to be able to find the meaning within the work. And of course we have in the temple practice it's similar, not the same, but similar, and we have these positions. Everyone actually in this practice, if you are a member, we like to give everyone some position. I don't like to call them jobs. I think of a job as something you do every day and get paid for, but here it's a position that you have and so you work on your position, work with your position and with every position that you have you view the practice from that position and then your position changes

[02:34]

some positions rotate faster than others, but if we keep up on it, the positions keep rotating and everyone has something to do, even if it's just taking care of an altar or emptying the wastebasket in the bathroom or something, that's your position. So these positions, the way we practice in the position, this is called the Shingi, and for Dogen, he had many stories about how, say, the head cook, you know, stories or stories exemplifying the practice of the Eno or the work leader.

[03:40]

So I want to read you one of these little anecdotes, stories, talk about it. He says, an example fills the position of practice leader. Well, I don't know if practice leader is the right term, actually I think it's Eno or the one who is the head of practice in the Zendo. Okay, the position of practice leader is Sui Jing, great master Baozi of the Huiyuan Monastery in Jingzhou, who is an heir of Dongshan. While he was at Luo Tu's assembly, he became the Inna. One day he called the assembly to work by hitting the Han with a mallet.

[04:50]

Han is like a wooden bell that we use in the monastery. And he said, those of you whose seats are on the right side of the monk's hall, please take care of the firewood. And those on the left, please plow the field. So he came in and he announced the work for the day. And the head monk said, what about the holy monk, Manjushri, who is enshrined in the center? Zui Jing replied, he's not seated on either side, where is there for him to go? Not a minor teacher, Zui Jing was a fine example of someone accomplished in the way. And then he makes this little remark that says, the elders of today did not reach such stature. Manjushri is the personification of non-duality, wisdom of non-duality.

[06:05]

Samantabhadra is the Bodhisattva who is the personification of practice and Rabbalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva who is the So these three aspects, the wisdom of non-duality, practice, and compassion are the three legs of true practice. And these three legs hold up the pot of practice and interact with each other. And within wisdom is practice and compassion. compassion is the result of wisdom. Compassion flows out of wisdom and wisdom flows out of compassion. Practice includes both wisdom and compassion.

[07:16]

and compassion includes practice and wisdom. But when one is in the ascendancy, one is in the foreground, the other two are in the background. So when wisdom is in the foreground, practice and compassion are in the background supporting. So in a monastery, usually Manjushri is the figure in the Zindo. In the old days, they had lots of real estate, lots of land and they could build big complexes and they could have a building for chanting and building for Zazen, a building for eating, a building for the bathroom, all these different buildings, seven or eight buildings, including a huge main gate, because land was not at such a premium as it is today.

[08:30]

So in America we do everything in one room, more or less. Most Zen centers have one or maybe two rooms, you know, but maybe a Buddha Hall and a Zen Do, but we have like one-room schoolhouses where we do everything in the same spot. So we have our service in one spot and we have Zazen in the same spot and so forth. But in the Zendo of a larger place, Manjushri is seated at the center, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. In the Buddha hall you have Buddha as the main figure, but of course we have Buddha as the main figure and this and on the other side is Avalokiteshvara.

[09:31]

So Manjushri, I say he for convenience sake, but actually I want to talk a little about Manjushri's sex life. So The head monk said, what about the holy monk, Bonjushri, who is enshrined in the center? And Zui Jing replied, he's not seated on either side. Where is there for him to go? So this is the koan of non-discrimination. We say we should have a non-discriminating mind. but at the same time we're always making choices. So this is the koan of how do you make choices with non-discriminating mind.

[10:38]

This is a kind of a koan for the abbot. Although the abbot sits not quite in the center, but a little off to the side, it's really in the middle, the abbot's in the middle. And sometimes we have, say, women sashin, and sometimes we have a man sashin. Now, if the abbot is a man, which sashin should he attend? if the abbot is a woman, which sachin should she attend?" So it's a nice little koan. I've solved the koan but I haven't acted it out. So who is Monjushri? Sometimes, you know, we say he, he looks like a man, but actually Monjushri is

[11:50]

a man and Manjushri is a woman and Manjushri is neither a man nor a woman and Manjushri is both a man and a woman. So when Manjushri is a man, Manjushri acts like a man and has the characteristics and the feelings and so forth of a man. When Manjushri is a woman, she feels like a woman, has the characteristics of a woman and does things in a feminine way. But not all men are masculine, not all women are feminine, which is not too relevant, Manjushri is neither a man nor a woman. When we come to the Zendo, we walk in as a man or a woman, or somewhere in between.

[13:02]

And when we sit down, we let go of being a man or a woman. We're neither man nor woman. even though you may feel that you're a man or a woman, actually we let go of being a man or a woman. If we let go of being a man or a woman, then we are just below the level of discriminating mind. We let go of that discriminating mind. But Manjushri is also both man and woman, which means when it's necessary to be a man, Manjushri is a man, and when it's necessary to be a woman, Manjushri is a woman.

[14:14]

But at the same time, Manjushri as a man is a man, and Manjushri as a woman is a woman. So even though your sex is taken away from you, you don't lose anything. Sometimes, you know, in the past, There have been many controversies over women's practice and men's practice. The history of practice has been the domination of men, and it's a kind of male-oriented, so it's been a male-oriented practice. And even with the nuns of the past, in Buddhist time, you know, women had many more precepts than men, and there are various reasons why that is, but some of them are reasonable and some of them are probably not reasonable.

[15:33]

And the women's practice has been sort of dominated by men, but one aspect of that is that in the past women served men and men protected women. That was a kind of deal that our ancestors had. We will serve you and you'll protect us. And the feeling of And the feeling of wanting to protect was very valuable. And now, of course, with the equality, the equal rights of men and women, R-I-T-E-S, equal rights. We don't have those yet.

[16:36]

But we lose some of that, you know, it's kind of shaken that foundation. As a woman, you know, I express my freedom and my rights and so forth, but in the process I lose my protection, some of my protection. even though I may long for that. So that can be a kind of problem. So men have a deal, you know, we protect the nuns, the monks protect the nuns, but then it gets overbearing, you know, and it becomes repress the nuns rather than protect them. So the problems, right? However you cut it, there are problems. But we have the problems of today. And they're not bad problems. Now, as a matter of fact, in Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center is pretty much run by women.

[17:48]

All the leadership mostly is women. And so now the women are protecting the men. And the men are kind of dependent a little bit on the women. That's kind of an interesting switch. But things have to go back and forth before they find their balance. And I think that's the process as I see it. I don't worry. that San Francisco's leadership is mostly women. I think that that's good. The thing I am concerned about is, I wish the men would take a little more initiative, instead of being taken care of so much. But anyway. strong and yet under control.

[19:15]

It's like the emotional side is under control. The passionate side is under control. And he sits gently on the lion who carries him. or carries her. She sits on the lioness who carries her and Samantabhadra sits on an elephant. The elephant is the symbol of Buddha Dharma because the elephant characteristics of the elephant are strength and weight, very weighty, but when they take a step and then they take another step, Buddhism is called elephant's practice rather than rabbit's practice.

[20:27]

one foot at a time, and careful. The rabbits are careful too, they just fast, but symbolically. I once had a dog who was a very sprightly dog and it was in San Francisco and I was taking him for a walk and he would just leap into anything. If he thought there was something on the other side of a fence, he would just jump over the fence. And he did jump over this railing and he landed down 20 feet. Anyway, so Samantabhadra is very careful and very steady, steadiness, not easily pushed off of his path and characteristic of practice is steadiness and

[21:47]

Constancy and strength and effort. The elephant will work all day long doing difficult things. And also pretty loyal. but big and with a lot of energy, and also carries big loads on its back or in its trunk, carries the practice. not just following along but actually motivating, self-motivated and encouraging the motivation of others. And Samatha Bhadra is personification of compassion, able to discern the feelings of others and

[23:13]

suffer with other people's suffering, enter into other people's suffering in order to help, or just in order to be a companion. It's not necessarily always helpful to be helpful, but it's always helpful to be a companion. to listen and to just be with somebody when they need something. One of the most difficult things to do is to help people. But what's not so difficult is to just be with people. You know, how do you be with someone when they're dying? People are always saying, so and so is dying, how will I be with them? What should I do? I can't tell them where they're going.

[24:17]

I could make something up or tell them what somebody else has said. But how do you be with someone when they're dying? Good question. Basically, just be with them. If you just be with them, then you will know what to do. So, a compassionate action is to share yourself And if you can do that, the answers will come if you're open.

[25:20]

You can encourage people maybe in various ways, but to help someone to just let go, that's our practice anyway. Whether we're living or dying, to encourage someone in letting go is just our normal practice. It may not be necessary to do something special as long as you just stay with what you realize is true practice. And the more we learn to let go while we're on the ascendancy, the easier it will be when we're on the descendancy.

[26:26]

So living our life is learning how to let go of it. Sometimes if you're with someone who's dying, you can help them by help them to realize that inhaling is coming to life, exhaling is letting go of life. And if they get used to paying attention to inhaling and exhaling, just paying attention to breath as coming to life and letting go, then they get used to letting go as well as coming to life because it's both. and that when we let go, something will happen next, even though the last breath, it looks like nothing's gonna happen next.

[27:34]

Even though we don't know what's going to happen next, we have to trust ourself to life itself. This is called faith. not necessarily knowing what you're trusting yourself to, but you just have to trust that that which produced you is taking care of you. Since everyone has to do this, there must be some good reason for it. So this is a compassionate action. not making things up, but just looking at what's really happening and helping people in that way. And this is also Manjushri's wisdom of non-duality.

[28:40]

Within birth there is death, and within death there is birth. It's not just one way. Because there's birth, there's death. And because there's death, there's birth. They alternate with each other, like night and day. But when we're on the light side, we don't want to fall into the dark. And when we're on the dark side, I don't know. I don't know is also important, to be able to accept not knowing, to jump off the pole not knowing, an important step.

[29:45]

So birth and death, man and woman. Manjushri, even though Manjushri would get down from the altar and maybe work with that side or work with this side, he's still always in the middle. Never loses being in the middle. And being in the middle means that there's no special place to be. we can do men's practice, we can do women's practice, we can do practice that's neither men nor women's practice, and we can do practice that's both men's and women's practice.

[31:00]

And either way, it's just fine. And it all happens at the same time. Do you have some questions? Nancy? You said something a couple of minutes ago that really stuck with me. You said, since we all have to do this, there must be good reason for it. Oh, yeah. Must there be good reason for it? There must be a reason for it. It doesn't have to be good. I did say good. I did say good. And is there, you know, there are those who say the reason is the reason that we give it, that there is no inherent reason. And then there are those who say, there is a reason, we need to go find it. What do you say? That's a good question. We say in Buddha Dharma, everything has a cause, right?

[32:01]

So, nothing happens without a cause. So, cause is a reason. Well, there may be a cause without a reason, I am here for a number of causes that doesn't necessarily mean those are the reason why I came, those may just be the conditions that got me in the room. Yeah, but we call those conditions, you can look at it as bare bones, you know, as there are causes that brought me here, right? That's bare bones, that reductionist way of thinking about it. But a human way of thinking about it, or with the meat on the bone is, there is a reason I'm here. So you can think of it either way. Yeah.

[33:07]

But those aren't necessarily, I mean, the reasons that I might give for why I'm here Those aren't necessarily the reasons why we're alive. That's what I think you were referring to when you said, since we all have to do this, there's a reason for it. Yeah, well, since... I didn't say I knew the reason. I don't know the reasoning behind that, although I could give it various interpretations. So yes, that may be loose language to say there's a reason why everyone does this. That's just a kind of loose way of speaking, strictly speaking. I don't know why this all happens, but we must go along with it.

[34:14]

So, since we must go along with it, and everybody does, there must be some. Any other questions? I was reflecting on when you said it's hard for us to go from the light side into the dark. And when you said from the dark side going to the light, you said you don't know. This is not a question, but I was thinking that maybe that's why a baby cries. It's because when he's born, he's into the relative and he doesn't want to leave the absolute. Well, we don't know exactly why a baby cries. But the womb world is the world of the baby before it's born, right?

[35:28]

So whatever world we're used to, we don't want to leave. But the reason I didn't say the same thing about the dark side is because we go from dark to light. we think of going from dark to light and liking to go from dark to light. We don't think of liking to go from light to dark. But that's just our way of thinking, you know. And when we get rid of that, when we can let go of that, then either going into the dark or the light, either one is okay. But I think in the womb, you're still spaced out when you're born. It's literally because your mind is spaced. And then it narrows down to a secular mode, to a worldly mode, and becomes part of the world.

[36:30]

But before that, it's not really part of the world, as we know it. So it takes a while before we develop the ego, the persona. Even though we have characteristics when we're born, you know, we have certain characteristics that become developed. We're not developed. And so everything's pretty much the same. You know, non-discriminating mind, we put our tongue in our mouth and we put everything in our mouth, you know, find out what everything is and then we become accustomed to the world and then we start protecting ourself from everything else. And then we start isolating ourselves. Then later we have to let go of all that and go and declassify our mind. Take it apart again, let go of it.

[37:34]

I don't want to say return to something, because we can never return to anything. But I guess you could say return, return to our, return to non-conditioned self-being, whatever that is. Not that I know of. Avalokiteshvara doesn't ride anything, but she has a bottle, a jug, a little jug of benevolent water. I've heard that she has a white parrot.

[38:40]

Could be. She doesn't have a broomstick. Okay.

[38:55]

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