I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. So today I'm teaching from Dogen's extensive record, a book which I translated with Shilaka Okamora was living here. We did half of it maybe upstairs. I'm going to be doing a seminar going into more detail and with many selections from it this afternoon next door at the conference center from 1.30 to 5.00. And if you're interested you can sign up for that in the office after the Dharma talk. But this morning I just wanted to Well, I'll just say a little bit about the book as a whole. There's a lot to say. Some of you know of Dogen, who is the founder of this branch of Zen in Japan, a Japanese monk who in the 13th century went to China and brought back the lineage that we practice here.

[01:13]

And those of you who've read him probably know him from his other massive work, the Shobo Genzo, True Dharma, I, Treasury, which has longer essays, more expanded philosophical and poetic kind of discussions of particular themes or koans or images. Most of this work, which, this work, Dogen's extensive record that I'm talking about today, most of it is his very short talks that he gave in the Dharma Hall. Like this, except he was sitting up on the altar and all the students were standing. And a lot of them are very short. So there's also in this book one volume of longer talks and 90 koans or old stories with his verse commentary and then a collection of his Chinese poetry. But this includes most of what we know of his mature teaching after he left the capital of Kyoto, sort of in the middle of his teaching career, and moved up to, found a kind of monastic hippie commune up in the mountains.

[02:26]

in what's now called Eheiji. It's still there. I've got all these notes floating through the book. Anyway, what I wanted to do today, well, the other thing just in general about this is that these short talks, even though they're more formal, paradoxically, show his personality and his training style, how he trained the successors who were with him at Eheiji who established Soto Zen in Japan. after he died very early at 53, age 53. And it shows his kind of sense of humor and his warmth and his personality as well as his training style. So I wanted to focus today on just one of these short dharma hall discourses. And then this afternoon in the seminar, we'll go over a selection of them. But I wanted to just give you one more as a kind of sample of his style, so I'm not going to comment much on this one.

[03:30]

It's very short. This was after he moved up to Eheji, and one day he said, dropping off body and mind is good practice. Which, it's hard for me not to comment. That's kind of funny because that's his description of Zazen, but also of ultimate enlightenment. And he sort of starts from there. Dropping off body and mind is good practice. make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Karmic consciousness is endless, with nothing fundamental to rely on, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not causes or conditions. Although this is so, eating breakfast comes first." So that's the whole Dharmahalta's question. I'll say more about that this afternoon. But that gives you a sense of his bringing things down to practical everyday matters. The point of this practice is not some exalted state of mind or state of being, but to actually find our way to meet our practice in our circumstances, in this body and mind, in the situation we're in.

[04:42]

So, the talk I wanted to focus on this morning is actually one of the earlier ones from before he left Kyoto. and Sharaku and I gave little titles to these. This one is called The Difficulty of Such a Thing. So I think what I'll do is just read the whole thing first because it's not very long and then I want to comment on it and then I want to discuss it in other ways. So he said, Studying the way has been difficult to accomplish for a thousand ages. How difficult is this? Ordinary people cannot be compared to the seven wise and seven holy ones. The seven wise and seven holy ones cannot be compared to the ten holy and three wise ones. The ten holy and three wise ones cannot see the great way of all Buddhas, even in a dream. Seeing in this way, one person immediately said, If you want to attain such a thing, you should be such a person.

[05:49]

Already being such a person, why worry about such a thing? Can you say such a thing or not? If you can say this, you attain the skin and marrow. If you cannot say this, still, you attain the skin and marrow. Put aside for now whether you can say this or not, and whether you attain the skin and marrow or not, how is this suchness? Vipassana Buddha early on kept this in mind and up until now has not grasped this mystery. That's the entire talk. Then he got down and left the Dharma Hall. So I want to talk about this and unpack it a little bit and say what it has to do with our practice here now. So first of all, he says, studying the way has been difficult to accomplish for a thousand ages. So those of you who come to Beginner's Mind Temple and learn about Zazen and enter into this practice probably feel this.

[06:56]

To study the way has been difficult to accomplish, not just now, but for a thousand ages. How do we find our way of studying the way, of finding our life, of expressing our wholehearted, total being, and love, and mind, and awareness, and kindness in this life. How do we study the way? It's been difficult to accomplish for a thousand ages. Then Jogin lays it on. He says, how difficult is this? And he says, ordinary people cannot be compared to the seven wise and seven holy ones. So the seven wise and seven holy ones is a phrase for stages of practice in the early Buddhist teaching, in the early Buddhist practice, the Arhat way. So in those early practices of self-purification, Ordinary people can't compare to those stages.

[08:02]

Then he says, these seven wise and seven holy ones cannot be compared to the ten holy and three wise ones. And that's also a stock phrase for people on the bodhisattva way. So how many of you are here for the first time this morning? Oh, good. Okay. Great. So the Bodhisattva practice refers to the branch of Buddhism sometimes called Mahayana or the great vehicle. And it means practicing in the world for the sake of liberating not just oneself but all beings, seeing that we're all totally connected, seeing that our practice affects and is affected by everybody else in the world. So this kind of universal liberation is the goal of the Bodhisattva way. And as soon as we enter into practice here, as soon as you enter this room, you're involved in the Bodhisattva way. Anyway, in this, there are various descriptions in the early Mahayana sutras, the Mahayana or the Bodhisattva scriptures about stages of

[09:08]

development of bodhisattva practice. And Dogen here says that the seven wise and seven holy ones from the early self-purifying practice cannot be compared to these stages of the bodhisattva practice. Then he says the ten holy and three wise ones in the bodhisattva practice cannot see the great way of all Buddhas, even in a dream. So Buddhas are totally enlightened ones. So Dogen here is setting this up by talking about the difficulty of practice. And I would say the difficulty of practice is not so much getting your legs into some funny position or sitting still for 40 minutes or whatever, or even seven days, but just to sustain this, to allow the transformation that happens when we're willing to face ourselves to unfold. in our lives and in our world. But even accomplishing all the stages of the Bodhisattvas, Dogen says, you cannot see the great way of the Buddhas, even in a dream.

[10:19]

Then he says, seeing in this way, one immediately said, and this is a quote from an old teacher, an ancestor of ours, named Yunzhu Daoying. In Japanese, we say in the mornings when we chant the names of the ancestors going back to Shakyamuni Buddha through the Chinese ancestors, through Dogen to Suzuki Roshi, who founded this temple. We call him Ungodoyo Daisho. In Chinese it was Yunjie Daoying, and he was the student of the founder of Soto Zen in China. So don't worry about all these names, they will not be a test. But anyway, this person, Dogen doesn't mention his name, said, if you want to attain such a thing, you should be such a person. Already being such a person, why worry about such a thing? So this is the style of our tradition. If you want to attain such a thing, you should be such a person.

[11:24]

Already being such a person, why worry about such a thing? So this could be translated a little differently too. He's talking about this thing we call suchness sometimes. Sometimes we call it, we give it other names, Buddha nature or interconnectedness or various ways to talk about it. But here in this talk, Dogen is emphasizing this aspect of suchness. So we could read it, if you want to attain the matter of suchness, you should be a person of suchness. Already being a person of suchness, why worry about this matter of suchness? So our practice is just to sit upright and face the wall and face ourselves and inhale and exhale and allow body and mind to settle. Inhale after exhale, period after period, week after week, lifetime after lifetime.

[12:32]

And at each point, at each moment, There is available to us this matter of suchness. Right now, each of you already is a person of suchness. At any moment, suchness is here. So this is related to what the early Buddhists called bare attention, just to be present, to see a short breath as a short breath, to feel a deep breath as a deep breath. We sit with our eyes open to be open to the world of suchness. We sit with our ears open to hear the sounds of footsteps in the hall and a door opening. So just to be present and actually face the situation of this body and mind, the situation of suchness right now, already just the fact that you are in this room right now proves that you are a person of suchness, even if this is your first time here.

[13:54]

It's always available and yet there are all these systems of stages in the Arhat path and the Bodhisattva path and there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and it takes a while for us to be willing to admit that we are people of suchness. It takes a while to be willing to face ourselves and the world and the situation right now. Part of what happens as we sit facing the wall, facing ourselves, facing our breathing, facing the racing often of our thoughts and feelings, is that we succumb to the lessons of our culture to become intoxicated, to become diverted from suchness. So maybe this is true of all human cultures, but certainly in a consumerist culture with lots of very fancy kinds of entertainment, it's very easy to be diverted from suchness, to run away from ourselves, to not want to face the thoughts and feelings that arise, to not want to be present with the suchness of this and this.

[15:26]

And in the middle of hearing the trucks and the birds singing, thoughts and feelings come up. And because we are human beings, most of us probably, we have greed and anger and confusion and frustration and sadness and loss and fear and all of those human things. which the world provides us with. If you want to attain such a thing, you should be such a person. So there's an encouragement here to be a person of suchness, to be willing to stop and sit and face your life as it is. It's okay to be the person you are, this body and mind, right now, this morning. It really is.

[16:28]

This is what all the Buddhists say. Already being such a person, why worry about such a thing? So I want to come back to that, because I have a little bit of a problem with this, how he says this. But this is our great ancestor, Ungodoyo. And why worry about this thing called suchness? It's here. coming back again and again and facing it and facing our walls, we get to feel it. And all of you have some sense of it. All of you have some taste of it, some glimpse of it, or you wouldn't be here, but it's hard to see it. It's like trying to see our own eyeballs. It's so close. It's so available. Can you hear me? Okay. Along with the sirens and thoughts and feelings in your body and mind. So this matter of suchness we don't have to worry about.

[17:38]

Anyway, Dogen goes on from there. He says, can you say such a thing or not? So this is this old saying from Ongo Doyo who lived more than a thousand years ago, twelve hundred years ago. And we're still repeating this statement of his. Can you say such a thing or not, Dogen asks. If you can say this, you attain the skin and marrow. So this was a reference to the founder of Zen in China, Bodhidharma, who said to one of his disciples, you have my marrow. You have my bones. But then he said to another disciple, you have my skin. Anyway, it's not about how deep is our experience of suchness. It's just, can you say such a thing? Can you speak of this now, this situation, this morning here?

[18:45]

So Dogen says, if you can say this, you attain the skin and marrow. If you cannot say this, still you attain the skin and marrow. So we think about, you know, suchness or Buddha nature or enlightenment as these, you know, very lofty philosophical goals. You know, we're trained to, we spend most of our time trying to get more of this or less of that or accomplish things or, you know, our life in the world is about Even if it's aimed at good things, getting more spiritually developed, we get trained to get better grades or get better jobs or whatever. This is our life in the world. And Dogon says, if you cannot say this, still you attain the skin and marrow. So this attainment is not the usual kind of attainment that we think of, where we accomplish things through hard work or being good or, you know, going to lots of Zen lectures.

[20:01]

He says, put aside for now whether you can say this or not and whether you attain the skin and marrow or not. Can you do that? Can you just be the person sitting on your cushion or chair right now. Put aside whether or not you understand what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter, actually. So, to me, this matter of suchness is not about... this matter of attaining the matter of suchness, even, is not about understanding something. Of course, we have active monkey minds and we want to understand, and it's okay. It's possible to think about this and study suchness in various ways. And we have a library downstairs and a bookstore down the hall. And there are many, many texts you can read about this matter of suchness. And yet here it is, your body and mind, your skin bag right now. Put aside for now.

[21:10]

whether you can say this or not, and whether you attain the skin and marrow or not. That's hard to do. It's hard to put aside, do I get it or not? It's hard to put aside all of our evaluations. So the way our mind works, the way the human mind works is through making assessments and comparisons and categories and we can try and figure out where we are on some scale or stages of whatever, what our income is or how deep our samadhi is. Our mind does that. So he doesn't say to get rid of all that kind of thinking, he just says put it aside for now. So we emphasize breathing.

[22:13]

We emphasize posture and breathing, just to be present and upright in front of suchness, facing suchness, listening to suchness, feeling the breathing of suchness. And then he says, how is this suchness? This is the most important sentence to me in the whole Dharma Hall discourse here. How is this suchness? How is it? How are you doing this morning? Are you enjoying your inhale and your exhale? How is it to be present in this and this and this? So in our practice, in the meditation we do, and as we express that when we get up from our formal meditation also, we emphasize, how is this suchness?

[23:26]

How is it right now? We pay attention. So I recommend as a mantra for, um, during Zazen, or in between periods of Zazen, a saying by my favorite American Dharma poet. So as you're sitting, or as you're walking, or as you're standing or lying down, just ask, how does it feel? This is like saying, how is this suchness? How does it feel right now? Maybe there's an ache in your knee or your hip or your shoulders. Maybe there's some sadness that's bothering you or some problem or some person you're having difficulties with or whatever. How does it feel? Pay attention. How does it feel to be on your own?

[24:27]

Complete unknown. How does it feel? How is this suchness right now? this kind of attention and developing this kind of attention and being willing to be present in such an intimate way, it can be scary. We need to take breaks from suchness sometimes. Sometimes you need to go for a walk or go to the movies and watch a romantic comedy or an action thriller, depending on what you like. Still, suchness is there. right in the middle of that action thriller and your response to it. Even then, you can ask, how does it feel? Right in the middle of the car chase. So, to be present with suchness and to sustain that, to sustain our practice of attending to suchness, attending to the way our life is right here and now, this world, this time and place.

[25:37]

So Dogen says to conclude his dharma hall discourse, how is this suchness? And then he throws in this wild card. He says, Vipashyana Buddha early on kept this in mind and up until now has not grasped this mystery. So Vipashyana Buddha, you may have heard of Shakyamuni Buddha who lived in Northern India. 2,500 years ago, more or less. The Pashin Buddha, we say in our morning chant, Durbashi Butsu Dayo Sho. So, in Mahayana Buddhism, we say there were many Buddhas before Buddha. So, historically, this guy, Siddhartha Gautama Shakyamuni, awakened, and that was the beginning of Buddhism in human history that we know of. But before him, this possibility of awakening, this willingness to just meet suchness was still available. It's always, always here. So there are many Buddhas, actually.

[26:41]

And we have a list of names of seven of them, ending with Shakyamuni, who go back into, I don't know, prehistory, previous kalpas. I don't know how to put it in modern terms. Maybe there were dinosaur Buddhas. I don't know. According to string theory, there were big bangs before the present big bang. So it's in some other, you know, some other slice of the loaf or some other parallel universe. Anyway, there are many worlds, we say, many Buddha fields in all directions. Anyway, Vipassana Buddha was the first of these ancient Buddhas before Buddha. And in terms of this matter of suchness, in terms of this question in terms of this practice of, how is this suchness? Dogen says, even early on, Vipassana Buddha kept this in mind. Always, this is what Buddha studied.

[27:43]

And yet, even up until now, Vipassana Buddha, or Vipassi Bhutsudayo show, has not grasped this mystery. How is this suchness? How does it feel? to be the person on your cushion or chair right now. Even an ancient Buddha who's been a Buddha for, you know, many, many ages can't grasp this mystery. We can't get ahold of it. This matter of suchness is available to us right now. We've all glimpsed it or tasted it, and yet we can't grasp it. We can't get ahold of it. We can't, you know, write it up in outline form or draw a picture of it and put it in a frame and put it on the wall and bow down to it and say, there it is. We can't do that. Even Vibhashi Butsu has not grasped this matter of suchness, even now. So why would we do such a practice?

[28:44]

So we're almost at the end of Dogen's dharma hall discourse in the beginning of my dharma talk. Or maybe we're in the middle of it, I don't know. But anyway, can you say such a thing or not? How is this suchness? If you want to attain this matter of suchness, you must be a person of suchness. But already you are a person of suchness. This is our style of practice. We kind of start at the top of the mountain, and then we have to fill in all the paths up to the top. But Thogden says, or actually, I'm sorry, Angkor Dao says, already being a person of suchness, why worry about such a thing? So, we don't need to worry, actually. Suchness is right here. And yet, I want to add to this that we have a responsibility. Being a person of suchness doesn't mean, as we might misunderstand it, to mean that because here we are in suchness everything is fine just as it is.

[29:59]

Well, of course, everything is fine just as it is, and because of that we have a lot of work to do. So this is the side of the precepts. This is the side of the practice of suchness. The practice of suchness is how do we engage our lives, this body and mind, this world, this place and time. How do we express suchness? We can't get a hold of suchness. We can't grasp it. We can't understand it. And even if you have a very sophisticated understanding of it without grasping it, still that's not the point. That's not so important actually. The point of our practice is that we have something to express. we have this possibility of meeting suchness, of not running away from ourselves, of not being afraid to be the person you are on your cushion or chair right now. Suzuki Roshi talked about finding our balance against a background of perfect balance.

[31:08]

So we all know that in this place and time, probably each of us and certainly our world and culture around us is very much off balance. And yet, at each moment, there is such a thing. There is this possibility of just being upright and present and enjoying our breathing and settling into our inner dignity right now. And then expressing that each in our own way. There's no right way. There's no one way to express suchness. And yet already you are a person of suchness. So this bringing in of Vipassana Buddha is kind of strange to me here. Why is Dogen talking about this matter of suchness in terms of Vipassana Buddha, the Buddha before the Buddhas before Buddha?

[32:17]

And I can't help but think that there's some part of this that is this idea that is very prevalent in Asian culture, but I think it's also in our culture, of looking back to the ancients. None of us can practice as well as Suzuki Roshi, much less Dogen. We have that feeling. We always think that things are really bad now. Things are getting worse. It's possible to think that. I think it's sort of a commentary on Dogen by a very fine spiritual writer named Annie Dillard. Do any of you know her? I found this book, a student of mine showed me this book called For the Time Being. So those of you who know Dogen will recognize that she's, you know, consciously or unconsciously commenting on Dogen, because Dogen's, one of Dogen's most famous essays is called The Time Being. And here's this book For the Time Being.

[33:20]

And Annie Diller, She actually is, she's a spiritual writer and she quotes quite a lot Christian and in this book, Hasidic teachers, Jewish Hasidic teachers. She has a bunch of stories about Teilhard de Jardin, who was a Jesuit priest and paleontologist. But she also references Buddhist teachings some of the time. So I kind of think, I haven't gotten to it yet, I haven't finished reading it, but I think she must have heard about Dogen's essay. But she says this interesting thing about these times. So I'll just read a few samples of the section, but she starts by saying, well, she says the good times and the heroic people are all gone. Everyone knows this. Everyone always has. And then she says the mornings of the wise recur as a comic refrain down the vaults of recorded time.

[34:26]

In the Talmud, a rabbi asks, the ancient saints used to tarry for a while, pray a while, and tarry a while after their prayer. When did they have time to study Torah? When did they have time to do their work? Another rabbi answers, quoting yet earlier rabbis about the men of old, because they were saints, their Torah study was blessed and their work was blessed. Then she quotes St. Augustine, almost 16 centuries ago, He looked back three centuries at the apostles and their millennialism and said, those were last days then, how much more so now? And then she has some Buddhists. She quotes an 11th century, unnamed 11th century Chinese Buddhist master who complained, nowadays we see students who sit diligently but do not awaken. And then she quotes the Korean master Chino in the 12th century, who referred sadly to people in this age of derelict religion.

[35:37]

St. Teresa of Avila wrote to her brother in 1570, there is so much worldliness nowadays that I simply hate having possessions. In the late 1700s, a Hasidic rabbi said, nowadays men's souls are orphaned and their times decayed. She goes on like this. A 19th century Hasidic master said, nowadays in these generations, the great teachers and prophets are dead and all we have are lesser lives. And John Ruskin, does anyone know when he lived? 19th century, maybe? As he aged, he judged that nature itself was collapsing. He predicted global warming. He said the weather had actually come unhinged. And after a rainy year, he said the weather itself was defiled and foul.

[36:45]

In our times, says a 20th century Hasidic rabbi, we are in a coma. So, you know, part of our feeling that we can't be such a person is that we look around and feel like, well, you know, I can read these old words from Dogen and I can hear what Tsukiroshi said, you know, 40 years ago. What do we do now? So all through history, people have been feeling like this is really bad. And I can jump right in there. So now that we have reckless extremist warlord rulers who are trying to develop usable nuclear weapons and spread nuclear weapons and if their plans go through, we'll have oil companies drilling up and down the east and west coast. Anyway, they're working on this.

[37:47]

I can say this is the worst. This is really serious. This is really bad. I can say that. And yet, always people have said that. In Dogen's time, there was famine. in Dogen's time. There had been civil war and there were at times bodies littering the streets of Kyoto. Always, this is the worst time. And it is. I just came from, I stopped on the way down at Civic Center. Some of the people here sat all night last night at this wonderful, horrible exhibit at Civic Center. I recommend it. Maybe you have time to go down and see it before, between the Dharma talk and the seminar this afternoon. But anyway, it's called Eyes Wide Open, and there are combat boots for each of the 1,525 American soldiers who've died in Iraq. And then there are many, many other shoes for the Iraqi people who've died.

[38:53]

And it shows what's going on in a way that numbers, you know, the numbers don't mean so much, but to look at this field of shoes. Anyway, a number of people sat just observing suchness last night down in the Civic Center. So already you are people of suchness. with whatever horrible things are going on now, as they have always been, how can we be present and face what's going on and face our own fears and face the reality of our times and of the confusion in our own hearts and minds of the greed and the tendency towards vengeance or confusion that each of us has too. So, it's not enough to just say, as Juan Gordillo said, already being a person of suchness, why worry about such a thing?

[40:07]

Well, I don't disagree. There's no need to worry. That's kind of extra. And yet, we have a responsibility to express suchness, not just to understand it. And how we do that? That's a lifetime of practice, or many lifetimes of practice. How can we express the kindness and clarity of our own heart? How can we be willing to face our own fear and sadness and confusion, and just be present and upright, and then respond in whatever way might be helpful. And each of us has our own ways of responding. to the problems of our friends and family, to the problems of the world around us, to war and injustice and so forth. How is this suchness right now? How does it feel? So what this practice does, just sitting upright, facing ourselves, is give us a tremendous power to be present, to be patient, but not passive, to be patient but ready, to be responsive, to find our own way of responding, to be kind, to not let our love and ability to love be deterred by hating this group or that group, whether they're Iraqis or

[41:39]

I don't know, Venezuelans or Koreans or Christians or Buddhists or neocons. It's not about some particular group of people. How do we respond with the fullness of our own suchness? And this means taking another breath and being willing to be present. Already each of you is a person of suchness. Already each of you has this possibility available. And of course, as we settle into being present and facing ourselves and facing our world, it unfolds. And our ability to be patient and responsive and responsible develops. But already being such a person, you don't need to worry about such a thing. Don't be afraid to be the person on your cushion or chair. Don't be afraid to face your own craziness in a crazy world.

[42:41]

It's okay. We're people of suchness here. And then how do we take care of this suchness? How does it feel? So suchness is not some something that happens somewhere else on the wall that you're facing. Suchness is not something that's external. We are people of suchness, means that we are part of this suchness right now. Our response is part of the world of war and peace, the possibility of kindness, the possibility of being clear and attentive. So Durgan was trying to point this out to us, you know, 800 years ago. And somehow this practice of suchness is still here. It's kind of wonderful. So if you are worried, don't worry about being worried. It's okay to be worried. If you're afraid, don't be afraid to be afraid. It's just, how does it feel?

[43:46]

What is my own way of responding with calmness and settledness and feeling what I'm feeling and responding to what's going on in the world and in our lives? This is this practice of suchness that Ongo Doyo and Dong Shan and Dogen were talking about. So it may seem that studying the way is difficult. Well, you know, it is. It's difficult to just be yourself. But it's always been difficult and there've always been difficult times, even though these are the worst. So, what is it? These are the worst of times, these are the best of times. There's also this opportunity to practice suchness and this opportunity to bring awareness to the world.

[44:49]

In difficult times, everything you do to express kindness and clarity and to express suchness makes a big difference. So this is a wonderful time to be practicing. This is a wonderful opportunity to just be expressing your suchness. in this world, today, right now, makes a big difference. We don't know the effects of each little expression of kindness, of awareness. If you can say this, you attain the skin and marrow. If you cannot say this, still, you attain the skin and marrow. Put aside for now whether you can say this or not, and whether you attain the skin and marrow or not. How is this suchness? How does it feel? So please enjoy this suchness.

[46:01]

Enjoy your breathing. Enjoy this wonderful opportunity to be alive and meet our life. And if you're worried about terrorism, so I'll be sharing some more of these excerpts from Dogen's short teachings this afternoon. And there'll be discussion in the dining room after the talk. And I look forward to hearing your expressions of suchness. Thank you very much.

[46:34]

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