I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. So this morning, I'm kind of doing a double function. This is a Dharma talk and also it's supposed to be a book signing and talking about this new book that I translated and edited, just published last month by Tuttle called The Wholehearted Way.

[01:02]

So I will try to encompass both of those, which means I'll read a little more from the book than I would in the usual Dharma talk. So just to introduce this work, this is a book I translated while I was living in Kyoto, Japan, for two years, 90 to 92, together with Shouhaku Okamura, who's a Japanese Soto Zen priest. So I lived in Kyoto, kind of in the middle of the cemetery between two old temples, and supported myself teaching English. And twice a week, can you hear me okay in the back? Twice a week I would take the bus out to, train and bus, out to his temple in the mountains west of Kyoto in a little village full of rice fields. And in the morning we'd work on this text by Dogen Bendowa and the commentary by his teacher, Uchiyama Roshi.

[02:06]

Then in the afternoon, we worked on another writing by Dogen, the Ehei Shingi, which is Dogen's writings about Attitude for Community Practice that was published last year and is also available on the bookstore here called Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community. Anyway, this text, this book includes, as I said, this text by Dogen called Bendo Wa, which means something like talk on wholeheartedly engaging the way. And then there's a long commentary by Shohaku's teacher, Ujiyama Roshi, who's a very lively and popular modern Japanese Zazen teacher, is now retired. So this text, Bendowa, is about the inner meaning of Zazen, this meditation we do here. How many people have not heard of Dogen? Some of you, I know, are not new. Okay, Dogen was a Japanese monk, Zen monk, who went to China

[03:11]

in the 13th century and brought back, it was awakened and brought back the transmission of what we now call Soto Zen, and wrote quite a lot about the teaching of Buddhism and the practice of Buddhism, and stressed this meditation practice that we do here. And this writing was one of the first writings that he did when he returned from China to Japan and really talks about the inner meaning of Zazen, what Zazen is about. So I was going to start by reading a section of Hidogen's writings and then read some things from Uchiyama Roshi's commentary. And this section is from part of this text called the GGU Zama or Samadhi of Self-Fulfillment. Are we chanting that these days, Jordan, in the noon service here? Not regularly. Okay. Yeah, it's chanted in some Japanese such as Zen temples for every noon service, and it has been chanted here at noon service too, this little section of this text.

[04:22]

which I'm going to read a little part of. So I'll read this whole section and then talk about it. Dogen says, when one displays the buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in the samadhi even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world becomes buddha mudra and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. Therefore, it enables buddhas to increase the dharma joy of their own original grounds. and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. Simultaneously, all living beings of the Dharma world in the ten directions and six realms become clear and pure in body and mind, realize great emancipation, and their own original face appears. At that time, all things together awaken to supreme enlightenment and utilize Buddha body, immediately go beyond the culmination of awakening, and sit upright under the kingly Bodhi tree.

[05:26]

At the same time, they turn the incomparable great Dharma wheel and begin expressing ultimate and unfabricated profound prajna or wisdom." So this first part is what I want to talk about. When one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, so this position, this mudra is a gesture or a posture, an attitude, a position, so we talk about our hand position as a mudra, or this is a mudra, but he's saying when we take this position of zazen, when we sit upright in the middle of our life and everything that comes up in our life, when one displays this Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in this samadhi or concentration meditation, even for a short time, Everything in the entire Dharma world becomes Buddha mudra and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. Do you hear how far out that is? All space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment.

[06:34]

What is he talking about here? And then he says, therefore it enables Buddhists to increase the Dharma joy of their own original grounds. So it sounds like Buddhists can increase their joy and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. So I happen to see in the newspaper, in the Chronicle on Friday, an article about Albert Einstein that scientists now have found evidence to support part of his theory of gravity, which I guess they did through, I don't understand all the science of it, checking the way X-ray waves are, by reading X-ray waves near black holes, they've discovered that Einstein was right about frame dragging. So it says that space gets dragged around by spinning objects, like the train of a wedding dress circling a twirling bride.

[07:43]

This is according to astrophysicists in a meeting in Colorado, yes. Again, space itself gets swirled by spinning objects. So part of what Einstein theorized, and now they're finding evidence for, is that part of gravity is that when a heavy object, an impactful object, is in space, that it actually changes and it impacts space itself. It says, empty space actually is a tightly woven fabric of space and time. interlocked like threads in a cloth. The space-time fabric gets warped by massive objects, just as a sheet would get warped into a deep well if an elephant were to sit on a bed. Anything that comes near the well naturally rolls in, and that falling is the force we perceive as gravity. If the elephant twists around on the bed, his motion carries the sheet with him. And if Einstein's theory is correct, space-time is dragged around big objects.

[08:46]

So this is one of the newest discoveries in astrophysicists. I'm sure that Dogen, living in the 13th century, never even heard of the theory of gravity, and I'm sure that Einstein, although he was quite religious and even mystical in his own way, never heard of Dogen. But Dogen says, when one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in the samadhi even for a short time, Everything in the entire dharma world becomes buddha mudra and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. So putting these together, it seems like when one takes this grave, intense, upright position that that affects space itself. And that's what Dogen's talking about. He's talking about our relationship with the world, with the universe, with space and time itself even. So he says that this Sazen enables Buddhas to increase the Dharma joy of their own original grounds and renew the adornment of the way of awakening.

[09:55]

And then further on he says, at this time, because earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in the Dharma realm in ten directions, carry out Buddha work. Therefore, everyone receives the benefit of wind and water movement caused by this functioning, and all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and incomprehensible influence of Buddha to actualize the enlightenment at hand." So what Dogen is saying in one of his introductory writings about the meaning of zazen is that This practice we do, this sitting upright in the middle of our life, has some impact. It has an impact beyond, maybe as far beyond our usual way of thinking as to think about elephants sitting on space-time or whatever that was. Dogen goes on to say, since those who receive this and use this water and fire extend the Buddha influence of original enlightenment,

[11:02]

All who live and talk with these people also share and universally unfold the boundless Buddha virtue and they circulate the inexhaustible, ceaseless, incomprehensible and immeasurable Buddha Dharma within and without the whole Dharma world. So this sounds pretty lofty. But what Dogen is claiming, asserting here, is that this practice that we do that when we do this it has an effect, it affects those around us. And there's this word here, all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and incomprehensible influence of Buddha to actualize the enlightenment at hand. And he's saying that not just about our interactions with people, although of course that is part of it too, but also the earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in space, all things in the Dharma realm in ten directions. also carry out Buddha's work. And there's this thing about imperceptibly helped and helping, which the Japanese word is myoka or myoshi.

[12:06]

So I hadn't heard that word before I went to Japan, but it's this kind of hidden guidance and assistance. and help that we get from the universe when we open ourselves up to doing this practice. So usually that word is used in connection with chanting to Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, or making offerings, or asking for the help of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, enlightening beings. But Dogen is saying that it happens not just with Buddhas, but even with the trees, grasses. So the trees are helping us, but also he's saying that we help, that there's some resonance, there's some way that this practice, when we sit upright and breathe and watch our thoughts and let go of them and just be present in this way, that there's some imperceptible guidance and assistance that happens between us and the world, which is why I think, in addition to its just natural beauty that was here before Zen Center was here, Green Gulch is a powerful people, a powerful place for many people.

[13:20]

Many people come here on Sundays because in some way that we don't, can't trace exactly, we feel the resonance of the residents and the non-residents practicing here together and the power of this Zazen. and the power of the trees, and the farm, and the fields, and the birds, and the animals. So Going to Uchiyama Roshi's commentary, the book is structured so that the whole text is in the beginning and then there's commentary on the text. So he quotes one of the most important passages, isn't it, in Bendowa, I think. He says, although this Dharma is abundantly inherent in each person, it is not manifested without practice, it is not attained without realization. So this way that Dogen is talking about this resonance, this imperceptible guidance and assistance, this way in which we bend space and time by sitting zazen, this is not, this is abundantly inherent in each person.

[14:36]

This Buddha nature, this openness, this possibility of awakening and openness, we all have already. We all are already. But Dogen says, although it's abundantly inherent, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. So we actually have to practice this. This doesn't happen naturally in the sense of automatically. It happens through our intention, through our realization, through our practice. We have to put this into practice. So Uchiyama Roshi's commentary about that, he says, this self that is only the self, the vivid reality of life, is abundantly inherent in all people. There is no one who lacks it. You cannot fail or succeed in practicing Zazen. This truth is obvious. So some of you may think that you are successfully doing Zazen or that you're not doing Zazen, but what Uchiyama Roshi says is you cannot fail or succeed in practicing Zazen.

[15:40]

So most of what happens in the world out there is about failure and success and we do well or poorly or whatever. But in Zazen, you cannot fail or succeed. No one can do anything but live out the self. However, in some prescribed paths of practice, it is necessary to receive the affirmation of your teacher after having practiced a certain length of time. If your teacher says your realization is correct, you succeed. If not, you fail. Even though many people try with all their might, I would guess that the percentage of people who gains the Torii is low. The gate to enlightenment for them must be narrower than the gate to Japanese universities is for Japanese students. However, the Zazen taught by Dogen Zenji is not like that. It is Zazen as a true religion. It is not Zazen as a kind of discipline or training. There is no failure or success in Zazen as a true religion. All of us can be saved. That is only natural because we just practiced the reality of life that is abundantly inherent in every person.

[16:42]

So we actually have to practice it, but it's not a matter of succeeding or failing. So part of what this demands of us, I think, is opening up to other points of view. So I have a cup here, and some of you can see it. Now if I drink, some more of you will see it. So Uchiyama Roshi talks about that example a lot. But we have different perspectives on things, you know? So Karen, can you see this Jizo now? Can you see this statue of Jizo now? I can't, actually I'm looking at you. But I can see Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom over there. I'll bet you cannot, right? Okay, so we have a particular limited perspective.

[17:47]

We have a particular faculties of perception and of spirit. So if I turn my head, I can see the Bodhisattva Jizo standing here. being a guide for suffering beings. Now I can't see him anymore. So this is very simple. We have different perspectives, but we don't always realize that. We don't open ourselves up to other perspectives. So Hoshino Moroshi has an interesting passage about this. He says, Western philosophy's way of thinking is also based on abstractions. It assumes that all of us are seeing the same cup. Greek philosophers went further and further in their abstractions until they came up with a concept of the idea that cannot be seen or felt. One example is Venus, the goddess of beauty. In the real world, no woman is as well-proportioned as Venus or embodies perfect beauty as she does. Yet the Greeks idealized beauty and created a statue of Venus, just as they had thought of the idea of a circle that is abstracted from something round.

[18:57]

In other words, the Greek way of thinking is abstraction to the highest degree. Buddhism is different. Buddhism puts emphasis on life, the actual life experience of the reality of the self. So maybe this statue of Jizo is the ideal of the Bodhisattva acting to save and awaken and benefit all beings. And maybe none of us fit that ideal of abstraction. There's a little difference in Buddhism. This is not supposed to be the perfect bodhisattva that we cannot achieve. And then Uchiyama Roshi gives this wonderful example from mathematics. He says, in mathematics, one plus one equals two. None of us doubt this. Does anybody doubt that one plus one equals two? Any hands? Okay, well, he goes on to say, actually, this is only correct from the standpoint of mathematics. In life experience, when my car crashes into another car, the hoods are dented.

[20:02]

Tires come off. Glass breaks into pieces. No cars remain. With cars, one plus one makes zero. Or we could say that one plus one makes infinity, because the two cars break apart into an infinite number of pieces. The following example is even clearer. One man plus one woman makes three or four when they have children. Then he goes on to say, once I took a piss in the ocean, at that moment I clearly understood that one plus one makes only one. The one was the ocean. Nothing was changed even after my piss was added. The ocean was not concerned about my piss at all. So if some of you want to test this, it's a 20-minute walk to Muir Beach. So we have a way of thinking about things and we don't question how we see things or how we think about things. And part of the practice is just to open up to the other possibilities of what is really in front of us.

[21:05]

So he talks about thinking in a very interesting way. Uchiyama Roshi says, you will understand clearly that from the point of view of the reality of life, the thoughts we have been caught up in are nothing more than the secretions from our brains. It is just scenery painted by the secretions from our brains. Only when we sit zazen can we understand this clearly, yet it is so difficult to see it in our usual day-to-day life. Ordinarily we believe that those thoughts in our head are the master of the self. We abstract and reify the fantasies secreted from our brains and are convinced that they are substantial. we take it for granted that what we think is reality. As a result, our original life is bound hand and foot by the fantasies. Elsewhere, he talks about how while we're sitting, naturally, our stomach continues to secrete digestive juices, and in the same way, our brain continues to secrete thoughts. It's not that the thoughts are bad, but they're just secretions of the brain. It's an interesting way to look at our practice, I think.

[22:08]

So... So he has an easy method to take care of this. Uchiyama Roshi says, the vast gate of compassion is our zazen. It is off the mark to practice zazen in order to scrape away thoughts and enter the stage of no mind and no thought. If you really want to be mindless or thoughtless, I'll recommend a very easy method to you. Have an operation to remove your brain and become a vegetable. So we don't do lobotomies in this. Our zazen is different. We keep our brain functioning vividly as it is, and yet we are not caught up in the illusory thoughts. This is the posture of zazen, of letting go of thoughts. Even though we let go of thought, of course, thoughts well up ceaselessly, and yet we don't put ourselves into them. We just keep actualizing the reality of life. I think that we usually think that we are our thoughts, or that our thoughts are us, or we identify with our thoughts.

[23:19]

One of the things that happens when you start to sit Sasan is you see that there's all these thoughts going around. Even though we talk about letting go of thoughts, it's not about getting rid of thoughts, or stopping thoughts, or having a lobotomy. So how can we open up to new perspectives of the actual impact of Arzaz and how can we be open up to the imperceptible assistance and guidance of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and the grass and the trees. So one more passage about this. Uchiyama Roshi says, doing zazen is not sleeping. Our brain has to be awake. We cannot say that no thoughts come up, yet if we let go of the thoughts, we can let go of them. Sometimes we mindlessly start to think, for example, that we should invest money in this or that because we would get more profit.

[24:24]

However, when we become aware of the thought and go back to zazen, there is only a wall in front of us. During the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, Zazen was called tree-watching. In ancient India, they sat facing a huge tree. I suppose after sitting practice was introduced into China, they started to sit facing a wall, which is what we do now, usually. When we are sitting in Zazen, everything coming up is the scenery within Zazen, a varied source of thinking well up. But when we let go of them, there is only a wall in front of us. So basically, this zazen is something that impacts in some mysterious way that we can't exactly trace. It impacts, we impact each other by sitting. We help each other by sitting.

[25:26]

And we're open to being helped, too, in our practice. We're helped to open up to deeper levels of ourself. Maybe there's no way to see all the perspectives from one body and mind, but still we can open up to other possibilities. So I want to talk about a koan today. Do you know what a koan is? How many do not? So a koan is a problem, a question. Often they're traditional stories of dialogues between teachers and students, but also they come up in our life in various ways. So there's a wonderful passage. There's a wonderful question, a wonderful problem for us.

[26:28]

First, quoting Dogen, anyone who can deeply discern what is important or trivial will thereby have this faith. Needless to say, people who think secular duties interfere with Buddha Dharma only know that there is no Buddha Dharma in the secular realm, and do not yet realize that there is nothing secular in the realm of Buddha. So I think this is very relevant to us because in America, we're mostly lay practitioners. We live in the world, we live in the secular realm. Dogen says, there's no Buddhadharma in the secular realm. In the world where everybody is concerned about succeeding and failing and striving and fighting each other, there is no Buddhadharma in the secular realm. But yet, we should realize that there is nothing secular in the realm of Buddha. So first, I'll read Uchiyama Roshi's commentary on this. He tells a story. He says, I remember a person whose name was Ono Shinji when I read this part. He visited on Taiji in 1951 or 1952.

[27:30]

That's the temple in northern Kyoto that Uchiyama Roshi ran in the 60s. It was a place that Westerners went a lot. It's not there anymore. His teacher, Sawaki Koto Roshi, had started it. After this person, who he's talking about, retired from the National Railway at the required age limit, he began to work for a printing company in Osaka. So he was in his 60s. His work at the company was very different from what he had done at the National Railway. For the sake of the company, he had to become a liar. When he was asked to complete something by a certain date, he had to take the order, even though he knew it was impossible. On the appointed day, he had to tell a false story as an excuse. When he made payments, he also had to give false reasons and try to beat down the amount of money even a little. I suppose that small companies that have severe competition with rivals are more or less like this. When he entered such a business world, he was seriously afflicted. At the time, he heard that there was a dojo of Sawaki Roshi's in Kyoto, and he visited on Taiji around August.

[28:37]

As Sawaki Roshi was absent, I talked with him about his trouble. I said to him, in Bendo-wa, Dogen Zenji said that there is no Buddhadharma in the secular world, and yet there is nothing secular in the world of Buddhadharma. Why don't you practice zazen so as to enter the world of Buddhadharma in which there is nothing mundane?" He sat with me right after the conversation and began to sob while sitting. I thought he might go out of his mind, but he didn't. He was thoroughly convinced by what I said and settled down in the world of Buddhadharma. After that, he practiced zazen without any doubt while he continued to work for the company. When I had Sashin, he took days off and sat with me for three days every month. I always sat Sashin's only with him and another student. He continued to come for practice enthusiastically. And he often said to the visiting lay people that there is no Buddhadharma in the secular world. And yet, there is nothing secular in the world of Buddhadharma.

[29:40]

Later, I found that numbers of people were deeply moved by this phrase. So I've found that phrase helpful myself in thinking about a koan that's been given to us by a member of this community. How many people saw the story about the pepper spray being rubbed into eyes of demonstrators? How many people, let me ask, how many people have not heard about at all of the Headwaters Forest in Northern California? Has everybody heard of that? I don't have to do the background. Okay. Well, for those of you who saw the story, some demonstrators who were protesting the deal whereby $380 million of taxpayers' money will be given to Pacific Lumber Company so that they will not cut down 7,500 acres of the 60,000 acres of old-growth forest.

[30:41]

that they own up there in Humboldt County. So basically, that's the plan at this point, that $380 million of taxpayers' money will be given to this company to only cut down 90 percent of their all-growth forest. So these are trees, a lot of them 1,000 years old or more. Anyway, these demonstrators were sitting in and practicing civil disobedience, and I guess most of you saw that the sheriff's department, while they had chained themselves down, the sheriff's department came and held their eyes open and rubbed pepper spray in their eyes, which is supposed to be only used for violent assailants at more than three feet. And it happens that at least one of those people, young people who were given this treatment was somebody I sat with in the forest in Oregon in June with a group of people for a couple of days. And one of these people who was on the front page of the Chronicle and New York Times is a longtime Green Gold student.

[31:52]

So she came here, I guess, originally to be an apprentice in the field apprentice program. But she stayed here for, anyway, a couple of practice periods and also spent a year at Tassajara and has lived in the city. I think worked in the kitchen here, too. Anyway, I think she's now sitting up in a tree in the headwaters. But she was one of these people who had this treatment of having pepper spray rubbed in her eyes. So this saying of Dogen, there's no Buddhadharma in the secular world, excuse me, but I find this a good example of no Buddhadharma in the secular world. the pepper spray, but even more just the fact of how this forest is being treated. We've heard in Dogen talking about kingly trees and sitting facing trees as the original practice instead of facing walls.

[33:03]

So if those demonstrators were here, they might ask you to call the Humboldt County authorities and say, please don't use pepper spray anymore. because they still maintain that this was a proper thing to do. They might even say that to ask you to please call President Clinton and ask him to veto the Interior Appropriations Bill, which will make this deal go through and is sitting on his desk. But sitting up here, I just want us to consider what is the other side of this? How do we express that there's nothing mundane in the realm of Buddha? In some ways, there may be no Buddhadharma in the secular world, in the world of maximizing profits and liquidating assets and how many board feet are in an all-growth forest. But what does it mean that there is nothing mundane in the realm of Buddha? So this is the koan, and a koan demands that we shift our viewpoint. So how is this for the loggers?

[34:10]

there are people up in Humboldt County who are concerned about their livelihood and their jobs. And I believe some of them are meditators, too. What is it for them to look at the situation? Of course, if they clear-cut all of the forests, there'll be no more jobs after a little while. But right now, they need to support their families. Then what is in the hearts and minds of those sheriffs as they hold open the eyelids of young women and rub pepper spray in their eyes? How are they us? If they can do that, maybe I could too, I don't know. So this is a koan for me because How do we find the way to express our practice in the face of it? How do we express nothing mundane in the realm of Buddha?

[35:14]

So these young people who are doing the civil disobedience practice, that's their way of expressing it, I guess. And maybe together with the sheriffs, their action together in this seems to have created some gravity, seems to have bent the fabric of space and time. And maybe we'll call more attention to the whole situation of what is happening in our country and our culture, and maybe we'll shift perspectives about this. So again, if there's no Buddhadharma in the secular world, it's up to us to practice. to realize nothing secular in the realm of Buddhadharma. How do we approach all the questions in our life, in the situation, in our society, and see the Buddhadharma there, see the teaching there for us? So I look forward to discussion of this and Einstein with you and space-time fabrics.

[36:21]

I'll just close with one more. A little bit from Uchiyama Roshi. He says, mankind has invented many things in the past, such as television, the automobile, jet airplanes, rockets, and computers. Though there are many things, they are all meaningless. Why? Because none of them has made human beings noble. However, Zazen makes human beings noble. Zazen allows human beings to find the true self. In this sense, Zazen is really the wondrous method for attaining the way. The self is born with the world of the self, lives within the world of the self, and dies with the world of the self. Although this is entirely different from the common sense view, if you sit uprightly in the Samadhi, you will see that this is reality. So thank you all for coming here this morning and sharing this noble practice together.

[37:37]

So this is why it's a very powerful koan. What do we do? How do we see it? How do we respond to that in our own hearts, you know, first of all? They're seeing that there's nothing secular in the Buddha Dharma. So what Laura said is that there's no separation really, from the point of view of Buddha, from the point of view of the Bodhisattva, there's no separation. Our practice is not just in this room or just when we come to Green Gulch, our practice is in everything in our activity, everything in our daily life is our way of expressing our openness to this imperceptible, mysterious guidance and assistance and the whole process of awakening that's not just about our awakening ourselves, but is something we all do together.

[38:42]

We have to do it together. So if those sheriffs can do that in Humboldt County, I feel like I can't be awakened, you know? How do we include How do we see, you know, there's so many viewpoints on any one situation. How do we open ourselves up to other ways of seeing and that can lead to some action or some expression or some display of Buddha mudra. But then it's not separate and yet from the point of view of the people whose concern is maximizing the profits and quarterly profits and you know, liquidating assets, they don't see Buddhadharma, it looks like. Yes? I don't know where I read this, but I can remember reading that the word Dharma can be translated simply as the light. Yeah, I would guess that dharma means truth or reality, that's one level.

[40:01]

It also means teaching, but it's also kind of the path or the way towards that. So in that sense, maybe you could say that your life is your dharma. Yeah, so it has little different meanings in Hinduism. But still, how one expresses oneself is the dharma, the teaching you're expressing. Yeah, so there's nothing secular in the Buddhadharma also means that anything that happens is a teaching to us about our own existence and our own awakening and reality. So everything is a teaching in some way. Yes, Gordon? Good.

[41:07]

Well, it's sort of like, you know, the secular, I mean, the buddha nature is the secular, but the secular in its uniqueness isn't necessarily buddha nature. Yeah. But the question I have is I'm fascinated with what you were saying about the gain is increased in, the buddha's joy is increased in their original realm in our total city. Yes. I was curious about how something could be increased in that particular place, because if that fell, then that would not be the... Yeah, well you know there's this total aspect to our life and this aspect of the totality, the ultimate quality of life, and there's also the practical, relative, conventional world.

[42:09]

So from the total, from the point of view of the absolute or the noumenon or totality or something, everything is Buddha, period, and that's what a Buddha sees. Also, there is this conventional reality that includes everything out there. So I think what it's referring to is from that point of view, a Buddha can see other Buddhas awakening and be more joyful. See others expressing, displaying their Buddha mudra more and more. I brought this along just in case there were questions on particular quotes. It says, it enables Buddhas to increase the dharma joy of their own original grounds, which is very interesting to see this practice. Well, the absolute and the conventional are totally inter-dynamically interconnected, so the original ground is the original ground, and yet Buddhas can increase its dharma joy and renew, the next part, renew the adornment of the way of awakening.

[43:49]

So there is this way. You know, if there were no suffering beings, there'd be no Buddhas. Buddhas arise, exist, appear. All of us as Buddhas appear and arise because there are suffering beings who don't realize that, who think that there's only a secular world. Right. So therefore, to alleviate suffering, to help others, to help oneself, to more and more fully, more and more deeply express this way of awakening increases our joy and renews the adornments of the way of awakening. That's a very interesting question for me anyway.

[45:15]

So the quote about that actually was from Uchiyama Roshi. He says that the Zazen is a true religion because it's not about success and failure. It's not just another program to become, you know, to get a higher consciousness or something. So what does it mean that it's a true religion? And then there's the, I guess, part of what I heard from your question is that sometimes Zen Buddhism is talked about as a philosophy or a psychological program or people come to practice because they're hurting and they want, you know, to feel better. So that's natural. So there's a therapeutic aspect to Zazen. But what this is talking about is something deeper, and I think a lot of people in the West have a negative idea about the word religion. In fact, there's a passage where Uchiyama Roshi talks about getting rid of the word religion for the same reason, that he says that religion as a word has this stink about it because, well, so many wars and suffering has been created by contentiousness of religions and so forth, and all of the superstitiousness and

[46:22]

in religious institutions can be as messed up as any others. But I think what he's talking about in terms of true religion is to find this original ground. So I like to think of Zen as a religion myself. I think that that is maybe helpful for us right now because so much of American Zen is very therapeutically based, that we want to feel better and more relaxed. But there's this part, the aspect of Zen that I would call a religion is the aspect that allows us to connect to something very deep that has to do with the ultimate meaning of our lives, you know, in the world and our being here and our expressing our lives. So that aspect of religion I respect. And in that sense, much more in Asia than in America, in Japanese sojozen temples there's lots of

[47:32]

you know, not just a couple little bodhisattvas, but, you know, there's a whole lots of, you know, kind of religious trappings in most Japanese sutras and temples. And there are things that are chanted about from the Lotus Sutra about calling out the name of Kanzeon, the bodhisattva of compassion, and she'll come and help you no matter what's going on, if you're having pepper spray rubbed in your eyes or whatever. So I think there's something valuable in that side of it, okay? But then there's this other side of religion too, but the part that maybe Uchiyama Roshi was talking about is to see the aspect of our practice that's not about gain and loss, it's not about succeeding or failing, it's not just another worldly trip to get better at something, even spiritually better, you know. It's not about becoming, becoming. a better person spiritually. It's just, here we are, this is my life, here I am this morning, I'm sitting here in Zazen and I can do that.

[48:33]

And there's a way in which by just coming and sitting in Zazen, whether your Zazen is good or bad, it's meaningless. It's just there you are and sitting upright and inhaling and exhaling. There's some way in which we're connecting to something extremely deep. Yeah, spirituality is maybe a better, maybe more an easier term for people to connect with. So do you have trouble with the word salvation? Okay. Yeah. A lot of Buddhist scholars do too, because salvation is, uh, has as an English word. So this is an interesting issue in translation, which I'm involved with how to use these words. A lot, all the English words about religion have Christian or Judeo-Christian connotations. And so they don't really accurately convey the Buddhist meaning in many cases. And yet there's a way in which the word save or salvation, I personally feel okay about using that.

[49:38]

The word, the character do, which is in the four vows that we chant, beings are numberless, I vow to free them or I vow to save them. That means actually to carry beings across to the other shore of awakening from samsara. So it actually means to save in some sense, to save from suffering. But we could unpack it as to free beings or to awaken beings. It doesn't mean save from sin and all of the baggage of Christianity. Although there are ways of looking at today of Christianity that make sense from a Buddhist point of view too, but that's another discussion. Another word that has that problem is faith. because the Western concept of faith is that we believe in something, like I believe in what is written in some book. And that's more the Western approach is that we believe in some doctrine or some text. And to me, Dogen talks a lot about faith. And my experience of Buddhist practice is that faith is crucial, but it's not faith in something out there.

[50:44]

It's just taking the next step. It's just, you know, without knowing how or who or why, just to be present and take the next breath. And there's an aspect of faith there which is very deep. So we use these English words and it makes problems. But spirituality, if that's easier for you than religion, please use that. Laura? Is it your notion that the mind and the unconscious haven't really leveled? Right. Sure. Yes. No guarantees. Well, you know, he says Zazen makes human beings noble.

[51:44]

It doesn't say how long it takes. And then there's after generations of nobility falling into poverty. This is not the same as perfection, you know. I think part of the problem with the word religion too is that we have, I think as Westerners, much more than in Asia, we have some idea of a spiritual person as being, or a noble person as being perfect, this perfect master, you know, who's beyond, who's faultless and beyond. misdeeds, as you say. And I think this is why we need this First Commandment about not having idols, because we want them so much. Our celebrity culture, we have this Time magazine about America's fascination with Buddhism and a picture of Brad Pitt. As something about the Western psyche, we want these perfected masters.

[52:46]

We're really thirsting for that. So if you see some Zen priests, please don't think I'm a perfect master. So there's a difference between being noble and being perfect. So that doesn't satisfy the question, I know. Right, so in this crazy world, I mean, can anybody really be enlightened?

[53:49]

I don't know. So I don't know about this thing about enlightened people. I maybe read that somewhere, heard about that somewhere, but I don't know if there, maybe there are, but that's not, for me it's not the point. Actually, Lou Richmond talked about this a lot, that there's enlightened activity, there's enlightened conduct, there's enlightened awareness, they're not enlightened people. So if somebody has some great opening experience or some great understanding, that doesn't mean that then, you know, that's it and they're finished with their practice and they go home and watch TV. In fact, Buddhism began with Buddhist enlightenment. So, I don't know that there, I don't know, I think it may not be so helpful to think of enlightened, yeah, I don't know that it's helpful to think of enlightened people. We all have this openness, this awakening is abundantly inherent in everybody, Dogen says, but it's not manifested without practice. It's not attained without realization.

[54:51]

It can be realized, but then one has to, it's not something that one realizes once and that's it. There has to be this ongoing practice of Buddha going beyond Buddha. So, if you become an enlightened person, you know, that's why it says to kill the Buddha, you know, you have to keep expressing it. We don't just have some understanding of this once. So that's also, in the Buddhadharma, there's nothing secular. In the Buddhadharma, we meet the secular and continue to express our awakening. our individual awakening as best we can. And so I think, so enlightenment is a verb, it's not like an adjective to describe. And also that even in the Diamond Sutra it says that there's no mark by which we can know an enlightened being or enlightenment. There's no attribute that we can say, this is a Buddha and this isn't. So, good.

[55:54]

Thank you for asking. Yes. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't go back and sit some more, but yeah, that's an important point. Yeah, partly if you come to Zazen, and this is what Uchiyama Roshi is talking about again and again in this book, that if you come to Zazen trying to get something out of it, trying to get enlightenment or be more enlightened or whatever, that that's not the point.

[57:20]

That's why he calls it a true religion or true spirituality. It's not about succeeding or failing. It's about, in a way, we come and sit here and we sit upright and breathe and take this Buddha mudra. And that is our expression of awakening. So to sit sasan is not something that we do in order to get something else. It's actually the expression and celebration of awakening. It looks like a pretty austere party, but it's actually a celebration. Yes, Phil? It's bad.

[58:21]

Yeah, that's actually a really subtle point. It's abundantly inherent in each person, but it's not manifested without practice. So we do have to, we have to be there. It's not just enough to hear this and say, oh, okay, everything's okay. And yet there is this way in which he's saying that when we do that, when one displays the Buddha Mojo with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in the samadhi, even for a short time, everything in the entire universe becomes Buddha Mudra and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. So this is mysterious, you know. Well, we have to actually be there, we have to actually be engaged wholeheartedly in our practice. This thing about effort, I think it does take effort sometimes practically, but what he's saying later on in that same section, Dogen says, even if only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all time, it performs everlasting Buddha guidance within the inexhaustible dharma world in the past, present and future."

[59:54]

So this is what, this is kind of the As I said, the inner meaning of Zazen, and it's very mysterious. From our usual way of looking at the world, it doesn't make sense. Because usually we think that we only get something by working hard at it. But this is something that we actually have to be there for. So as you were saying, it's not like automatic. We have to put ourselves there into it in some way. And yet, even for one person sitting a little bit, there is this resonance, there is this mutual imperceptible guidance and assistance. That's what he says. Yes? Do you have a pen and pencil?

[61:07]

Okay. I was hoping somebody would ask that question. Somewhere, there's sleeves somewhere. I think they have. So if you want to call the Humboldt County Supervisors, the phone number is 707-445-7509. If you want to call the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, don't bother because they're not taking calls. They're convinced that they're doing the right thing. However, they are taking letters if you want to write to 826 4th Street, Eureka, California. If you want to call Frank Riggs, the congressman in whose office this act happened, which Amnesty International called tantamount to torture, but he on the House floor said it was the right thing to do. His phone number is 707-441-8701. And actually the demonstrators are asking people to call those numbers.

[62:08]

And then as to the actual deal on the Headwaters and this $380 million, it's past Congress. It's too late to talk to Congress people or senators. But President Clinton has not said yet whether he's going to veto the bill. And there's a lot of reasons for vetoing it aside from the Headwaters deal in terms of taking away safeguards to the environment. So environmentalists are pressuring him and his phone number is 202-456-1414. And for anybody who has email, his email is president at whitehouse.gov. The interior appropriations bill, thank you. I don't have a number, but you can say the interior appropriations bill that has the, that approves the money for the headwater, for buying the part of the headwaters, the little bit of the headwaters forest, and they'll know what it means.

[63:12]

And the last I heard it was still on his desk and he hasn't said what I'll do. So, thank you for asking. The Humboldt County supervisors who are responsible for the actions of their sheriffs 707-445-7509. Congressman Riggs is the congressman for Humboldt County. His number is 707-441-8701. Yes. Huh?

[64:14]

I heard you. Anyway, who knows what will come next is important because the point, again, the point isn't, I mean, actually, you know, I've made these phone calls and I hope lots of people will, but I think from the point of view of the Dharma, the main point is just to ask yourself, well, how do I express there's nothing secular in the realm of Buddha? So part of that, it means that there's nothing that's worldly and it's outside of Buddha. That in the realm of Buddha, we are responsible for everything in the world. It doesn't mean that all of us would do what the sheriffs did or anything like that, but it means that we are related to that. For some people, just meditating or praying or just to be aware of some of this might be their way of expressing that.

[65:16]

But I think it's important for us to... look at how do we each, how do I express, there's nothing secular in the realm of Buddhadharma, especially in a secular realm that thinks there's no Buddhadharma, that thinks there's no cause and effect, that thinks there's no consequences to cutting down 90% of a forest of thousand-year-old trees. tree-sitting, yes. Yeah, actually it's just historical circumstance.

[66:45]

In India monks, there was a community and an assembly of monks, but it doesn't look like there was so much communal meditation. So monks would just sit under trees and apparently do tree sitting and face the trees or face the world as trees. There are lots of other stories in Zen and Buddhist history and teaching, by the way, about trees. Trees are really valued. But when Buddhism moved to China, it was too cold to sit out under trees, so they built buildings and sat together, and it was still pretty cold. In China and then Japan and Korea too, the model, at least in Zen school, became the community meditation where people sat together. I don't think that, well, I don't know, it may have happened in India some, but it wasn't as much of a model. And if we look at Theravada countries now, which are mostly warm countries, in Burma and Thailand, monks may have their own little cabin, but it's not so much a communal sitting thing.

[67:55]

And in Tibet, there's some of both, but more, I think, Tibetan practitioners sit by themselves, not in a room like this together with people. This kind of setup is more a function of the communal monastic practice in China and Japan. So there's some historical just circumstance and climate. But yeah, sitting outside is wonderful. But it also can be distracting. So I think one can do both. Does anybody have anything to say about this elephant sitting in space? I don't know if there are any physicists here or anybody who can talk about this. I don't quite understand what this means that this frame dragging business about the web of space and time being impacted by gravity, but it's very intriguing to me.

[68:56]

Hi, Marshall. I was at Alcahar a few days, and I think it was evening, and the person to my right, I felt a grip on a cushion, and it was tilting that way. Yeah.

[70:05]

Yes? That subject seems to be the buzz of the state of the world this week, that there seems to be a convergence of astrophysicists and Buddhists and people of others in the spiritual practice, in the definition of the void, that it's not really empty. that stretches through time, actually. They've even devised an exhibit called The Walk Through Time that attempts to go back to the actual formation of the Earth by relating to the current formation of new galaxies, planets, and that sort of thing. singular formula, but apparently it seems to be a new formulation of understanding how it works, that it doesn't work by itself, that gravity exists because it's part of this continuity, and there is, in fact, a physicist that's there, people have been working on a new formula for it, and trying to, and coming up

[72:20]

Well, I'm using it impressionistically as an analogy or allegory for what Dogen is talking about, of course. I must have been channeling it. Well, you know, the thing is that in, I don't know about in physics or in talking about the void in terms of Western cosmology or modern science cosmology, but emptiness, of course, in Buddhism does not mean voidness. It's a technical term that means the absence of separate inherent existence. So it's really a way of talking about interconnection, interdependence, And therefore it makes sense that it's not just interconnectedness of objects. In fact, Newtonian physics, to see the world as a bunch of dead objects, is to me the fundamental violation of the first precept of Buddhism. It kills the world.

[73:32]

Light would not be possible without this previous formulation that we consider inert. And so that the concept of the void in fact being empty is a question of perception that's now being challenged, that we have to think about emptiness in a very different way. And that's why I was thinking that the first thing that came to me as I was hearing this was that form is emptiness. Well, that's why this statement of Dogen about our sitting Zazen affecting all of space and time and actually, you know, resonating with the trees and the pond and the hill and, you know, it makes sense from that perspective where we don't see the world as dead but we're actually, you know, space and time are alive. So, do you all know the image of Indra's neck? No, somebody doesn't. So this is a Huayen Buddhist image of the universe as consisting of this network, this multidimensional network, and at each place where the meshes meet there's a jewel and it reflects the jewels around it and those reflect the light of the jewels around them and so forth forever so that actually each jewel reflects the light of all the other jewels.

[75:24]

So it's kind of a holographic model. But seeing the universe in that way, it's not a matter of living objects in a dead universe, but actually all of space and time is alive. There are other ways to talk about this, but I think it's actually a very helpful shift in perception to just hear about this. So Cheyenne Indians, for example, say that rocks have consciousness. And what that means, obviously, it's not the same kind of consciousness that is based on eyes and ears and nose and so forth. You know, if you look at some of the rocks over there in the new tea garden, it looks like they've been through some stuff. Yes? I have a science background. Oh, good. Not sure how. Bye.

[76:26]

Okay. So this elephant that's sitting on this bed, it's not just a three dimensional bed. Right. Now how does gravity affect time? There's a space time. Yeah, that's why I was asking because they talk about it as not just space. Anyway, this is an example of how limited our perceptual and intellectual faculties are. So just to hear that we don't know from our common sense point of view doesn't mean we shouldn't use our common sense. Yeah, well, I was trying to use this example from science as an allegory for what Dogen was talking about, or an analogy.

[79:19]

And the word gravity also implies serious or grave, or I think of intensity having something to do with it, too, or density. So if we are sitting strongly, in a sense, not that I want to get into comparative good or bad sitting, but if we're just sitting there fully present, that has a certain nobility, a certain intensity, a certain gravity. And so I feel it in that way, that affects the whole fabric of space and time. And to bring it back home to, well, then what does this mean about our own lives and just our own situation, forgetting about these theories about space and time, which are wonderful to consider, but how do we live our lives based on a practice that allows us the possibility of nobility in a sense, you know, whether or not we fully live up to it always, you know, how do we apply this, there's nothing secular in the realm of Buddhadharma to just the ordinary activities of

[80:27]

our everyday activity, our everyday life, our jobs and families and relationships and so forth. And that's really what most of Zen practice is about. How do we actually apply the space of zazen? Yes? observation of the effect that we can have on life, not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the universe by behaving in a particular way. And so it seems that with this new shift that there is But at the same time, even though we may be an individual, that our actions are directly affecting the universe that we're living in.

[81:48]

And we have to assume more of a consciousness about how we are moving. Right, so to not ignore cause and effect, understand that we do have an impact, that our zazen, no matter how un-intense it might seem, even just sitting a little bit, has an impact. And everything we do, in fact, has an impact. And that we're not separate, isolated. That's what emptiness means. It means that we're not separate, isolated, alienated, estranged, solitary beings. an illusion that we have, and that has its own impact, but actually we're totally interconnected with everybody in the universe. Right, and unlike cause and effect, it's not the mechanistic concept of cause and effect that we grew up with, but rather it's chaotic in the sense that what we do, we may not ever see the actual final result at the end of that system.

[82:53]

Yeah, so I prefer not to think of it as chaotic because that's just our judgment based on a model that seems simpler, but it's just very, very intricate and complex and includes the whole universe. So we don't know, we can't, you can't track particular chain of causation because it is so complex. And yet, Everything we do has an effect. Everything that happens is a result of various, you know, causes, various complex web of causes. And I like to say that here we are sitting in this room and each one of us has with us all the people we've ever known just sitting here. So it's impossible to sit Zazen alone. Even if you go off into your own room, your family, your friends, they're with you in some way in your heart, mind, and your parents. Probably most of you, given the current paradigm, would accept that your great-great-grandparents are present in you in some way, if we believe in DNA.

[84:13]

How many of you know the name of one of your great-great-grandparents? Great-great. Not so many, but even so, wouldn't most of you think that in some ways genetically who your great-great-grandparents were are part of who you are now sitting here? OK, so that's a very nice analogy to me. So think of your sixth grade social studies teacher, or somebody you knew a long time ago, or I would say even somebody you passed on the street 10 years ago and barely noticed is present with you in some way right here now. So we're not isolated, separate, solitary individuals. Who we are is totally this total complex web of really everybody. And we're each a particular, unique, beautiful expression of that.

[85:17]

So we each are particular and unique. And we each have a particular impact and we each have a particular gravity and affect the whole universe by being here. And then there's this part about imperceptible help and guidance and assistance. It's not just that we kind of have this mechanical effect, we actually help each other. awakened and are helped by others, both. So that's the part, you know, that's when we actually take on manifesting this in practice, then we're open to being helped and we actually help others. So if we're looking at nothing secular in the realm of Buddhadharma and if we are present with that, then we do have an impact and we don't know what it is. Yeah, he likes to hold up a piece of paper and say, do you see the clouds? And each piece of paper contains within it clouds and nitrogen in the soil as well as the rain and the logger who cut down the tree and the mill worker.

[86:29]

The guy who drove, the truck driver who drove that log to the tree up in Humboldt County or wherever. And what about the waitress who served him coffee that morning? And it just goes on forever. And you hold up anything and we can do that. Yes? You know it's an interesting story and I wondered about that because in the story he kept on doing his job and doing the necessary lying that he was asked to do in his job and that was upsetting him. So in some ways I feel like Buddhism is evolving in America such that we are willing to be I hate that word engaged Buddhist because there's no such thing as unengaged Buddhists. It's impossible. But at any rate, we're more willing to actually take some stand or do some action in the social realm maybe today than even when this story happened 30 or 40 years ago.

[87:41]

But still, I was thinking about that and this person, even though he was in this situation where he had to do that, lie in his work, he was also coming regularly and sitting together with even if it was just one or two people. And other people would come and he would tell them the story about nothing secular in the realm of Buddhadharma. So I think he did express something in his practice. And I don't know. This is a koan. How do we each do it? It's hard. There's some way in which I can't, I don't think we can judge how somebody else is doing it. We can talk about it together. And it changes too. But it's a good question. I don't know. Well, thank you all for wonderful discussion and comments. And I guess it's almost time for lunch.

[88:40]

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