Good morning. I've been talking this weekend and last about Zazen in terms of Dogen's teachings inspired by the Lotus Sutra. And I want to talk about those in a particular way today in terms of how The Lotus Sutra and Dogon also talk about practice and talk about talking. So, just as context, Both Mahayana Sutras and Zen Koans are teaching stories. They're not, you know, kind of didactic, instructional works or systematic doctrines.

[01:10]

But we could say that Sutras and Zen teaching stories are instrumental texts. They're aimed at inciting particular states of mind, particular samadhis or concentrations, particular insights. So the point of the stories is not necessarily the content of the stories in a kind of linear, logical way, but actually the effect of the stories. we study the sutras, we study the teaching stories and poems, not to understand something, but because they have some effect, they create something.

[02:13]

So this has to do with the Mahayana's teaching of skillful means, or the paya, that is the that the Lotus Sutra is the foremost text form, that all of the range and diversity of the different teachings, both traditional and familiar, and all the different teaching stories, are appropriate responses to particular kinds of suffering, and particular practical modes of response and activity to address those. There's not one single technique or practice or method that addresses all practitioners. So there are within Buddhism and meditation instruction and other kinds of instruction, there's a whole range of different approaches

[03:24]

And it's not that some, well, maybe some are better than others, but the point of them is that they're helpful in certain situations to certain beings at certain times. So skillful means is about trying to see what's the appropriate response in a particular situation. It's not about having some instruction manual about how to respond. So again, this is kind of stuff that's basic to the Lotus Sutra. And Dogen, as I've been saying, refers to the Lotus Sutra very, very frequently. And actually, you could say the foundation of Japanese Buddhism is grounded in the Lotus Sutra. It's the most important text in East Asia, really. So, how to see one of the aspects of skillful meaning, as was discussed in Lotus Sutra, in terms of various stories and paradigms and expressions, is this idea of the one vehicle, that all the different teachings, all the different practices are part of this one purpose, really, which is, as

[04:53]

talks about the single great cause for Buddhas appearing in the world is to help awakening beings into the path to awakening. So, how do the different modes and teachings contribute as part of the whole vehicle? So the Lotus Sutra was not just basic Japanese Buddhism, but Dōgen, before he went to Koninji and went to China and studied the Zen people, was a monk at Mount Tiei and followed Tendai teachings, in which the Lotus Sutra is considered the highest teaching. So, yeah, the single reason for Buddha appearing in the world is to help all the range of suffering beings enter into It goes through this list of all the things to enter into, open up, disclose and fully realize awakening.

[06:01]

So these four aspects of how to help beings awaken. So this one vehicle is kind of controversial in a way as a teaching that I think we can see it as this very inclusive, pluralistic, appropriate to our situation where we have lots of spiritual traditions and ecumenicalism and so forth, interfaith cooperation, that all, even beyond just the Buddha way, that all of the different spiritual traditions are helpful to someone. We can see it that way. So just, this is a little bit of a footnote, but within the history of Buddhism, there's a problematic aspect to this skillful means teaching, because often in East Asian Buddhist history, different schools set up a way of including all the other teachings, but they put their teaching as the highest.

[07:10]

So skillful means can be used in a kind of hierarchical way, to exalt one teaching over others. Nevertheless, to see all the skillful modes as cooperating, and then, you know, for a certain situation, there are different, we can see what is most helpful. You know, in our mode is asana. So, there are other ways of appreciating the one being gone. Chanting, homage to the Lotus Sutra, and so forth. So, okay, this is about how Dogon's teaching from the Lotus Sutra connects with this idea of skillful means and this way of seeing Narasimha. And one aspect of this is that the Lotus Sutra and a lot of Buddhism actually supports

[08:18]

of enactment rather than understanding. This is, we can see this in Vajrayana, in Tibetan Buddhism, and in the background to Zen in Japan, Shinran Tendai included this, and that was Dogen's background. But the point is the enactment of Buddha awareness and its physical presence. rather than aiming at some perfected, formulated understanding. So this goes to the Zen slogan about direct pointing beyond words and letters. It's not about some particular correct formulation or slogan or doctrine or dogma, but actually how is the practice enacted. How is it expressed? Bob Thurman, talking about this in the context of Vajrayana esoteric Buddhism, says, when we think of the goal of Buddhism as enlightenment, we think of it mainly as an attainment of some kind of higher understanding.

[09:36]

But Buddhahood is a physical transformation, as much as, or maybe more than, a mental transcendence. So Dogen talks about this a lot, that our practice, our zazen, is about creating Buddha's body on our seat. It's not about getting some understanding and some doctrine. It's possible to have understanding. That's OK. It's not bad. But the point is, how do we actually express it? Dr. Sulit's another scholar talking about Kukai, the great founder of Shingon, Japan says this, and again, this all applies to Doge. Kukai was more interested in the teaching's aim rather than in their content. It's the aim of the teaching, not the literal content. It may be better stated, he says, the aim is inseparable from the content, there's no distinction. So the truth of a statement depends not on the status of its reference, or what it refers to, but on how it affects us.

[10:43]

It's not about some literal content of the teaching. It's what does it do? How does it work? How does it help us help ourselves and others onto the path of awakening? So this idea of enactment is very important. Dogen talks about this. I'm going to come back to this, but he says, you know, in that essay, there's these questions and answers, and Duggan says very clearly, somebody asked him about, you know, how, you know, Hawaiian and Pagan and all these other teachings are, and Duggan says, don't compare different schools and teachings and so forth. in terms of the philosophy or the doctrine or whatever, that's not the point. The point is only how it's practiced.

[11:50]

When you see the authenticity and genuineness of the practice, that's all that matters, not some formulation. So this is really, I think, different from how we as Westerners usually think. about philosophy, about spiritual practice, about psychology, what works, what actually allows us to help beings into the path of awakening. So another way to talk about this is in terms of performance. How is, you know, how is, oh here's the quote, Buddhist practitioners should know not to argue about superiority or inferiority in teachings, not to discriminate between superficial or profound dharma, but should only know whether the practice is genuine or false. So the teachings, the sutras, the teaching stories, they're not about something else.

[12:52]

So another aspect of this enactment is, well, So the point is to enact the meaning of the teachings rather than to have some understanding of it in actual practice. And this is done in rituals and ceremonies, including meditation. So all of the forms that we do in the meditation hall, they're not about getting some perfect, doing some perfect, well, there's a sense there's a performance about it, but it's about expressing of the practice. Another aspect of this that's very much important in both the Lotus Sutra and for Dogen is what you call proclamation.

[13:58]

Dogen, in his writings, often plays with words, and it seems very enigmatic or contradictory, but he doesn't try to present some case or explain some teaching that he's giving. He's talking to particular students, and he just proclaims what he sees. So in this book I'm working from that I did on Dublin and Lotus, which are Visions of Awakening Space and Time, background religious teachings of this. There's a section on Paul Lequeur, the French philosopher, who makes the point that of the difference between the West Abrahamic religions and Asian religions and Buddhism in terms of this, that in the West there's this

[15:02]

of proclamation, and there's also the manifestation of the sacred, and they're split. So in the West, there's the word, and the word is proclaimed, and that has this kind of... So I don't want to get too far into that, but the word itself is what is important, and sacredness is the background only, whereas in the Lotus Sutra, the story I've been talking about of the underground bodhisattvas. So, again, the story is a key part of, well, one of the things that Dogen plays on a lot, that in the first half of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha keeps asking his disciples and the bodhisattvas assembled, who will come back in the future evil age? and keep alive this teaching. And eventually a group of bodhisattvas who'd come from some distant solar system, some other Buddha field, said, okay, we'll come back and take care of this.

[16:12]

And Buddha says, no, you don't need to do that. And then suddenly the earth splits open and from the open space under the ground spring forth myriads and millions of great, ancient, obviously wise, wonderful bodhisattvas. But in terms of this idea of proclamation, they come and they make offerings to the Buddha. They're expressing the sacred, and they're also proclaiming it. They proclaim that they will come in the future. So there's no split. They are the sacred itself. They are the ground of sacredness that the mud from which the lotus grows. So, there are many ways in which this works, this sense of... For Dogan and Buddhism, there's not some other thing outside.

[17:23]

There's not some deity up in the sky that's the sacred. It's right in the midst of our expressing our awareness for the sake of all beings, not just for ourselves as well, of course, because we're part of all beings, but the Bodhisattva vowed to help awaken all beings. the sense of the sacred becomes very important, and it becomes part of, not something that Dogen talks about, but it becomes part of how he talks. So, particularly we see this in Dogen's extensive record. He's not explaining things, it's not discursive or logical.

[18:25]

of our idea of rationality and cognition. But he free associates, he makes connections, sometimes based on themes or sometimes based on images, but he's proclaiming this non-dual reality of the present phenomenal world in which, as I was talking yesterday at the Lotus Sutra, turns us, which the Sikhs and Ancestors called delusion, and we turn it, which is called awakening, but they're actually both together. They're both the Dharma flower turning the Dharma flower. So this turning is this proclamation, this expression, and the point is this expression. How do we express the non-dual reality of this present phenomenal world? which is completely imbued with the presence of the Buddha and the ongoing possibility of awakening.

[19:28]

That's the issue. How does this get expressed? And for us, as we do it in zazen, we express Buddha's body in ours. We sit upright. We breathe. We relax. But there are a number of Dogen's talks where he talks about this. I was going to read a few of these. So these are short talks. This is from 1241. Today this mountain monk, Doge himself, gives the dharma hall discourse for the assembly. And he says, What I have just said I offer to all the three treasures in the ten directions, to the twenty-eight ancestors in India, to the six ancestors in China, to all the nostrils under heaven, to the eyeballs throughout the past and present. And then he says, to dried shit-sticks, to three pounds of sesame, to zen boars, and to zafus.

[20:34]

So the dried shit-sticks is a reference to you, and then saying, answering the question, what is Buddha? And he says, dried shit-stick, which is a term that they used to use, like we use toilet paper, could be translated as a dry turd, but he's offering, so he says, today I give this dharma hall discourse, and then he offers it, he dedicates it to all these Buddhist ancestors, but also the eyeballs throughout the past and present, to dry chisticks, to three pounds of sesame, which is a response to another koan, to zen boards, to zafus. Previously, we offered incense for the limitless, excellent causal conditions. So this is the totality. This is the totality of all things that Ruksa Kaur spoke of when he was here. Previously, and just now, I offered incense for the limitless excellent causal conditions, and we dedicate it so that toads may leap up to Brahma's heaven, earthworms may traverse the eastern ocean, and clouds and water monks may become horses and cows.

[21:42]

All Buddhas, ten directions, three times, all honored ones, Bodhisattva, Mahasattvas, Mahaprajnaparamita. So that's the whole story. So he says he's giving this dharma hall discourse, and then he offers it in some comical ways, but also in traditional ceremonial ways that we use too. He states that he's proclaiming the dharma. But without saying anything more about the Dharma, he dedicates that to the Three Jewels and so forth. So this intention to dedicate, to the dedication for all beings, includes the very humble. He's talking about toads and earthworms. But there's no visible Dharma expressed except for the celebration via proclamation of the knowledge was adorned. So, okay, now I have to go back to the Lotus Sutra, to the context for that.

[22:45]

In the Lotus Sutra, the Lotus Sutra is constantly talking about itself. The Lotus Sutra talks about how wonderful the Lotus Sutra is and that people should proclaim it, people should to disclose it, to express it, and so forth, for the sake of helping beings into awakening. And some scholars, talking about the Lotus Sutra, says that it's a sutra that never happens, that it's all introduction and there's never any teaching. Well, Duncan is like that a lot, too. And that example is clear. He doesn't actually of the teaching. He says, I'm giving this teaching and now I'm sharing it and dedicating it.

[23:46]

So, again, it's not about something that we need to understand and figure out. It's about this dedication itself. So I want to give a couple more examples. Another one of these Dharma Actually, this is the one that immediately follows the last one. So it happened within, I don't know, a few days or a week or something of the last one. As this mountain monk, Darwin himself, today gives the dharma hall discourse, all Buddhists in the three times also today give a dharma hall discourse. The ancestral teachers in all generations also today give a dharma hall discourse. The one who bears the 16-foot golden body, who is the image of Buddha, gives a dharma hall the one endowed with the wondrous function of the hundred rasatiks of all things, gives a dharma hall discourse. That's the Buddha of totality on the planet.

[24:49]

Already together, having given a dharma hall discourse, what dharma has been expounded? So this is exactly the question that some modern scholars have about the Lotus Sutra. Well, where's the dharma that once went? They keep saying there's going to be this wonderful dharma. And Sardoga says, well, what dharma has been expounded? No other dharma is expressed, but this very dharma is expressed. What is this dharma? It is upheld within the Shanwan Temple, it is upheld within the Guanyin or the Tanzangon Temple, which are both temples of Jaya Jatayana. It is upheld within the mongsol, it is upheld within the Buddhahood. So, this very dharma is what we're doing here in this temple. It's not about something else. So this is that. This is an important teaching about the meaning of arjasa. It's not the content of some doctrine.

[25:52]

It's about the expression chain. So this way of talking that Dogen uses directly comes from the Lotus Sutra. No other dharma is expressed but this very dharma is expressed. What is this dharma? In another talk he gave, also it's a short talk, well, this is the last part, first he, well, he says, in the entire universe in ten directions, there is no dharma at all that has not yet been expounded by all Buddhism three times. It's all been done, it's all been said. all the Buddhas have already said everything there is to say. There is no dharma at all that has not yet been expounded by all Buddhas in the three times. Therefore, all Buddhas say, quote, in the same manner that all Buddhas in the three times expound the dharma, so now I also will expound the dharma without differentiation.

[26:53]

And I'll add, in the same manner that all Buddhas in the three times, Shakyamuni, Bodhidharma, have expounded the dharma. So now I'm also expounding the dharma. So then Duggan says, This great assembly present before me also is practicing the way and the manner of all Buddhas. Each movement, each stillness, is not other than the dharma of all Buddhas. So do not act carelessly or casually. Although this is the case, I have an expression that has not yet been expounded by any Buddha. Everyone, do you want to hear it? Amazing. And then after a poet's dogen said, in the same manner that all Buddhas in the three times expound the Dharma, so now I also will expound the Dharma without differentiations.

[27:54]

So it's all been said and done, and that's happening right now. So this relates also to the part about the inconceivable lifespan, which I've talked about. After these underground bodhisattvas spring forth from the ground, the other disciples say, well, where did they come from? Who was their teacher? And Buddha says, oh, I was their teacher. And they say, well, what do you mean? We know you left the palace 40-some years ago in light and light, and you've been teaching in what is supposed to be one of his last teachings in Dogon. gives this revelation that we've been chanting at midday about the inconceivable lifespan, but actually, since he became a bodhisattva, and since he became a Buddha, it's been a long, long, long, long, long time. Many, many, many ages. And he will continue for twice that long into the future. Dogen's saying that it has not previously been expounded is like Dogen himself saying, speaking the original Lotus Sutra.

[29:09]

So one of the things that happens in the Lotus Sutra, another aspect of this is this kind of self-referential thing in the Lotus Sutra. Well, before that, just Dogen speaking the Lotus Sutra, I remember I went to a several-day teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh in California. where he was talking about the Lotus Sutra, and I was sitting here, taking my hat off and speaking about the Lotus Sutra, and it was just like being at Vulture Peak and speaking about the Lotus Sutra. So here we are. So there's this self-referential quality that's really weird and really important. It's a big part of the Lotus Sutra. many beings come to hear the Lotus Sutra being expounded. As it says in the Lotus Sutra, most remarkably, there's an ancient Buddha from an ancient age who appears in his stupa, his mummified body appears in his stupa, floating over Moultrie Peak.

[30:27]

And, this ancient, ancient Buddha from several big bags ago or whatever, has vowed to always appear whenever the Lotus Sutra is expounded. It says so right in the Lotus Sutra. So there's all these weird ways. It's like one of those Escher things where the one hand is drawing the other hand, or the staircase keeps going down until it gets to the top. This quality of self-referential discourse, to put it that way, is part of what Dogen's doing too. And when he's talking about how he's proclaiming the Dharma. And I want to connect this

[31:30]

directly with our satsang, but part of the point of this... Well, I'm going to read you another scholar, Lord Nila Thar, who is a wonderful Buddhist scholar, who was a kind of talkative, wrote about Japanese Buddhism, and actually a lot of interesting stuff, but he says, the narratives of the Lotus Sutra are not a means to an end beyond themselves. Their concrete mode of expression is not chaff to be dispensed with in order to attain some more abstract rational or spiritual truth. So the mode of expression itself is not expert. The Lotus is unequivocal on this point. It says, one may seek in every one of the ten directions, but will find no mode or so-called means other than the Buddha's. This accounts for what may seem to be an inordinate amount of praise directed by the sutra toward itself. So people, when they first look at the letter sutra, sometimes get turned off because it's talking about how wonderful it is.

[32:33]

It also implies that within the sutra, there is an unmistakable philosophical and movable flow sense that is opposite to that of Plato's Republic. A move to affirm the complete reality of the world of concrete phenomena. in spite of the fact they are impermanent. This is important. So he's picking Plato as kind of celebrating abstraction of the idea and what Le Fleur is saying and what is part of Japanese Buddhism very much in its celebration of the phenomenal world, of impermanence, of the particulars of the world. And it's very much part of Dogen. this non-separation of the goals of liberation from the skillful modes of teaching. So there's this non-duality of purpose and context in the Lotus Sutra. It itself represents an act of veneration of the potential for liberation in the world.

[33:38]

It's not about something else. Dogen's use of Lotus-style self-referential discourse directly affirms the non-dualism of means and ends. It keeps affirming the concrete realms of particulars as the arena of our practice realization. So this goes back to this quality in the Lotus Sutra and this quality in Japanese Buddhism, and it has to do with Arsazen. Arsazen is not about something else. I think as Westerners, and all over, people come to meditation and spiritual practice because they want, quite reasonably, some calm, or some peace of mind, or some opening, or they want to get some enlightening thing that they've heard of.

[34:39]

But Arsazan is not about something else. We sit here this weekend. when we sit in our regular daily practice, we just sit. It's not about reaching some other state of being or mind or understanding or experience in the future. Just this is it. We see what's actually happening in this body-mind, this morning. Quite apart from all our stories about who we are, or what the world is, or what we think we want to get from practicing. So it's not about something else. We're not practicing to get to some other place in the future. The point is just to enjoy the next breath, or the breath that's happening right now.

[35:41]

to appreciate our uprightness, to appreciate our expression of Buddha's mudra right now. So another one of Dogen's talks, he connects this to, I was talking yesterday about dharma position and how this arises out of particular situations, each of us. particular causes and conditions, particular problems and habits and situations that show up on our kushimicha. And I'll find this. Yeah, so in another one of his dharma discourses that he grew up with, Dogen said, from around the same time, Dogen says, this mountain monk has not lectured for the sake of the assembly for a long time.

[36:52]

Why is this? On my behalf, the Buddha hall, the meditation hall, the valley streams, the pines, the bamboo, Every moment, endlessly speak fully for the sake of all people. Have you heard it or not? If you say you heard it, what did you hear? If you say you have not heard it, you're not keeping the Five Precepts. So, the point is not some thing. The point is this expression, and you can hear it everywhere. Just sitting, we hear the sound of the air conditioner. We hear it in the door opening and closing. We hear it in the sounds of the work in the kitchen. And we wander on the lake shore.

[37:55]

We hear it in the waves. The sounds from the lake. We hear it in the cries of the waves of Venice. It's not something else. It's actually this. So I suggested yesterday at the end that part of, well, it's very much part of the Lotus Sutra, but it's also part of a lot of Zen stories. It's President Dogen, this sense of the fantastic or the imaginative nation. So just the image of the lotus rising out of the muck of our own lives and of the world. For example, we sit upright like Buddha.

[38:59]

And that's the point. It's not that we're sitting to get something else. If that was the meaning of our Zazen, that would just be another business transaction. And it's hard to get this, because that's how we think of our life. We think we're doing something to get something else out of it. We're trained to do that. Our consumerist society, what is it Dylan says, people do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in. It's not about someplace else or some other time. We just enjoy expressing this body-mind as we sit. So allow yourself, as you sit, to feel the visions and images that arise.

[40:02]

You don't have to do anything about it. You don't have to tuck them away for later. Just enjoy this. So you might think, what good is that? There's all kinds of other things you could be doing out in Chicago today. But again, I'm closing each day with Dogen's description of, also from Heiko Rikuo, the point of this practice. And he says, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy.

[41:09]

Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. Well, this is the same thing the Lotus Sutra talks about. The point of Buddhas arising is to help beings of the path of awakening, and he says that that our family style, our Zen tradition, our Buddhist tradition, is just to free all living beings, to remove suffering, and to provide joy. So when we see how wonderful all of this is, it is wonderful, it's joyful, but then we have some work to do. He also says bodhisattvas studying the way should know how Buddha nature produces the conditions for buddha nature. This quality, this background quality of awakeness that is not something to figure out or to understand or experience sometime in the future, that is our zazen, produces the conditions for buddha nature.

[42:15]

So we share this. We express buddha nature and zazen in our body, You know, talking about it's not a big deal. It's the actual physical expression of it. So sharing is more a matter of, you know, posture, attitude, how you are in the world. And people recognize it. There's some people who recognize it. And if they ask you, hey, how come you're so calm in the middle of all this craziness, or whatever, however they see it, you say, well, you could say, well, it just doesn't. Tell them to come to Ancient Dragon on Sunday morning, if they're interested. So, another one of his essays is about awakening the Bodhi mind. And this is, you know, it's one thing to have some vision or understanding of totality, of wholeness.

[43:23]

And this is part of what Zazen gives us. But then beyond that, there's this bodhi mind, there's this mind of caring. Where does that come from? How does Buddha nature produce the conditions for Buddha nature? So Dogen quotes the end of the verse at the end of chapter 16, which we will chant later in our midday service. I have always given thought to how I could cause, or I am always giving thought. moment after moment, to how I can cause all creatures to enter the highest supreme way and quickly become Buddha. So, Arzazan is not about something else. Arzazan is a kind of proclamation, like Dogon's proclamations of justice, like the Lotus Sutra. Oh, here's this ancient mummified Buddha coming, and actually he comes in the stupa, and he comes whenever the Lotus Sutra is being preached.

[44:24]

And he's floating in the mid-air, and the monk asks, and the Shakyamuni Buddha said, oh, this is this ancient Buddha, the Gujaratana, who comes whenever the other sutras preach. And they say, oh, we want to see him. And so this thing happens where the doors of the stupa open up, and there's this mummified body of the Gujaratana. Abundant treasures, it means in English. And he's sitting there and digging the whole thing. And Buddha rises up and then there's two Buddhas sitting next to each other. So whenever you see an image of two Buddhas in any East Asian Buddhist picture or sculpture, that's referring to this little sutra thing where there are two Buddhas sitting next to each other.

[45:28]

And there's also this thing in the Lotus Sutra earlier on where it says only Buddhas can really fully get to the bottom of this. And Dogen has a whole essay called, Only a Buddha Together with a Buddha, where he talks about Dharma transmission and how Buddhas need to do this together. And it's actually Kumarajiva, a great Chinese translator, kind of tweaked the translation from Sanskrit to Chinese. In the end, in Sanskrit, it just says, Buddhas do this. But Kumarajiva said, Buddhas together with Buddhas do this. So Dogen picked up on that. So here we are, Buddhas together with Buddhas. There's a place where Dogon also says that Buddhas don't just sit up and expound on the Dharma. Buddhas sit and listen to it as well. So thank you all for being present and expressing Buddha with your whole body and mind.

[46:24]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v005
@Score_80.82