So, I did a seminar like this about Ehekora Gudoken's extensive record about a year and a half ago, almost a year and a half ago. Some of the people attending today may have, a few of you may have attended that. I will be repeating some things and it's all, you know, good for review, but I'll be adding some new things to that. And I will repeat this, but so this is Dogen's extensive record. It's a massive book. And if any of you happen to have the hardcover edition, not the paperback, please let me know because there's an index that appeared in the paperback, but not the hardcover, that is very, very useful. It provides references to, from Ehekora Gudoken to Shobo Genzo essays, to koans in the Blue

[01:15]

Cliff Record or this Book of Serenity with the Gateless Barrier and many other things. So if you do not have the index because you have the hardcover book, and it's not, it's not required that you have either book right now, but just for those of you who might have just the hardcover, email info at ancientdragon.org and I will send you the index, which works for both the paperback and hardcover. Okay. So just as I want to give us an introduction. So probably most of you who have some experience of studying Dogen have looked at Shobo Genzo to Dharma Eye Treasury, which is Dogen's massive work with 95 different essays in the full modern edition, although there were various earlier editions with 60 and 40 and 12 and so forth. At any rate, Ehekora Gudoken's extensive record is almost as massive and also very important.

[02:20]

I want to talk about the differences between Ehekora Gudoken and Shobo Genzo. So to start, Shobo Genzo, first of all, was written in Japanese, which means Japanese characters, but also there are Chinese characters within the Japanese. Ehekora was just in Chinese. So the differences between the essays in Shobo Genzo, which are called in Japanese Jishu, and the Jodo, which I translate as Dharma Hall Discourses, in Ehekora Gudoken, the Jishu, the Shobo Genzo essays are more informal, more elaborating on sutras or koans or particular themes. The Jodo, the Dharma Hall Discourses in Ehekora Gudoken that I'll be reading, most of what

[03:29]

I'll be reading today is from the Dharma Hall Discourses, although I'll do some of the poetry from Ehekora Gudoken as well, but the Jodo were very formal, given in the Dharma Hall with Dogen seated on the teacher's seat in the Dharma Hall, and the monks standing, not seated. So the Dharma Hall Discourses are, for the most part, very brief, fairly brief and formal. And this was a style, this was a way of teaching that he got from China. Even though it's more formal, actually, the Dharma Hall Discourses in Ehekora Gudoken are much more personal. He expresses his sense of humor, he's, you know, you get a feeling, much more of a feeling for Dogen as a person from Ehekora Gudoken, from Shobo Genzo, and some of them are very

[04:33]

humorous too. So, often there are quotes from old teachers, from koans, or just discourses from classic Chinese teachers, with Dogen's comments afterwards. In the Chinese versions of these Dharma Hall Discourses and the Chinese teachers' recorded sayings, often there is some discussion afterwards between the students and the teacher. That happens only in maybe two or three places in Ehekora, where you have the discussion. There might have been discussion afterwards, but we don't know, that wasn't recorded. So what I'm going to do is, I will ask for questions or comments after each reading, and please feel free. So I wanted to give more of an introduction to both Dogen and to Ehekora Gudoken.

[05:39]

Dogen's basic chronology, he was born in 1200, he became a monk early in his teens, first at the Tendai Monastery in Mount Yei, then at the early Rinzai Monastery at Keninji. From 1223 to 1227, he went to China and studied there. And there is material on the Heikuroku from when he was in China, amongst the poetry in Volume 10. At any rate, he returned in 1227, it took him five or six years to set up a monastery south of Kyoto, Koshoji, where he taught from 1233 to 1243. David Ray, could you put up this chronology and the material that is following it, so if you could scroll down these two.

[06:44]

Yeah, starting with the chronology. So anyway, he was 1233 to 1243, he was teaching at Koshoji, just south of Kyoto. In 1243, he moved his whole assembly way north to Echizen Province, now called Fukui, and it's very mountainous up there. And that's where he established Eheji, the monastery that's still one of the headquarters monasteries of Soto Zen in Japan. And I want to say just a little bit about the structure of this Heikuroku text. So the first seven volumes are these dharma hall discourses, Jodo in Japanese, and the first volume is from Koshoji, from Kyoto, but then volumes two through seven are from Echizen, up in the mountains, where he eventually established Eheji.

[07:47]

So this text is the major source for Dogen's mature teachings after he left Kyoto. Volume eight of the ten volumes in Heikuroku is Shosan, or evening meetings, so these are a little bit longer, informal talks, and Hoko, or dharma words, and also Fukunsa Zengi. It's in volume eight. Volume nine is 90 koans with Dogen's verse commentaries, and then volume ten is his Chinese poems, and this includes his poems that he wrote in China when he was a student there, 1223 to 1227, and goes up to his last years at Eheji. I just want to mention, if you can scroll down a little bit more, David, please. He had seven major disciples, Koan Ejo, and Koan Ejo was the editor for volumes two, three,

[08:51]

four, and eight of Heikuroku. Sene was a major disciple who was the editor and compiler for volumes one, nine, and ten, nine being the koan collection, ten being the verses. So just to mention these people, Kyoko was a student of Sene, but he also, when he was young, studied with Dogen. So together, Sene and Kyoko wrote a commentary called the Gosho, which was, well, there was an earlier commentary by Gien, who's a couple lines down, who was an avid of Eheji, and he wrote verse comments on the 60 volume version of Shogogenzo, and I'm just going through this quickly. There will not be a test, but you can ask questions after each part. Tetsugikai was a disciple of Koan Ejo's, I don't have Keizan in here.

[09:59]

That's funny. Well, Keizan was not a major disciple directly of Dogen. Tetsugikai was the teacher of Keizan, who became the fourth avid of Eheji and is considered the second founder of Soto Zen. Jokuen is important because he was a Chinese monk who practiced at Mount Tianzhuang with Dogen and Dogen's teacher, and so he founded Hokyoji Nireheji, which is still a major monastery, and one of the other students who practiced with Dogen directly. These are Dogen's direct disciples. Kan Gan Gien established a lineage in Kyushu. Just to mention, if you could scroll down a little bit further, David, there are other significant disciples. Just to mention them, there was Sokai who received Dharma transmission, but he died

[11:03]

early. He died before the move to Eji Zen. Ryonan is a nun who I'll be talking about later. She was a major disciple of Dogen at Koshoji. Atana Yoshishige was the samurai who was a major donor and donated the land and the buildings for Eheji and Eji Zen. We'll get to it. I'll talk about it in the trip to Kamakura that Yoshishige sponsored. Then the last person I wanted to mention was Yako, who was a layperson from Kyushu. Genjo Koan, which you may know, was a letter to him. Yako was probably one of the students of Dogen in Kyushu when Dogen returned from China and stayed with Yako. David, you can take down the screen share. We've been joined by Nick. We're just doing some introductions about the difference between Shobo Genzo, which

[12:15]

you most likely have seen if you've heard about Dogen, and Ehe Koro, Dogen's extensive record, which is what I'm going to be speaking from today. So all of that was just by way of introduction. I'm going to be reading mostly from the dharma hall discourses in Ehe Koro group. But are there questions about Dogen's life or about these texts? David, right? Now I'm curious about language. Now that you've mentioned that the EK is in Chinese, I didn't realize that at all. Does that mean that these discourses would have been given to monks whose native language was Chinese? Was Japanese and they shared Chinese as a liturgical language? That's a question that scholars have debated. My own opinion is that the talks that Ehe Koro group is based on these dharma hall discourses or Jodo, which, as I mentioned, are more are briefer and more formal in the dharma hall

[13:21]

with Dogen sitting up on the teaching seat and the monk standing. I believe he spoke them in Japanese, but they were recorded in Chinese. So it's very much like religious texts in Europe early on were recorded in Latin, whether they were spoken in Latin or not. And maybe they were. But anyway, there's some disagreement among scholars about this. Some scholars think that maybe he spoke these in Chinese. I don't think so. But that's, you know, it's not certain. So other questions just about the introduction and about Dogen and about this text. And about, and I mentioned Dogen's basic chronology. Okay, so if there's no other questions or comments, I'm going to proceed just to talk,

[14:23]

just reading from selections from the Ehe Koro group, and we'll have this. This is a long seminar. We're scheduled to go till 4.30 Chicago time. It's at 1.15 now. So we'll have a like a 15 minute break sort of in the middle somewhere. But I'm going to start by reading three short pieces from Ehe Koro. And I'll just read them first. And the first one is the Dharmahal. This question is 1242. So again, in 1243, Dogen moved his whole assembly up north to where he built a heiji. He moved them from Kyoto. So in terms of talking about Shobo Genzo, the vast majority of the Shobo Genzo essays were written in a very short period of time, from 1242 till maybe 1244, 1245. So partly while Dogen was waiting for the construction of a heiji, but after he had

[15:27]

moved up to the northern mountains of what was then called Echizen. It's now called Fukui, Fukui province. Anyway, this one's from 1242. So the first thing I'm going to read are about radiance. So this is it. Everybody has their own radiant light. The Buddha hall and monks hall can never be destroyed. Now I ask you, where do you all come from? The radiant light allows the radiant act. So that's the whole discourse. Where do you all come from? And we can take that in various ways. There are people here on the screen from, well, I think two people from Europe. You know, yeah. Yes, so we have somebody here from England and somebody here from the Czech Republic,

[16:33]

and then people from other distant lands within the United States. So welcome, everyone. I'll read it again. Everybody has their own radiant light. The Buddha hall and monks hall can never be destroyed. Now I ask you, where do you all come from? The radiant light allows the radiant light to respond. So this phrase which is translated here is radiant light. And by the way, maybe I should have mentioned that I translated this Dogen's extensive record together with Shouhaku Okamura, who's a wonderful monk and Dogen scholar. And so this radiance that he speaks about here now, for those of you who are interested, Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, my sangha here in Chicago, and with hybrid Zoom function

[17:36]

everywhere else, we're going to be doing our first Brohatsu for five days in early December. And we're going to, so I'm going to be doing that together with Hoketsu, another of our teachers here, and we're going to be talking about this radiance. Because there is an essay by Dogen's direct successor Koan Ejo, who I mentioned before, called Komyozo Zamai, the treasury of radiance, the samadhi of the treasury of radiance. So we're going to be focusing on that. So this radiance is a theme that I wanted to introduce, and there's two poems from volume 10 of Eikoroku. And we don't, probably, maybe these were from around the same time as this Dharma Hall Discourse in 1232. We don't know all the dates for poems in volume 10.

[18:38]

Words and silence are completely the same, pervading the deep wonder. The previously offered good prescription pierces the heavens and embraces the earth without bounds. The steep lofty ground is filled with spiritual radiance. So, for short pieces like this, I'll read them again. Words and silence are completely the same, pervading the deep wonder. The previously offered good prescription pierces the heavens and embraces the earth without bounds. The steep lofty ground is filled with spiritual radiance. So that's in volume 10 of Eikoroku, but it's possible to have a bit relevant poem there. The wonder's been expounded and the mystery discussed, but who can reach them? Forgetting words and quietly sitting, the mouth is straight as a wire.

[19:42]

A good teacher penetrates both essence and expression. On the hundred grass tips, the radiance glistens. So, these three short pieces are the Jodo and the Dharma Hall Discussion. These two verses by Dogen are about this radiance or radiant light, but it's not about light as opposed to dark. It's about the reality, maybe we could say it, the dharmakaya that is present everywhere, the reality body of Buddha. And Dogen talks about this a lot, but also this is, I mentioned, it's from the... Taigan, your sound is breaking up. I don't know if it's that you're maybe farther away from your microphone, but it's starting to break up. Okay, please let me know when that happens again, okay?

[20:45]

Thank you. So, I was just saying that this theme of radiance could relate to the presence everywhere of... To call it light isn't exactly right. This comes from the Flower Ornament Sutra, which is very important in Soto Zen, the Huayan Sutra in Chinese, Kegon in Japanese. So, he's talking about this reality of radiance, which allows radiance to respond, and it's present everything and everywhere. So, this is a kind of fundamental Buddhist teaching. I could say more, but does anyone have any comments or questions about this? I guess not. This is talking about the presence of Buddha in everything, everywhere.

[21:50]

So, this radiance is the expression of Buddha. Can you hear me okay? Okay. Taigan, I think Fumio had her hand raised. Oh, okay. Fumio, question? Yes, just a very interesting Dharmakaya. Taigan, would you like to describe briefly what's your understanding of the Three Bodies? I don't know if that happened for other people, but the sound was a little fuzzy for me, but I think I got it. So, you were asking about Dharmakaya and the Three Bodies of Buddha. So, just to talk about that, in traditional Mahayana Buddhism, there are three aspects, we could say, literally, there are bodies of Buddha. The nirmanakaya, the incarnation body of Buddha, is like Shakyamuni or other human Buddhas. Dogen spoke about Zhaozhou as an

[22:55]

ancient Buddha. He spoke about Hongzhu as an ancient Buddha. So, people incarnated as humans, maybe the nirmanakaya could be incarnated as a cat or a dog or a tree, I don't know. But anyway, the physical body of Buddha incarnated, manifested. Then there's the Dharmakaya, which is sometimes listed third, but it's easier to come back to the second. Dharmakaya means Dharma as reality. So, Dharma means teaching, it means reality, it means truth. So, the reality body of Buddha is Buddha as manifesting throughout the Dharmakaya, throughout the phenomenal world, the Dharma world. So, this radiance that Dogen is speaking about here is the expression of Dharmakaya. So, this is to see the whole phenomenal world as awakened as Buddha. So, Buddha just means the awakened one. Buddha is the one who is awake and

[24:01]

Buddha, from the point of view of Dharmakaya and the Flower Ornament Sutra and basically Soto Zen, everything is awakened. Sometimes it's pretty hard to see, and we have obscurations and delusions and injustice and war and all kinds of horrible things. But fundamentally, from Mahayana Buddhism, which Zen is included in, Bodhisattva Buddhism, the whole phenomenal world is awake, and that's what this radiance is about. The Sambhogakaya is relevant here, too. That's the reward body of Buddha. So, various other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas like Kanzeon or the Bodhisattva of Compassion or Manjushri, who's the Bodhisattva who cuts through delusions, or Samantabhadra, who sits on an elephant,

[25:05]

unlike Manjushri's lion, and is the main Bodhisattva of the Flower Ornament Sutra. All of those, we could say, are Sambhogakaya expressions of this ultimate Buddha. Does that respond to your question, Fumio? Yes, totally. Thank you. Yeah, so is there a Dharmakaya in the Czech Republic, too? No, I guess not. I'm sorry, I can't hear you so well. I enjoyed your laughter. Anyway, so that's what this radiance is about. This radiance is everything, everywhere, the expression of awakening in Buddha. So, any other comments? Or I could read some of that again, or I can go on to the next. Okay, I'm going to go next to a Dharma Hall discourse. And again, David, let me know if

[26:19]

you can't hear anybody else. This is from 1246, and this is about the autumn full moon. So, I thought I'd share some things about autumn, since that's where we are here in the northern hemisphere, at least. And we've just started doing what used to be called the full moon ceremony, the Bodhisattva precept ceremony. The next full moon here is going to be next Saturday, a week from today. Anyway, this is from 1246, Dogen's Dharma Hall discourse about the autumn full moon, which is considered in Asia to be the most beautiful and most wonderful, and an expression of awakening. So, here it is. In the heavens, the moon is round and vast as the ancient mirror.

[27:21]

In the middle of the month, in the human realm, the full moon extends over the entire world. In the dark, it rolls up two or three thousand. In the light, it unfolds to pervade through seven or eight. Seeing the moon as like the eyeballs of the seven Buddhas produces joyful laughter. Seeing it as like Yun Man's sesame cake brings an uproarious clamor. Having arrived at such a field, can you enjoy your practice like this or not? Then, as he often does in many of the Dharma Hall discourses, after a pause, Dogen said, illuminating hundreds of grasses in many lands, everywhere a toad is jumping around with vigor. So, in Europe, we talk about the man in the moon. I don't know if that's a patriarchal

[28:27]

perspective, but anyway, in Asia, they talk about the toad jumping around in the moon. And sometimes they say it's a rabbit. So, if you look at the full moon, you might see a man in the moon, you might see a toad, you might see a rabbit. Anyway, here, Dogen is referring to the moon as a toad jumping around with vigor. And he refers to Yun Man's sesame cake. This is from Blue Cliff Record, Case 77. And many of the times in Dogen's extensive record, he refers to classical koan cases. And in that index I mentioned, this shows references to the different koan collections that are in Dogen's extensive records. But anyway, Dogen says here, seeing the moon as like the eyeballs of the seven Buddhas, which is the mythical seven Buddhas before Shakyamuni Buddha,

[29:35]

brings an uproarious clamor. I'm sorry, seeing it as like Yun Man's sesame cake brings an uproarious, no, I'm sorry, I missed it. The eyeballs of the seven Buddhas produces joyful laughter, seeing the moon like eyeballs. Seeing the moon as like Yun Man's sesame cake brings an uproarious clamor. And that refers to this koan in which a monk asked the great teacher Yun Man from the 900s, the founder of one of the five houses in Chinese Zen or Chang, the monk asks Yun Man, what is the talk that goes beyond, what goes beyond all the talk about Buddhas and ancestors? Or it could be read, what goes beyond the talk by Buddhas and ancestors? And Yun Man answered, cake.

[30:38]

So some of you might like cake. And actually, it could be translated as sesame cake. So that's what the reference is here. So cake is what goes beyond all this talk of Buddhas and ancestors. So any comments or questions, or should I go to the next one? Well, I have a couple more about autumn. This one is also about the pure autumn moon. This is from 1251. Nine years later, after he had established a heiji, this is short. Dogen said, Yun Man's sesame cake hangs up in the sky, called the circle of the full moon of autumn. The heavenly Lord in blue robes now sits upright. The purity of the clear light will never surpass this occasion. So many of these short discourses, they're not poems,

[31:45]

but they're very kind of poetic. Here he's talking about Brahma, the heavenly Lord in blue robes, maybe he's talking about Vairochana, I don't know. But he sits upright when we see this full moon like a sesame cake hanging up in the sky in autumn. And Dogen then says, the purity of the clear light will never surpass this occasion. So, okay, I'll keep going. Here's another one about autumn. This is from a year later in 1252, actually Dogen's last year of teaching. He said, you should know that becoming a Buddha is not something new or ancient. How could practice realization be within any boundary? Do not say that from the beginning

[32:45]

not a single thing exists. The causes are complex, excuse me, the causes are complete and the results are fulfilled through time. Great assembly, please tell me, why is it like this? After a pause, Dogen said, opening flowers will unfailingly hear the genuine fruit. Green leaves meeting autumn immediately turn red. So actually the leaves outside my window here and in the front are been turning yellow. I haven't seen any red ones, but that happens too. Has anybody seen any red leaves this autumn? Oh, Brian says, thank you, Brian. So there's one of the things in this is that

[33:47]

he says, do not say, well, I'll read this part again. You should know that becoming a Buddha is not something new or ancient. How could practice realization be within any boundary? So talking about time and the ancients and now, do not say that from the beginning, not a single thing exists. So some of you may recognize this quote, from the beginning, not a single thing exists. Does anyone recognize that? Brian? Well, it's hard to pick one. That's a very common theme running through Dharma, but it points to the realization of emptiness, where there is no reified thing in ultimate reality. And yet in conventional relative reality, there are sesame cakes and autumn leaves.

[34:54]

Great. So thank you. Yes. But actually this is a quote from the Platform Sutra of the sixth ancestor, Guanyin, who in some ways is, Bodhidharma is usually called the founder of Zen, but really in terms of the historical Zen, we could say Guanyin was, and he awakened upon hearing a line from the Diamond Sutra that from the beginning, not a single thing exists. However, Dogen here says, do not say that. He says, the causes are complete and the results are fulfilled through time. Then he says, Great Assembly, please tell me why is it like this? And he says, opening flowers, unfailingly bear the genuine fruit, green leaves meeting autumn immediately turn red. So Dogen here is sort of taking the side, not of emptiness, that not a single thing exists, but of causes and conditions. And this is from 1252. This is

[36:03]

his last year of teaching. And Dogen wrote a couple of Shobo Genzo essays about the fox koan. Which is a rather elaborate story. Does anybody not know about the fox koan? I can tell it if anybody would like to hear about it. Nobody's raising their hand, so I assume you all know that. That an old teacher claimed that greatly cultivated people are not subject to causes and conditions, and he turned into a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. And he was saved from that fate by Baizhang or Hyakujo saying that we don't ignore cause and effects, or we're not blind to cause and effect. And Dogen, so this is a complex issue in Dogen's studies, because earlier on in

[37:08]

his first essay about that koan, he kind of took the side of emptiness. But later on in here, he's saying the causes are complete, results are fulfilled through time. So it's not that not a single thing exists. What does exist is our existence in cause and effect. So he's speaking for causality here. And his examples of that are opening flowers unfailingly bear the genuine fruit. And green leaves meeting autumn immediately turn red. So there are, Dogen is saying here, there are causes and conditions in this realm where everything is interdependent, which is another way of talking about emptiness, but everything is interrelated and cause and effect have their place. Anyway, this was, this is also about autumn. Questions, comments, anybody?

[38:15]

Brian. Just a follow-up. Yeah, so I think that line where he says, do not say that, he's cautioning against the most common danger in realizing emptiness is to think that there is only emptiness and people get fixated on that and not realize that emptiness is just not describing a separate reality other than our own. It's a part of, I mean, the two truths are not two separate realities. It's one unified whole. And I think that's what he goes on to say is that causes and conditions, while empty of any reified existence that we impute onto it, is the real way that things exist. It's the real realm of reality. Brian referred to the two truths, which is an old Mahayana teaching going back to India that there is both the ultimate reality in which everything is totally interdependent,

[39:20]

or we could say empty, or we could say just as it is, suchness, and then there is the conventional reality where there is cause and effect. So here, Dogen is warning against getting stuck in emptiness, getting caught up in emptiness. So thank you, Brian. Yeah, any other comments or questions? Yes, David Ray. You know, I've been fretting about radiance. And so I'll ask you about radiance. Is radiance like one, is it one metaphor and a different one could have been used? That is to say, could somebody be talking about, you know, sound vibration or fragrance instead of radiant light? Or is there some reason why radiant light is a special way of describing reality or a special way of describing, you know, Vairochana, describing the Dharmakaya?

[40:21]

Yeah, it's not radiant light, it's just radiance. And it's been translated sometimes as radiant light, but it's a metaphor. So in the Flower Ornament Sutra, there's a radiance that is emitted sometimes from the Buddha's third eye, to call it that. And sometimes in the Flower Ornament Sutra, it's emitted from Vairochana Buddha's teeth or the gaps between his teeth. But it's just the reality of things as it is. So in the essay on the Samadhi of radiant light, the treasury of light, but Ejo, he says, he specifically says, this radiance is not blue or green or yet red or yellow. And also in the Flower Ornament Sutra, it talks about this radiance as sound. And there's

[41:25]

all kinds of descriptions of elaborate sound events, or sometimes of banners or parasols, you know, the radiance is not limited to sight or sound. Those are just human perspectives because of our perception capacity, but that's not ultimately real. So dogs see the world in terms of smell, for example. So this radiance includes smell. And there are recordings of Buddhas who teach with fragrance. Shakyamuni Buddha is said to teach with silence. Anyway, but thank you for that question. Other follow-up questions or comments before I go to further Dharma discussions? Brian? I'm very reluctant to seem like I'm hogging the mic. But just one comment that might offer some

[42:33]

additional context for the term radiance. The metaphor of light is very frequent in all the Dharmic traditions, Mahayana in the Tibetan and others. And it's usually a metaphor for basically the awareness that we all have, not discursive thinking, but there is an awareness which also is described as mind. So the fact that we are sentient beings, the radiance is the sentience. It's the knowing that we all have. When we cut through the fog of discursive thinking and labeling and reifying objects, the entire world appears as a Buddha field, a Dharma field. And that appearance, that knowing, one teacher of mine said that just like light, when you turn it on in a room, suddenly you know that there are things in the room. Sentience and

[43:39]

awareness is the same thing. When we cut through our fixations, we can open up to that basic awareness, which essentially we're doing on the cushion in zazen. We are letting thoughts go, and we don't become unconscious. What's left over when we're letting go of thoughts is that basic radiance of knowing. So that's another perspective. Yes, and another way to talk about this is that a lot of Zen teachings, and certainly Dogen, for example, and Genjo Koan, that some of you may know of, talks very much about the limitations of human perception, of human intelligence, of human spiritual awareness. So, for example, it talks about the ocean or water looks one way to humans, another way to fish, another way to

[44:43]

dragons, another way to hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts see water as like pus, and it's really sad. Anyway, and he also talks about when you go out in the middle of an ocean, or if you go out, our nearest big body of water here in Chicago is Lake Michigan. If you go out in the middle of Lake Michigan and you don't see any of the shoreline, it looks like the whole thing is round. So knowing about the limitations of our perceptions and perceptual capacities as limited human beings is a big part of not being caught in limitations and seeing radiance, or hearing radiance, or smelling radiance, and so forth. Any other comments or questions about any of this? Okay, I'm going to go to another one. So, again, I'm going to be reading a bunch of

[45:54]

these short dharma hall discourses, mostly short, but I do welcome you to ask questions about them as we go. This next one, and I'm not taking them in chronological order, they're just, well, this one's also about the moon, so they're sort of thematic. This is from 1251. 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. Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. Cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. Even when climbing up the

[46:59]

bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So this is one of my favorite pieces, and this encapsulates our whole practice life in a lot of ways. So, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors. Family style is a way of talking about, sometimes it's literally family wind, the house wind, is talking about particular lineages have family style, such as Zen, or Rinzai, or Tendai, or whatever, but also it's here the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors. So all Buddhas, all ancestors, all of this practice of awakening, the family style is first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. So Zen is fundamentally about easing suffering and providing joy.

[48:03]

Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. So this can be literally true. I practiced for a few years at Tassajara way up in the mountains, and after a while of sustained practice, we see the moon for a long time. This can apply to any kind of sustained practice, but we start to see, so the moon of course is a reference to full awakening because of its fullness. So when we practice for a long time, we see the moon. As clouds clear,

[49:18]

we first recognize the sky. And again, the sky is a reference for an image for openness, for spaciousness, for awakening. So this is our practice. So going to Sesshin, for example, we see wholeness for a long time. Practicing, doing sustained practice over time, we start to recognize the sky. Then he says, cast loose down the precipice. The moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. So the point of our practice is not to stay on some mountaintop and just hang out looking at the moon. I mean, that's nice to do for a while. But the point of the practice is to allow our awareness and expression flow down into the busy marketplace, as it's referenced in the Oxford and pictures, or into the 10,000 forms.

[50:19]

Then he says this interesting thing. Even when climbing up the birch fat, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So relieving suffering and providing joy for all living beings is another way to talk about the point of our practice. But at the end of this, Dogen says, take good care of yourself. That's spiritual power. So we also have to be compassionate. Means also being, and for maybe first, or well, first or last, or anyway, all through, is taking good care of ourselves. And he says, even climbing up the birch path. This is an image from Dongshan, or Tozan, the founder in China of what's now what we call Soto Zen, or Cao Dong in Chinese. So he wrote the Song of the Jewel Mare Samadhi, which we chant here, and maybe some of you chant wherever you practice.

[51:21]

But he talks, Dongshan talks about the birch path. So our idea of the path is not the path. Our idea of our practice and practice process is not it. The birch path, well, birds can, maybe birds can see the birch path in the sky. I don't know. I'm not a bird, but some birds migrate over the same path, winter and summer, or fall and spring, for flocks of birds for millennia, for centuries. But it's an image that Dongshan uses. It goes back to the Prajnaparamita Sutra, and so it's an old image, but Dongshan uses it, climbing up the birch path, even when we don't know the process or the path that we are on exactly, and not knowing is one of the ultimate

[52:30]

Zen teachings, even when climbing up the birch path, take good care of yourself. That's spiritual power. So this is in the context of the vow to save all living beings and remove suffering and provide joy for all. So comments or questions on that one? Oh. I mean, I just, I want to kind of appreciate the use of precipice here. I don't know. The world is difficult. And, you know, I just think that word captures kind of that difficulty and how, you know, to be real, like, how kind of scary it can be to, you know, go back into the marketplace after practice. And, you know, both in terms of, you kind of want to, you're

[53:31]

inclined to hold on to that feeling of sashin or whatever, but also just the sort of tumultuous, unpredictable nature of that marketplace. So I appreciate the precipice, the abyss, whatever, of, I feel like that vocabulary definitely captures that feeling. Thank you. Yeah. And again, this is, this translation is by Shohaku and myself. And so, you know, various word choices, but yeah, where we are, I think, in the context of this Dharma Hall discourse to recognize that we are on the precipice. And there's lots of ways to talk about it. We're all on the precipice of life and death. Possibly Alan and Fumio in Europe are more aware of the precipice of,

[54:40]

as bad as the Hamas attack in Israel was, the precipice of genocide and mass calamity, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I mean, the human world is on many precipices, the precipice of climate damage. And each of us personally, you know, can be in the middle of various precipices. So in this particular discourse, Dogen is talking about the moonlight cast down the precipice. But I appreciate what you said, Bo, because these precipices, you know, it's a challenge in the midst of all the challenges in our own personal lives and in the world. How do we appreciate the wholeness of the moonlight

[55:42]

that's also, as Dogen says here, sharing itself within the 10,000 forms? So yeah, there's a lot to consider in this one. Thank you. Other comments or responses? So I'm just going to keep going through these discourses that I've selected, but, you know, I welcome your comments and conversation. Here's another one of my favorites. And this is from 1240s, but this is in his earlier period in Kyoto. And it's a story about Shito. In Japanese, it's pronounced Sekito. So some of you know that this ancient teacher is a kind of precursor to Gongshan and the Saodong or Soto lineage.

[56:47]

He's the author of the Sandokai, or the Harmony of Difference and Sameness, in our translation. Also, the Soankai, the Song of the Grass, which you chant. So this is a story about Shito, and I like it a lot. And Dogen says, here is a story. Qianhong Dao, one of Shito's students, said, what is the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma? So before I proceed, if any of you have, want to suggest what you think the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma is, I would be curious. Sometimes this is like a basic Zen teaching, you know, right? It's a basic Zen question. What is the meaning of Buddhism? Sometimes it's asked as, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? It's the same question. What is the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma? Anybody? Brian, do you want to try?

[57:56]

Well, I do happen to be sitting outside looking at the tree in the garden, so that's one response. Okay. Okay, so the tree in the garden. Okay, that's what Xiaozhou said in response to that. Okay, do you want to hear what Shito said? Anybody? Bo wants to hear. Okay, so the monk asked, what is the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma? And Shito said, not to attain, not to know. So there's this koan about not knowing is most intimate. And in Soto Zen, we talk about not trying to reach, not trying to attain some super mental or, you know,

[58:57]

the direct state, not to attain, not to know. So that thread of Soto Zen teaching, which is expressed very much by Dogen, by Dongshan, by Suzuki Roshi, goes all the way back. Shito says, the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma is not to attain, not to know. And then this monk, Dao said, beyond that, is there any other pivotal point or not? That wasn't enough for him. So, do you want to hear what Shito said? Shito said, the wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. This is a wonderful Zazen instruction.

[60:00]

So the ultimate, the universal truth does not obstruct the clouds of thought that drift by in our awareness. So as you're sitting Zazen, as you probably all know, thoughts and feelings arise and they drift by. The wide open sky, the spacious reality, doesn't obstruct those clouds of thought or feeling. We could actually say it the other way too. I mean, maybe this goes without saying, the white clouds drifting by do not obstruct the wide blue sky. Anyway, so that's Shito's further saying. So Dogen's comment about this, not attaining, not knowing, is Buddha's essential meaning. The wind blows into the depths and further winds blow. The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. At this time, why do you take the trouble to ask Shito?

[61:05]

Why do you bother asking this question? Dogen's question about why do you ask Shito is not significant. But going back, he says, not to attain, not to know is the essential meaning of Buddha Dharma. He's repeating what Shito said. The wind blows into the depths and further winds blow. This is a kind of image from Dogen of going beyond Buddha. Dogen talks about going beyond Buddha much more than he talks about, for example, Shikantaza just sitting. It's very common. So going beyond Buddha and dropping body-mind are maybe the two phrases that Dogen uses most. And going beyond Buddha implies not to attain, not to know, that having some experience accomplishing or attaining or whatever, some experience of total awakening,

[62:14]

or Kensho as it's sometimes called, seeing the nature of things, is not the end of practice. Buddha going beyond Buddha, further winds blow, is the reality that Buddha did not stop practicing when he became the Buddha. In fact, he continued practicing every day and he continued awakening. So this ongoing awakening is a hallmark of Dogen's teaching and so does Zen. Comments or questions? David, maybe you could screen share just that one, this one Dharma Hall discourse. I don't know if people want to be able to see these or if it's enough for me to say them, so a little bit lower. Do people want the screen share for the texts? Yes.

[63:20]

Yes. So particularly some of these, I think, so keep, if you would scroll down please David, to keep going here, this one right there, you passed it, yeah. And there's some notes that I, but I, you know, basically said that. So this is the text, what is the essential meaning of buddhadharma? Shuddha said, not attaining, not knowing, or not to attain, not to know. Beyond that, is there any other pivotal point or not? Shuddha said, the wide sky does not obstruct white clouds drifting. And then this is Dogen saying, not attaining, not knowing, is Buddha's essential meaning. The wind blows into the depths and further winds blow. The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. At this time, why do you take the trouble to ask Shuddha? So thank you, David,

[64:24]

for sharing that. Any other, any comments or further responses about that one? Okay, well, we'll move on to the next one, which is related, and it's a little more complicated. So David, maybe you could, this is a longer one, maybe you could screen share this, Accepting the Emptiness of Attainment. This is from 1251, the one about Shuddha in 1240. And this is about Yaoshan. So you can go to, scroll down a little further, David, please, to the text itself, the story. It's a little bit longer. So Yaoshan is, in Japanese, Yakusan, and he was a student of Shuddha's, disciple of Shuddha's, and wonderful teacher,

[65:31]

very famous teacher. He never had more than eight students, but he's still somebody we remember. He's, as some of you may know from Fukunse Zengi or elsewhere in Dogen, the story about the monk asking, Yaoshan, what are you thinking about, sitting there so immovably? And Yaoshan said, I'm think of not thinking. And the student asked, how do you think of not thinking? And Yaoshan said, in Japanese, Hishirio, which I like Shobaka's translation of beyond thinking, some people translate it as non-thinking, but it's this state of not being caught by thinking or not thinking. And so, but that's the same guy, Yaoshan. So, one time, Yaoshan asked novice Gao,

[66:34]

so this is a lay student of his, is your attainment, and novice Gao apparently had some attainment of some awareness of Buddha that Yaoshan had recognized, but Yaoshan asked novice Gao, is your attainment from reading sutras or from hearing lectures? So, you know, historically, all of Dharma, there are people, I suppose, who attained awakening from reading sutras, and there's stories about some of them, and there's others who have had some attainment from hearing lectures, but novice Gao said, I did not attain either from reading sutras or from hearing lectures. Yaoshan said, there are a great many people who do not read sutras and do not hear lectures. How come they have no attainment? So, maybe some of you know some people who've never read sutras or heard some lectures.

[67:43]

So, how come they haven't attained the Buddha Dharma, total awareness? How come they have no attainment, Yaoshan said. And novice Gao said, I do not say they do not have it, but only that they are not willing to accept it. It's a wonderful statement. So, of course, you know, from the point of view of Dharmakaya, I was talking about before, all beings are Buddha Dharma. But novice Gao says, I do not say they do not have it, only that they are not willing to accept it. So, that's the story. And then Dogen has a comment. Today, I, Eihei, will comment on each statement. Yaoshan said, is your attainment from reading sutras or from

[68:48]

hearing lectures? And Dogen added a comment, attainment and non-attainment come only from this fist. That's what Dogen said. And this is an example of one of the ways that Dogen comments on teaching stories. And he gets this from Chinese Buddhism, because this is like the added sayings to the cases in the Book of Serenity. So, to make some comment on each part of the teaching story is a traditional way of responding, and this is what Dogen is doing here. So, Dogen repeats, the novice said, I did not attain either from reading sutras or from

[69:50]

hearing lectures. And Dogen comments, even before arriving at Zhaozhou's place, having drank Zhaozhou's tea. So, this is a reference to another story that maybe some of you know, that when students arrived at Zhaozhou, Joshu in Japanese, one of the greatest Zen masters of all time, maybe just because he lived to be 125, I don't know, maybe it was 120, I forget. Anyway, students arrived at Zhaozhou, when they arrived at Zhaozhou's temple, they would go in and meet the teacher, and he would say, have you had tea? And some of them said no, and so he would tell the attendant, please bring him some tea. And some of them said no, and he would say, please bring them some tea. And his attendant said, whether or not they've had tea,

[70:55]

you say have some tea. And Zhaozhou said to the attendant, please have some tea. So anyway, this is an old story, and Dogen here is using it to say, to comment on Namaskar saying, I did not attain either from reading sutras or from hearing lectures. And Dogen says, even before you arrived at Zhaozhou's place, having drank Zhaozhou's tea. Okay. The next part, Yaoshun said, there are a great many people who do not read sutras and do not hear lectures. Maybe almost everybody you know, or many people you know. How come they have no attainment? And Dogen just said, all living beings have no Buddha nature. So could you scroll down a little bit further, please, David Ray? So, all living beings have no Buddha nature. Thank you. So, there's an essay in Shobo Genzo

[72:00]

called Buddha Nature by Dogen. And in that, he talks about, he rephrases a saying from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, all sentient beings, with that exception, have Buddha nature. He just says, all sentient beings, Buddha nature. Or you could say, all sentient beings are Buddha nature. But he also talks about no Buddha nature, because Buddha nature is not something that you can have or possess. So here, Dogen takes part of that and says, all living beings have Buddha nature or are Buddha nature. Because they're not willing to, oh wait, I'm sorry, I skipped something. So first, Yaoshun said, there's a great many people who do not read sutras and do not hear lectures. How come they have no attainment? And Dogen says, all living

[73:03]

beings have no Buddha nature. They have not realized Buddha nature. But that's another way of saying that all sentient beings are Buddha nature. And that's what he says to the next part. Namaskar says, I do not say they do not have it, but only that they are not willing to accept it. And Dogen says, all living beings have Buddha nature. So first he says, have no Buddha nature, and then he says, have Buddha nature. Then Dogen further says, suppose someone asked me, Ehe, that's his name, Ehe Dogen, why I spoke like this. I would say to them, originally, we need all of emptiness to break through existence. Already having no existence, what emptiness is needed? So this is a comment on what Bryant was saying before about emptiness teaching. Originally, we need all of emptiness

[74:11]

to break through existence on all our ideas of existence and of Buddha nature and having Buddha nature and so forth. But already having no existence, so already we don't have Buddha nature, already we're beyond Buddha nature and existence, and we're beyond emptiness too. What emptiness is needed? So anyway, this is a kind of longer story, but I really like it. I like Namaskar having not realized through reading sutras or hearing Zen talks. So, David, maybe you can take away the screen share, and comments or questions about this. Tatyana, thank you for joining us. We're a little ways into this, but anyway, comments, questions about Navaskar and

[75:11]

the nature of attainment and knowing, or questions. So I'm presenting these dharma hall discourses from Dogen's extensive recorder, Ehe Koroku, but I'm happy to receive comments or questions from anyone. Do I go one thing back? I realized I would have a question. I'm having trouble hearing you. Maybe if you take away your visual out just for as long as you speak, that might be, sometimes that helps. Maybe be further away from the microphone. I'm not sure, but it's echoing a lot. Or you can write it into the chat and we'll respond that way. While Fumio is writing, I just want to appreciate the humor of that.

[76:28]

I mean, that's like Marx Brothers or Three Stooges, that kind of the joke there is like, how come all the other people who don't read sutras don't have attainment? Right, exactly. Yeah. One of the things about Dogen's extensive record, Ehe Koroku, is there are lots of places where it's really funny. You have to kind of get it. Okay, let me see what, please continue. It will take me a while to write it. Okay, we can come back to that. Please continue writing it in the chat and I'll try to come back to that when you're finished. Anybody else comments on Navascao and his not having read sutras or heard Zen talks? And Tatiana, we're recording this, so if you want later, you can email info at ancientdragon.org

[77:31]

and get the whole recording for the parts you missed. Okay, I'm going to go and do another one. And I have a couple of these dharma hall discourses that are sort of allayed to the Lotus Sutra. Oh, Taigen, I think we have a question now. I think Fumio's question has appeared in chat. Would you like me to read it? Would you please? It says, I was going to ask a question about the previous case saying that the sky doesn't obstruct clouds. What are the practical implications of this statement? Oh, good. Thank you for that. So, openness, awareness, total awareness, awakening does not obstruct. So, this is about Zazen. So, Fumio, as you're sitting, probably you've experienced thoughts arising or feelings arising.

[78:34]

I don't know. There might be some people who sit Zazen and don't have any thoughts or feelings. Although that's not the point of Zazen at all. But when thoughts and feelings arise, they don't obstruct awakening. They don't obstruct openness. They drift by. So, Uchiyama Roshi, a Japanese teacher from the last century, said, when you're sitting, of course, your stomach continues to secrete digestive juices. Your brain continues to secrete thoughts. So, thoughts and feelings come up, and they drift by. So, the practice is to notice when there's thoughts and feelings, but not to be caught by them, to let them go. So, letting go is a key practice of Zazen and Zen, just to let go of thoughts and feelings, because they don't

[79:37]

obstruct the great wide sky. And as I said, adding to the story about Shoto, that the great wide sky does not obstruct thoughts and feelings either. So, when we are sitting, we're open to thoughts and feelings. We don't try and get rid of them. Not having any thoughts is not the point of Zazen. Does that help? Thank you. Anybody else want to comment on Navaskar or Shoto or any of the things we've talked about so far? And maybe I should mention the numbers of these for those of you who might have the book and want to follow along at home. So, excuse me for not doing that. The one about Shoto not attaining

[80:37]

and not knowing is Dharma Hall Discourse Number 22. I think that's probably in Volume 1. The one about Navaskar was in 455. And the next one I'm going to do, unless there's any other comments or questions, is Number 70 from 1241. Is there another? There's some more chats. David, can you? Yes, there's a comment. Let's see. Alan says in Dzogchen, the Tibetan practice, they actually have that sky gazing practice as an extension of that idea about the clouds in the sky. Thanks, Alan. Yes. And that's practiced in Zen too, of course. In fact, when we're sitting in Zazen,

[81:44]

it may seem like we're facing the wall, but actually we're facing the sky. So, yeah. But, yeah, we can sit out. Sitting outdoors is wonderful. Thank you for the comment, Tatjana. But, yeah, we're always facing the wall. We're always facing the sky. We're always facing this reality. Thank you. And, yeah, Dzogchen is, just as a side comment, is very closely related to Soto Zen. Not so much in terms of the ritual accoutrements and approaches, but in terms of the actual experience of awareness. So, I've mentioned this before, but when I was translating Cultivating the Empty Field

[82:44]

by Hongzhe, Dogen's barber uncle, I was also, at one point during that, I was attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teaching on Dzogchen in San Jose, and it was like he was repeating the stuff I had translated the night before. So, they're very close. Not the formal approaches, but the actual awareness. Thank you. So, the next one I was going to read, if there are no other comments, is, it's number 70. You can scroll down, David, thank you. It's, and this is Dharmakaya teaching two. A little further. Scrolling down, yeah. So, as this

[83:46]

mountain monk, Dogen, is from 1241, today gives the Dharma Hall Discourse. All Buddhas in the times, also today, give a Dharma Hall Discourse. The ancestral teachers in all generations, past and future, also today give a Dharma Hall Discourse. The one who hears, who bears the 16 foot, what is it? Yeah, the one who bears the 16 foot golden body of Buddha gives a Dharma Hall Discourse. The one endowed with the wondrous function of the hundred grasses, that is to say all things, gives a Dharma Hall Discourse. Already together, having given a Dharma Hall Discourse, what Dharma has been expounded? No other Dharma is expounded, is expressed, but this very Dharma is expressed. What is this Dharma? It is upheld within Shang Wan Temple,

[84:54]

which was the home of a teacher in the Rinzai lineage. Rinzai lineage that Dogen also inherited. It is upheld within the Guanyin Temple, which Ajato. It is upheld within the monk hall, monk's hall. It is upheld within the Buddha Hall. So this very Dharma, this is a very Lotus Sutra kind of expression. As I am giving this Dharma Hall Discourse, as I am talking about these teachings of Dogen, all the Buddhas and ancestors in the past, all the Buddhas and ancestors in the future, all the Buddhas and ancestors in distant lands in Europe and Asia are also giving a Dharma Hall Discourse. This is the reality that Dogen is expressing, and it is part of the basic teaching of the Lotus Sutra, which some scholars say there is never a teaching. It is just talking about the presentation of a teaching. Although, as Dogen says here, that is also the teaching.

[85:58]

So this is, I can say more, but comments or questions about this, you can take away the screen share to the table. Dogen is saying when he expresses the Dharma, all the Buddhas and ancestors in all realms, in all worlds, are also expressing the Buddha Dharma. This is a Lotus Sutra teaching. It is also a kind of Dharmakaya teaching that all the Buddhas are here together. All the teachers are here together. All the teachings are interfolded. This is basic Mahayana teaching, but it is not how we usually think. We think in terms of time and chronology and history, and it is important that we do think

[87:03]

that way too, but Dogen is saying something else. Questions about this, or responses or comments? Brian's hand go up. Oh, just because you mentioned time, this passage reminds me directly of the beginning of the Ujji fascicle, where he is saying that time is not just right now, it is all time. It is past, it is future, and it is interpenetrating. In that way, ancestors and golden Buddhas are here right now. Yes, everything is here right now. Time is a construct. I can't remember exactly, but last week I heard some teaching from physics, modern physics, that was saying sort of the same

[88:03]

thing, that everything is here right now. Brian was talking about the Shobokenzo essay, translated as Being Time, or Ujji in Japanese, which gets into Dogen's view of temporality. What I was talking about in terms of the Lotus Sutra, I did a book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time, Dogen and the Lotus Sutra, which talks about the way the Lotus Sutra teachings are expressed by Dogen, and this is another example. Of course, we also live in the conventional world, and I can see that it's 2.30, I think, in conventional time, but I heard there's a movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, that's another expression of this. So I can keep moving along, unless anybody else has something to say about time.

[89:09]

The next one is, oh, is there a hand up? David Ray, please help me see if anybody, whenever anybody raises their, expresses the wish to comment or respond. Maybe not. Okay, number 387 from 1250. So the last one was 1241, so we're jumping ahead in time. This is The Cause for Buddha's Appearance, and this is also very much related to the Lotus Sutra. I can remember, when instructing the monk, Vattha, whose practice was to recite the Lotus Sutra, the ancient Buddha, Saoshi, that's the sixth ancestor, Huineng, his name based on where he was teaching, the ancient Buddha, Huineng, said, the essential point of this sutra concerns the

[90:11]

cause and conditions for Buddha's appearing in the world. The ancient Buddha, Saoshi, spoke like this, his descendant, Ehe, cannot avoid saying something. How shall I say it? So this goes back to a story that Dogen talks about in one of his Shovoganzo essays, Hokuten Hoke, the Lotus Sutra, churns the Lotus Sutra. So this monk, Vattha, came to Saoshi, came to Huineng, and he said he was an expert in the Lotus Sutra. He had read and written many commentaries on the Lotus Sutra, and the sixth ancestor said,

[91:15]

you don't understand the Lotus Sutra. And this monk said, what do you mean? And he said, you are turned by the Lotus Sutra. I turn the Lotus Sutra. So how do we actually express and practice these teachings rather than being caught by them? There's another way to paraphrase that. At any rate, so again, Huineng said, the essential point of the sutra concerns the causes and conditions for Buddha's appearing in the world. And Dogen says, I would say that the essential point of the sutra concerns all Buddhas appearing in the world. Tell me, Great Assembly, are Saoshi's or Huineng's saying and Ehei's saying the same or different? I ask you to judge and discern this. And in the sutra, it says that the single great cause

[92:24]

for Buddha's appearing in the world is to help all suffering beings enter the path towards awakening. So that's what it says in this sutra that he's referring to. The single great cause for Buddha's appearing in the world is to help share the Buddha's wisdom with all beings. And so Dogen says, do not say they are talking about his expression and the Sixth Ancestor's expression. Do not say they are the same. Do not say they are different. This is because all Buddha's appearance in the world could not be involved with sameness or difference. This goes back to Shakyamuni Buddha's harmony with sameness and difference. Don't you see that it is said that myself and the Buddhas in ten directions are the ones who can know this matter? So it also says in the Lotus Sutra, only a Buddha together with the Buddha can understand this matter. So only Buddhas hanging out together can get to the bottom of this

[93:34]

deep truth. So this is also a teaching about Sangam. So questions or comments about this? Again, the essential point of this sutra is concerns the causes and conditions for Buddha's appearing in the world. And this is a basic teaching in the Lotus Sutra. I think it's in chapter two, how Buddhas appear in the world, why Buddhas appear in the world. This is simply to help suffering beings as Dogen said in one of the discourses I already talked about. Okay, well, if there's no comments or responses or questions about this, I'll just keep going.

[94:38]

But if you do have a question or comment, please feel free. Dogen, I do have a question about the Lotus Sutra. Is there a connection? Is there a special connection between on the one hand, the teaching of the Lotus Sutra being a teaching where the teaching is the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the saying that when Dogen speaks the Dharma discourse, that all Buddhas and ancestors are speaking the Dharma discourse, it feels like those two things have a special relationship. Yes, sure. So it's not that, yeah, maybe I should give a whole seminar on the Lotus Sutra, and we'll do that next time. There's so much in the Lotus Sutra that is wonderful and strange and great. And Dogen quotes the Lotus Sutra more than any other sutra. But yeah,

[95:41]

the Lotus Sutra talks about the Lotus Sutra presenting the teaching a lot. And some scholars say that it never gets to the teaching, of course, but that's the teaching. And Dogen expresses it by when Buddha speaks the teaching, I express the teaching, all the Buddhas in past and future express the teaching. So our usual conventional idea of reality is broken up or opened up by this sense of the dharmakaya, as I was saying before, of all of reality being Buddha. And of course, Navaskar says that the beings who don't see this just accept it, but fundamentally, according to this teaching of the dharmakaya and of the Lotus Sutra

[96:47]

and of Dogen, all beings are expressing Buddha in some way. But they don't realize that sometimes beings get caught in thinking about me and them, or I and other beings, and other beings being inferior, some beings being superior. I was just watching this wonderful Ken Burns documentary about the buffalo and the near extinction of the buffalo, and then all the people with sometimes mixed motives who revived the buffalo species, the bison species. Anyway, people do terrible things. I think we all know that. We know there are wars. I don't believe there need to be wars, but beings don't accept that

[97:48]

everything is Buddha. But this is what Dogen is saying. This is what the Lotus Sutra says. This is what the Parinirvana Sutra says. This is what the Flower Ornament Sutra says. Buddha is everything and everywhere, and we just don't recognize it. We don't know how to express it. We don't believe it. And therefore, there are all these terrible things that happen. David, just tell me your question again. My question is, and I think you're answering it, my question is, is there a special relationship between these two things? On the one hand, we could call it like the self-referentiality of Lotus Sutra teaching, that the Lotus Sutra teaches the Lotus Sutra teaching, on the one hand. And then on the other hand, this teaching that says that when Dogen or you give a Dharma Hall

[98:52]

discourse, that all the Buddhas and ancestors, and Huineng, and all the Buddhas and ancestors are giving a Dharma Hall discourse. Right. I didn't hear if there was a question there. Maybe there was. Yeah. The question is, is there a special relationship between those two things? And you answered that question. Okay. Mark, you're smiling. Do you have a comment or question? I guess not. Okay. All of these teachings from Dogen are kind of deep, and go against the grain of usual consumerist culture, where we have to acquire things to validate ourselves, or where we have to

[99:53]

do unto others before they do unto us, or all those deluded ways of thinking. But actually, what Dogen is saying, what the Lotus Sutra is saying, what all the Buddhas and ancestors are saying is that, here it is. It's all here. We don't need to fight each other, Bryant. I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for the immense amount of work that obviously must have gone into, and time, along with Okamura to translate all of this material, because I have, I don't know, five or six different translations of the Shobogenzo. That's everywhere. But I don't know of any other translation effort that was ever made for this obvious vast body of work. So thank you on behalf of everyone that benefits from having this material because of the work you did. Thank you for everyone who benefits from this. Yeah. I have a question about the work as a whole. Clearly, this translates Dharma discourses

[101:03]

throughout most of his career, and in translating all of this, and that you present it chronologically, did you discern an evolution in Dogen's own presentation of this material? Does it mature over time, etc.? That's an interesting question. When Dogen was first introduced to the West, people were talking about how there's early Dogen and late Dogen. I disagree. But there are differences between the formats he used. So I described in the beginning the essays in Shobogenzo as kind of long, elaborative essays on a particular theme, or koan, or image. And these Dharma hall discourses as this very formal way of just standing up and expressing things. A lot of Dogen scholars have said that

[102:05]

after he moved to Echizen and to Eheji, he basically stopped teaching anything, or that his teaching is not very good afterwards. I beg to differ. I think this material in Ehikoroko, which actually spans from his early poems in China, which maybe we'll get to, and to his very latest poems and latest teachings at the end of his career, I think there's a through line. However, he expresses it in different ways, and he had a somewhat different audience or sangha when he was in Kyoto, or near Kyoto, before he moved to Echizen. And then there are lay people who came to hear, he refers to this, some of these Dharma hall discourses at Eheji, there were lay people who came. And some of them described when he was talking, giving these Dharma hall discourses,

[103:09]

colored lights rising from the Dharma hall. So we don't have any videotapes of that to validate that. But also, there were mostly monks. We don't really know how many monks there were, monks and nuns, at Eheji at this time. It was a smaller group than came to his teachings in Kyoto. And again, most of Shobo Gebzo is based on, excuse me, on talks he gave, which were then transcribed and written up in Japanese by his main disciples, the same way that these are talks that are given, but that are shorter. And again, he was exploring different ways of teaching. That's clear. And these were transcribed by his students in Chinese,

[104:16]

but that doesn't mean that he spoke it in Chinese. So that's, as I said, we don't know that. There are differences. The one biggest difference between earlier and later Dogen, in my opinion, and there are lots of different opinions about all of this. So you could look at Heechin Kim or other, Heechin Kim doesn't mention Ehe Koroku though, is his introduction, Ehe Dogen, mystical realist, is very good, but he doesn't mention Ehe Koroku. A lot of people ignored Ehe Koroku historically. So yeah, I was very privileged to work on translating with Shobaku and to do all this over several years. Then there was another year of editing, but I was looking back for, oh yeah, the thing about causation, which was that, yeah, about green leaves turn red.

[105:22]

I mentioned the Fox Koan. That's, I think the biggest, other than having a different audience and other than having different formats in which he taught, the biggest difference is his shift about causality. Because as I said, in the teachings about the, there's two different Shobakuenzo essays about the Fox Koan. The earlier one adheres to a kind of Chinese discourse about the Fox Koan, which sort of says that there's no difference between no causes and condition. What is it that old monk said? That greatly cultivated people, sometimes it's translated as awakened or enlightened people, are not subject to cause and effect. Of course, we know from modern Americans and misadventures of some teachers

[106:27]

that they are subject to cause and effect. But in China, there's a Book of Serenity commentary by Hongxia in that case that kind of presents that not being subject to causes and conditions and not ignoring causes and conditions are just kind of two sides of the same thing. And that's what Dogen said in his earlier essay. So I'm simplifying this, but basically that's what Dogen said in his earlier essay about the Fox Koan. Later on, and in that example, I gave about adhering to causes and conditions, Dogen very strongly takes the perspective that, yes, we are, we do need to follow causes and conditions. We do need to be aware of our ancient twisted karma. So that's, from my perspective, that's the only or maybe the major difference

[107:32]

between earlier and late Dogen. Alan, did you have a comment or question? Yeah. Hi, Togo. I just wanted to ask, following on from that, if you think that Dogen altered his position from Dai Shugio to Jin Shin Inga, one of the things I've always thought was interesting about that is in the version of the Shobigenzo that they think he put together, I think it's the 60th fascicle, he leaves Dai Shugio in. And so it's always been interesting to me as to if he changed his position, why did he leave in the fascicle that contained his previous thoughts on it? And I just wonder what your view is of the sort of Stephen Hine critical, and also when he's talking about critical Buddhism movement, of them saying that actually Jin Shin Inga and the change in causality is due to them putting together a very short version of the Shobigenzo for novices. So you have all those fascicles that are about, you know, washing your face and sort of much more

[108:34]

sort of prosaic things. And that almost that then Jin Shin Inga was part of the initial view on cause and effect. And then as you became more experienced as a monk, you would then take the more emptiness view in Dai Shugio. I just wonder what your view of that, those sort of arguments Yeah, it's complicated, and we don't really know. So it's all speculation. However, what we can say is that actually there were many different versions of Shobigenzo. So that's important to hear. So the modern versions of Shobigenzo, for example, from 95 or so different essays or fascicles. But that was never, that was, that's a modern a modern bit where they put together all the possible things that could be called Shobigenzo. There was a six, there was a, I think an 80 volume version and a 60 volume version.

[109:37]

Stephen Heine has this wonderful book on, well, no, it's here somewhere. But anyway, on Nguyen, who is one of the, who wrote a commentary on all this and is one of the, one of the successors to Dogen. At any rate, actually the 12 volume version is probably the later version that Dogen himself had something to do with. And that one does take the essay about, about in terms of not ignoring cause and effect. So it's a complicated issue. But I think that the later Dogen, he does, and that's clear also in Eikoroku, he does honor that we are subject to

[110:39]

cause and effect. So, yeah, I think that's where he finally landed. You know, we don't, we don't really know. Dogen died at age 53. And he never finished, you know, his, all of his teaching and writing. So in a way, it's, it's why Dogen's extensive record of Eikoroku is, is pretty important, because we get to see his later teachings. And his later teachings are wonderful. We might think that, that, you know, only Shobogenzo is Dogen, but no, the Eikoroku is also part of Dogen. It hasn't been focused on, not just in modern American translations, but also in traditional Japanese study of Dogen. So I don't know if that, that, that doesn't, isn't completely satisfying, but there's a lot we don't know. And one of the things is that we

[111:43]

continue to, Japanese scholars continue to find versions of Shobogenzo essays. There are many, many versions of some of the Shobogenzo essays. He continued rewriting Genjo Koan, for example. And so there, Japanese scholars are continuing to find versions of Shobogenzo essays in attics of old, old Soto Zen temples. And we don't know which is the, the authoritative version. So, so that gives scholars lots of time to work on things. Anyway, welcome Ryan, who I saw you just appeared. Just for anybody who didn't get here at the beginning, there is a recording of all of this. And if you want to get all of it and, or if you have to leave early, as I know some of you do, you can email info at ancientdragon.org. And when we have the recording link, we can send that to you. So just to mention that. There was something else that I was going to say after your question,

[112:49]

Alan, and I appreciate, you know, the question about, you know, the whole career of Dogen. And, you know, he's, he did change some of, some of his essays. And, you know, we don't know, but I, my opinion is that his basic teaching doesn't change. For example, there's the famous Reihai Tokuzui, in which he has very, very strongly expresses the equality of women with men in terms of understanding and hearing and expressing the teaching. He doesn't talk about that in so much in his later teaching, but that doesn't mean that he, he doesn't, he also doesn't refute that. So people, you know, scholars talk about what his focus is and, and, and as if they were, there were differences, but I don't, I don't, I don't think so. So, and I think Brian

[113:59]

was mentioning that this translation. So one thing I can say about the process of translation, you know, Shōbō Genzo is, is very difficult. And I always recommend people to read two or three different, good, decent translations of, of Shōbō Genzo material and, and look at them together. And sometimes they look very different and both are part of, are valid translations of the original. All these Chinese characters, you know, have, have different, have overtones and different, different aspects. So there could be two, it could be two different translations that seem different, but are both, you know, good translations of the original because the Chinese characters have so many different meanings. And you might ask, well, what was, what did Dōgen mean? And we don't know. I think, you know, Shōbō, the Shōbō Genzo,

[115:04]

to bring yourself to it and your own practice and to think about what does this mean is part of the practice of studying Dōgen, to put it that way. Going back to Brian talking about the translation, one thing I can say about the translation process that Shōhaku and I worked on was for, I think three and a half years, that there were times, so I, so I know enough about Chinese characters, so I can have a rough understanding of what each of these Dharma Hall discourses is saying. But as a native speaker, Shōhaku could, you know, present, he would say what he thought Dōgen was saying. And of course, Dōgen's language is very different from modern Japanese, so that's another layer of complexity. But there were times, not infrequently,

[116:07]

when Shōhaku would look at something and say, I don't understand. I don't know what this means. And he wouldn't say, he couldn't say anything about it. And I would try and, you know, say, well, maybe it's saying this, maybe it's saying that. And often he would say, well, no, it couldn't be that because of this. And sometimes after several hours or so of wrestling with one of these Dharma Hall discourses and what is Dōgen saying here, we go back and look at what the literal meaning was and suddenly, oh yeah, it would be clear. So anyway, that was part of our translation process, for whatever it's worth. And sometimes, of course, when we weren't sure, we have notes which say it could be this, it could be that. Anyway, but most of the time we'd find something to say. So I can go on to the next one. But if there are any other,

[117:13]

I don't know if there's anything in the chat. There is, there is, Taigen. There's a question from Fumio, which I could read aloud from the chat. It says, Buddhas appearing in the world to help suffering beings sounds so very optimistic. And since Buddhas are aligned with the reality perfectly, one may start making implications about reality being ultimately good. However, that could also easily become wishful thinking. There's also lots of madness and harm going on. What are your thoughts on this? And then Fumio adds, I think you already talked about some of this in the time of me writing those. So if there are no more thoughts, that's fine. Thank you. Oh, there's endless thoughts. I could keep babbling, but I'll try and just respond. And yeah, all beings Buddha nature. Buddha nature is omnipresent in all times right now.

[118:22]

And Buddha nature means kindness and caring and awakeness. But as some of you probably know, there's also delusion and confusion and greed and anger and foolishness. And people think that they're separate from other people, for example. Or that, you know, I'm good and they're bad. Or people in Chicago are good, but people in New Mexico like Mark are bad. People think like that. This is the nature of subject-object-verb thinking. In English, I don't know if in Czech language you have the same problems, Fumio, but that we think there's a subject, me or us or whatever, and there's objects out there.

[119:25]

And so we're trying to verb objects to control them and get them to do what we want to do, or for us to get more stuff or whatever. Or we're trying to not be verbed by objects out there and protect ourselves. So this whole separation is so basic, and it's why we have all this suffering and confusion. And Nick has said he had to leave early. Okay. So yeah, we have a lot of work to do. Bodhisattvas have good job insurance where there's likely to be difference and cruelty and confusion and so forth. So again, what the Lotus Sutra says is that Buddhas appear in the world to help suffering beings and to help share this good news that actually everything is just as it is, and that there is

[120:35]

goodness and so, or there is kindness, or there is, you know, once when Kasta Nahashi was visiting my Chicago temple, Ancient Dragons Zen Gate, somebody asked him, what's the basic teaching of Buddhism? That was a question that we saw before, and Kasta's answer was non-separation. So we think we're separate from others. And in some ways, conventionally, of course we are. I'm looking on my screen, and I can, on my screen, and I know it's different on different Zoom screens, but Fumio is right next to Bo, and I can tell you're different because Bo has a beard. So anyway, there's all kinds of ways. Dogen, when he came back from China, said, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. So for human-type beings, that's, for the most part, true. Anyway, I don't know if that helps with your question, Fumio.

[121:38]

Can you now hear me better? Yes, I can. Oh, wonderful. This is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think perhaps it's, so perhaps I'm hitting, like, language questions. My thinking is, like, whether, well, the thing is, with delusion and ignorance is that it has its causes, right? And we can kind of cycle into it, and there are certain, like, principles that make this happen. And I wonder whether those principles are considered to be part of Buddha nature, or no. You know, I'm not sure if I'm formulating it well, and it doesn't need to be complicated, Alistair, just more, like, practically. No, I think that's a wonderful question. I think the teaching is that everything is Buddha nature, including confusion and separation and wars and all this horrible stuff. And the point of all that horrible stuff is to awaken from it.

[122:41]

So, you know, at some point in the future, I don't think this will happen. I don't know if this will happen. It won't happen in my lifetime, I know. But maybe all the problems in the world will be solved, and everybody will love each other. And when I was young, back in the 60s, we actually thought that might happen. But if that happens, when that happens, I mean, I don't think we need to have wars as human beings. It's just silly. Wars are about killing civilians. I mean, we're learning that more and more. But anyway, if we ever get to the point where everybody is happy and everything is wonderful, maybe we won't have any Buddhism anymore. We won't need it. But as I said, I think, you know, for Bodhisattva practitioners, we have good job security. So maybe, unless there's somebody else who has something right now,

[123:53]

I will just go to the next one. And at some point, we'll take a little break. Is it getting to be time? No, let's go a little further, at least. Well, maybe. What time is it? Oh, it's after three in Chicago time. We're supposed to go to 4.30. Well, let me do one more and then we'll take a break. So this is number 4.39. And did I do this thing already? Or maybe I didn't. This is about Buddha nature, which I was talking about. So this is one of his later talks. It's a short one. All Tathagatas are without Buddha nature. But at the same time, previously, they have fully accomplished true awakening.

[124:57]

Bodhisattvas studying the way should know how Buddha nature produces the conditions for Buddha nature. And actually, that seems sort of straightforward. There's two sentences, but they could be read in various ways. So the second sentence, Bodhisattva studying the way should know how Buddha nature produces the conditions for Buddha nature. So, you know, awakening is kind of contagious. Buddha nature produces the conditions for Buddha nature. It also might be read as, and this is an example of where there were different ways of reading this. Bodhisattvas studying the way should understand how could Buddha nature produce the conditions for Buddha nature. So this might be interpreted in a variety of ways.

[126:02]

In Shobogenzo Buddha nature, Dogen discusses Buddha nature as existing or not existing. So Buddha nature is not some thing that we can get. Awakening is not some thing that we can get or accomplish. So there's being Buddha nature and non-being Buddha nature described in Shobogenzo Buddha nature. In the first sentence of this Dharma hall discourse, Dogen refers to non-being Buddha nature. The second sentence, he says, Buddha nature produced the conditions for Buddha nature. So this might imply there's no such thing as Buddha nature, since the thing cannot be its own cause, we might think. Anyway, so this, let's see, in terms of being Buddha nature, this might also be interpreted as that Buddha nature is unconditioned, not arising from any objective conditions along itself.

[127:08]

So anyway, that's a very short Dharma hall discourse that is very dense in terms of its implications or possible interpretations. So if there's no other comment, maybe we should take a little break now for 10 minutes. Because the next one is, I think, my favorite Dharma hall discourse in all of the Heikola group, and there's a lot to it. So I could do that first before the break. No, no, that's a great teaser. Okay, well, the next one is the most important. The next couple are real. Anyway, okay, so let's take a break for maybe 10 minutes, 10 or 12 minutes, and then we'll return. And thank you all for being here. So we're not, I think people aren't all back from the break, but I'm here. And

[128:20]

if anyone has any informal questions before we start the next Dharma hall discourse, which is my favorite in all of the Heikola group, any comments or questions? Alan, thank you for showing up from across the pond. No, it's a pleasure, Tiger. It's a pleasure. It's lovely to see you again and to be here. I just wanted to ask a question about Dogon and the Lotus Sutra. And obviously, you've studied and done written books about Dongchang and Hongzhi. How much is the Lotus Sutra a seminal part of the earlier Chinese Chan tradition? And how much, because often when I've seen to read about it, when they talk about Bodhidharma, it's saying about the Lankavatara Sutra, Huineng, it's all about the Platform Sutra. And yet Dogon seems to have this massive love and always be quoting the Lotus Sutra, both in respect of

[129:24]

Shobugenzo and Eihei Kuroku. And I just wondered if you had any sense of how much of that came from his background as a Tendai monk, where the Lotus Sutra is the most important sutra, and how much of that comes from the Chinese Chan tradition? Because as I say, every time I've read stuff, they always seem to be talking about other sutras other than the Lotus Sutra and respect of Zen. And certainly whether I just sort of not picked up the references to the Lotus Sutra in the earlier Chan tradition. Well, there's a lot of Lotus Sutra in the earlier Chan tradition. And somewhere in this book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time, Dogon and the Lotus Sutra, which I highly recommend, and I happen to know the author. I have it over here. I have read it. It's very good. Yeah, it is very good. And it says somewhere in there that there's not so much reference to the Lotus Sutra in Chinese Chan. And, you know, because Tendai, Japanese Tendai,

[130:30]

which comes from Chinese Chantai, which was focused on the Lotus Sutra was the background for Japanese Buddhism, not just Zen, but all of the Kamakura forms of Buddhism, Nichiren and Pure Land and so forth. The Lotus Sutra is very important. But since writing that, I found more and more references in Chinese Chan to the Lotus Sutra. So it was very much part of Chinese Chan. But yeah, there are so many different teachings. And lately, and my teacher has been saying that, so I also did this book that Alan referred to on Dongshan, who was the author of the Jewelmare Samadhi, Just This Is It, Dongshan, and the Practice of Suchness, Suchness being a kind of antidote to emptiness teaching. There were lots of, there's lots of sutras and lots of sources. And it's, you know, it's hard to, you can't track, you can't take just one. But my

[131:37]

teacher has been recently saying that Dongshan is the sixth patriarch, excuse the term, of the Huayan school, which is the school based on the Flower Ornament Sutra, and that actually the Flower Ornament Sutra or the Avatamsaka Sutra, and I agree with this, is the most important sutra in Soto Zen. So anyway, we have a, you're all welcome to come to the monthly reading of the Flower Ornament Sutra at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. It may be too late for you, Alan, because it's seven o'clock, the first Friday. It's the middle of the night here, unfortunately. Yes, so you'd have to stay up very late. So anyway, but yeah, there are lots of different branches of the Dharma, lots of different sutras. There's the, you know, the emptiness teaching,

[132:42]

there's the platform sutra, parts of which are spurious, clearly. The whole story about the poetry contest is, you know, was made up later by one of the Sixth Ancestors' disciples, and it was kind of polemical. But anyway, yeah, so the Lotus Sutra is very important, but so are some of the others. And are you aware of any, has any academic done any research into Tendai influences on Dogen that you're aware of? Well, I'm an academic in part. So, you know, and this actually, this Dogen and the Lotus Sutra book is based on my PhD dissertation. Now, I'm just wondering if someone had made that, because obviously when we were at that Miami conference together, there was that academic who was studying Isai, and I just wondered whether there was anyone who had made sort of Dogen's Tendai roots their specific sort of area of research. I'm not sure. Ask Stephen Hein, he would know better.

[133:46]

It's not, it's not, it is, it's part of the picture of Dogen's studies, but yeah. So, not everybody is back from break, but I think we should just proceed. Is everybody here who's here? Wade, are you there? Can you hear me? Maybe Wade's not back. Anyway, I'm going on. I'm back. Oh, yeah. Okay. Hi. So, I'm going to proceed. And this is the Dense Dhamma Hall Discourse from 1248. It's number 266. Oh, and for people who just joined us or who joined late, I want to emphasize that if you happen to have the hardcover edition of Dogen's extensive record, it does not have in it the index, which is in the paperback edition. And the paperback edition, the index is extremely helpful and useful. And if you don't,

[134:55]

if you don't have it, if you have the hardcover edition, please email me at info at ancient dragon dot org, and I will send you the index, which applies equally to the hardcover and paperback editions, which have the same pagination. And the index has cross-references, essays, Dhamma Hall Discourses, and so forth from Ehe Koroku with Shobo Genzo essays, and with koan collections like the Blue Cliff Record and the Book of Serenity and the Gateless Gate. So anyway, just to let you know if that's your situation, send me an email at info at ancient dragon dot org, and I will send you the index. Okay, so I'm going to proceed. This is number 266 from 1248, so a little while after Dogen, a good while after Dogen had settled in Heijin.

[136:01]

And this Dhamma Hall Discourse is particularly mind-blowing to me, because it shows how Dogen understood his own teaching and his own aspects of teaching. So I'm going to read through it, and I'm going to go back and talk about it. And yes, sometimes I, Ehe, that's Dogen, enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion, simply wishing for you all to be steadily intimate in your mind field. Sometimes within the gates and gardens of the monastery, I offer my own style of practical instruction, simply wishing you all to just sport and play freely with spiritual penetration. Sometimes I spring quickly, leaving no trace, simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind.

[137:02]

Sometimes I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So there's four different approaches to his teaching described there. Suppose someone suddenly came forward and asked this mountain monk, what would go beyond these kinds of teaching? I would simply say to him, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind, the night mist clears, dimly seen the blue mountains form a single line. So there's a lot to unpack in this, but it's just, it's mind-boggling to me that Dogen could say this. So the first thing to say about this, where it says sometimes, Bryant, that is the same, that is Uji, in the same characters that are translated as

[138:08]

being time in the Shobo Genzo essay by that name, but also as a common term, it just means sometimes. So sometimes, Dogen says, I enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion. So we talked about the two truths, the ultimate and the conventional. So Dogen is saying sometimes I enter ultimate awareness and offer profound discussion. Simply, and so with each of these, he says his position, his kind of teaching, and what he, what he wants, the effect he wants this to have on the monks he's talking to. So sometimes I enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion, simply wishing for you all to be steadily ultimate in your mind field.

[139:11]

So he's trying to promote steady intimacy, and there's a famous koan in the Book of Serenity that says, where the teacher asks, Fayet, who was the founder of one of the five houses, and said, where are you going on your pilgrimage? And Fayet said, I don't know. And his teacher said, his teacher Deshan said, not knowing is most intimate. And some of you may know the famous American teacher from the Korean tradition whose whole teaching was focused on not knowing, not know mind. So, wishing for you all to be steadily intimate in your mind field, in your awareness, in your field of awareness and feeling and so forth. So that's the first one. Second, sometimes, or in being time, within the gates and gardens of the monastery,

[140:21]

I offer you my own style of practical instruction. So these are like the guidelines. I also translated with Shobaku one of Dogen's other main texts, Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community, Heihei Shingi, in which he goes into detail about the monastic community. It's one of the teachers here, who has been in Chicago, has been talking about this. It's about the monastic forms at Heihei, but I think amazingly, it's very relevant to ordinary everyday non-residential practice. Anyway, so that's the third. Is that the second or third one? Yeah, the second one. Sometimes, simply wishing for you all to be, no, sometimes, within the gates and gardens of the monastery,

[141:29]

I offer my own style of practical instruction. And there's some very practical stuff, the style for eating or yogi, how to function in the monk's hall, where the monks slept as well as sitting in Zazen. He gives his own practical instruction, simply wishing you all to disport and play freely with spiritual penetration. So Hongzhi talks about roaming and playing, romping and playing also in Zazen. So these forms for practice in Sangha, in community, that Dogen propounded in Heihei Shingi, he says he provided those so that his students could disport and play freely with spiritual penetration. Third, sometimes, I spring quickly, leaving no trace, simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind. So I'm not going to do it now because my throat's a little hoarse, but

[142:33]

sometimes Zen teachers yell. I've done that occasionally, and I'm tempted, but I won't. Simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind. So as I mentioned before, dropping off body and mind, Shinjin Datsuraku in Japanese is one of the phrases Dogen uses most commonly, referring to both to Zazen, as dropping off body and mind, and to the whole of awakening as dropping off body and mind, to realization as dropping off body and mind. This doesn't mean there used to be anyway this heretical school of lobotomy, Zen, if you get rid of all your consciousness and thinking, that would be awakening. No. Dropping off body and mind means letting go of all of our attachments to body and mind, or body-mind. So that's the third one. Sometimes I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands

[143:40]

can hold. Trust what's in front of you. Trust what you can take care of. In Genjo Ko, he talks about birds and how when the field is small, when the need is small, the field is small. What can your hands, what your hands can hold, what can you manage? So the samadhi of self-fulfillment is Jiji Uzami in Sino-Japanese, and here I am promoting all my books. The Wholehearted Way, which I also translated with Sho Haku when I was living in Japan and translating with him, is a translation of Dendawa, which includes this section that, I don't know, we sometimes chant called the self-fulfillment samadhi. I don't know if those of you in other places chant that, but it's

[144:44]

Jiji Uzami. Well, there's a lot to say about that. I could give a whole three-hour seminar about it, I suppose. But self-fulfillment or self-enjoyment or self-realization, samadhi, it's a kind of one of the many samadhis or concentrations or meditative states that is referred to by Dogen and in books like The Flower Ornament Sutra. And literally it means, well, ji is self, ju means enjoyment, fulfillment, realization. Ju means accepting your function. So it's the samadhi of the self accepting your function, accepting your dharma position is the way Dogen talks about that. So there's a lot to say about this teaching. It includes one of my favorite Dogen sentences, when one sits with the whole body and mind

[145:49]

displaying the Buddha mudra, even for a short time, all things in the universe awaken, all things in the phenomenal world awaken. So there's this relationship between mind and environment, between subject and object, between our own awareness and our own awareness and awakening and practice actually affects our whole environment. And he unpacks that as flowers and trees, stoves, and pebbles and tiles and walls even. So even so-called artificial man-made things, everything is affected by completely expressing Buddha mudra. So he says, sometimes in being time, I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So to trust what, you know, what you can take care of.

[146:56]

So there's lots more to say about all this, but after presenting these four aspects of his teaching and what he wishes the effects to be upon his students, Dogen says, suppose someone suddenly came forth and asked this mountain monk, what would go beyond these kinds of teaching? And then he presents a fifth kind of teaching, a fifth aspect of reality. And I would simply say to them, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind, the night mist clears. Dimly seen, the blue mountains form a single line. So he's talking about a vision of nature from a heju where he is, the night mist clears. And if you look at distant mountains, it seems like a single line, even if it's wavy a little bit.

[148:00]

But he's also talking, of course, about our own bodies and minds, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind. And wind, of course, is an image for teaching or teaching styles. The night mist clears, our confusion dissipates. Dimly seen, the blue mountains form a single line. So there's lots of ways to take this last part. Mountains is also an image for Zen teachers. So many Zen teachers like Dongshan or Choson, for example, is the name we know of for him. It's based on that he taught at Dong Mountain. So that's one example. All of the lineage of Buddhas and ancestors form a single line. It's all, as I was saying,

[149:03]

this single teaching, this single practice that we're all doing. So that was some explication of this very dense Dharma Hall discourse. And I could say more, but to me, it's just amazing that Dogen had this self-awareness of the range and aspects of his teaching. Questions, comments, responses. And maybe you could, David, go back to Brian. It occurred to me fairly obviously in your reading of these five different variations that it maps fairly well on Dongshan's five ranks. The first one is talking about the ultimate. The next one is talking about the practicalities of the relative and so on. Has that perspective,

[150:09]

could you comment on that? Yeah, sure. Of course, the five degrees are all here, yes. And the five degree teaching by Dongshan is wonderful and important and central to all of Soto Zen, but Dogen particularly doesn't like to talk about it. It's in the background of a lot of his teachings like this one, and it's in the beginning of Genjo Koan also. But the five degrees teaching, so that's the last chapter of my book on Dongshan, just this is it. Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness from Shambhala is all about the five degrees or the five aspects from Dogen's Dongshan, which is often translated as five ranks, but I don't see them as stages of a taitana journey or anything like that. But even though it's one background of all Soto Zen, and it's a very helpful teaching and

[151:18]

it started at the song of the Jomar Samadhi, Hokyo Zammai, the next to the last chapter of this book before the chapter on the five degrees is about that. And that sort of introduces these aspects of teaching a reality or whatever. There were many Soto scholars in China and later in Japan too who spent a lot of time on going into those five degrees, but Dogen really kind of dismisses them as a system because systems of thinking, systems of analyzing the Dharma can be a trap. The point is the practice, to actually practice them. And getting intellectually involved in even wonderful systems of thinking about the Dharma is a kind of distraction.

[152:25]

That's exactly why I thought Dogen's expression of them was a great example of how one can use that understanding of the five ranks in actuality. I think the passage is Dogen giving an example in each of these cases of how they express themselves in our experience. Yeah, good. Right. Other comments or questions on these five aspects or this Dharma Hall Discourse No. 266 from 1248? Any other comments? Yes, Funja. I just love the flexibility of his mind, like, you know, so many perspectives and offerings to Dogen probably in response to what he saw in his students. And I guess this doesn't make a work of scholars much easier. Yeah, I was just joking that I guess that this doesn't make

[153:30]

like research, scholarly research very easy because he could be switching between so many perspectives even in his writings. And as we talked earlier about how we evolved over time, I think that's another thing. There's this like teacher aspect, but I also imagine or am pretty sure that there's this human aspect of having his own path that has evolved. Like, we may have this idea of a teacher, like a package of various skills, but it's not like that. Like, my teacher has transferred to over years and perhaps has different expressions nowadays than a few years ago. Yeah, of course. And you're pointing to this and one of the things about Dogen, we talked about his sense of humor in some of these, but also Dogen is very playful. And part of, you know, how to study Dogen and part of how to

[154:40]

work with koans or to work with Dogen is to play with the material. So, from your perspective, from your realization of practice and awakening, practice awakening, it's not two separate things, you know, how do you play with teaching stories? How do you play with Dogen's expression? So, yeah, Dogen's very playful and this is a good example, as you said. So, thank you. You mentioned your teacher. Can I ask you? I know some European teachers, but not so many. My teacher is American, Dhammadipa in Theravada tradition, but she's dual language teacher. In Soto Zen, she's called Konin. I don't really know her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She recommended me a seminar, like the previous one. So, then I was waiting for this one.

[155:46]

Yeah, good. Say hi to her for me. All right, I will. We were in a, we did a kind of panel seminar together a while back. Okay. Okay. Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, this is, so, and welcome back, Christopher. And again, for everyone, if you came late or you missed part of this, David Ray is recording it, and we can share the recording for anyone who would like it. Just email info at hdragon.org. Good. So, yeah, this is an amazing little compact dharma hall discourse. Again, just to say the last one, dimly seeing the blue mountains form a single line, is a way of talking about how all these five are one expression in different aspects. So,

[156:54]

any other questions or comments about this dharma hall discourse? The next one is also wonderful. Okay. So, this is about the meaning of Buddhadharma. We already had someone asking Shuta, what is the meaning of Buddhadharma? And he said, what did he say? He said, not to attain, not to know. This is from volume eight. It's not a dharma hall discourse. It's one of these dharma words. It's actually the same that I translated for Hongzhe, his practice instructions. At any rate, this is about one of Dogen's students named Ryonan. She was a nun who

[158:01]

practiced with him in Kyoto. There's no record of her being at a heiji. So, maybe she did not make the trip. Maybe she was older than Dogen. I don't know. Anyway, this is about the meaning of Buddhadharma. So, this is very important. But I hope you don't remember it. Anyway, Ryonan Dogen says, you have the seeds of Prajna from early on in life, intently aspiring to the great way of Buddha ancestors. Then he acknowledges you are a woman. Of course, there was a prejudice against women in Asian patriarchal societies. This was not Dogen, but it led into Buddhism. Of course, we know now that I think there are more women teachers than men teachers in the West anyway. But at any rate, he said, even though you're a woman,

[159:04]

you have strong, robust aspiration. Without begrudging any effort in nurturing the way, for you, Ryonan, I will demonstrate the precise meaning of coming from the West. So, that's a phrase of Bodhidharma, coming from the West, which actually, of course, means the essential meaning of Buddhadharma. That is, if you do not hold on to a single phrase or half a verse, a bit of talk or a small expression in this lump of red flesh, you will have some accord with the clear, cool ground. If you hold on to a single word or half a phrase of the Buddha ancestors' sayings or of the koans from the ancestral gate, they will become dangerous poisons. If you want to understand this mountain monk's activity, that's Dogen's, if you want to understand

[160:12]

this mountain monk's activity, do not remember these comments. Truly avoid being caught up in thinking. So, Dogen is saying here that, so you can take away the screen share, we don't want to hold on to any of these words. Dogen is saying, don't remember any of these comments or any of these teachings. Not a single word. That's the essential meaning of Buddhadharma. Of course, well, this is sort of, there's a trick here, but I don't know, maybe I'll stop. What do you think about this? Not to remember a single word or phrase of the teachings is the essential meaning of, wait, how does he say it?

[161:17]

If you do not hold on to a single phrase or half a verse, even, or a bit of talk, or a small expression from in this lump of red flesh from all the teachings of the Buddha ancestors, then you will have some accord with the clear cool ground. Questions or comments, responses to this? So, don't even remember this. This gets tricky, because if you remember that you shouldn't remember any of the teaching, you might get caught in that. I used to sometimes ask, excuse me, students at Green Gulch, you know, about what was the last

[162:37]

Dharma talk about. And many of them were very good, and they couldn't remember. There were a couple people who actually remembered very well, and they could tell me. But anyway, this is an example of Dogen's humor in a way, but also, it's also part of his sincere respect and appreciation for this non-reunit. There are a couple of other of the Dharma Hall discourses in which she's mentioned and praised. So, she's another one of Dogen's great students. So, I can keep going if nobody has any comments or questions about this.

[163:44]

Well, I have a question. So, if I were doing that thing of trying to make sense of this, I would say, well, it's about the danger of latching onto a phrase and remembering it and focusing on the finger pointing at the moon instead of the moon. But I have the feeling that that is just scratching the surface of this, that it's much more profound than that, that it's not just this matter of learning a phrase from a teaching and then going around and parroting it, but there's more to it than that. Well, that's one aspect of it. Don't get caught by some particular teaching and think that that's it. There's the story of the Gutei's one finger. Do you all know that? I assume you all know it since somebody said no. Does anybody want me to tell that story? No, you all know it. Okay.

[164:51]

Sure. Well, just so you know, there was a famous teacher, Gutei, his Japanese name, I forget, in Chinese, who used to always teach by holding up one finger, teaching oneness. And one of his young disciples was asked about the teaching and held up one finger. And Gutei heard about this and he called him in and he chopped off the finger. These are, you know, some of the stories from the old days are pretty brutal. But anyway, and as he did that, this student had a great awakening. So if you think you have some phrase or some saying or some, you know, a wonderful phrase from a koan or teaching and you hold on to that, that's not it. And yeah, and as you hinted, David Ray, I think there's, we could see more in that.

[165:52]

But anyway, I think there's something in the chat, David, from Tatiana. Can you read that for me? I will. Perhaps the meaning is memory itself is a way of grasping. Only accidental memory is permissive. Oh, that's cool. I like that. Yeah. So what is the, how do we remember the things we never heard? Yeah. So, and of course, our ideas, you know, when we remember something, it becomes some idea about something, which isn't the thing itself. So thank you, Tatiana. So anyway, that's to celebrate Rionan and to celebrate not holding on. There's so many more things that I was going to do. And we have, we have another half hour,

[166:59]

but I'm going to skip the next one, even though it's wonderful. Maybe I'll come back to it. But then after that, I have a short one that I like a lot. So you don't, you don't have to put this up on the screen, David. You can take it away, because it's short. But this is Dharma Hall Discourse number 306 from 1249. So this is after Dogen moves to Heiji. And he says, dropping off body and mind is good practice. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Karma 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 this is more funny, playful Dogen. And, but this is a weird one. Dropping off body and mind

[168:12]

is good practice. So I mentioned this already. Shinshin Datsuraku in Sino-Japanese, dropping off body and mind, is one of the phrases that Dogen uses most often. And for him, it's a synonym for Zazen. Zazen is dropping off body and mind. And it's a synonym for total awakening. Total awakening is just dropping off body and mind. Letting go. But here he says, dropping off body and mind is good practice. So yes, you might remember that one. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. So when I first heard that, I thought that meant, you know, breathing fully, you know. I sometimes say to enjoy your inhale and exhale during Zazen. But also, piercing nostrils, and maybe there's somebody here who has pierced nostrils, I don't know. I don't have any piercings myself, I have one tattoo. But piercing nostrils is an image from the ox herding pictures.

[169:18]

So there's many Zen stories or koans about herding an ox, not just the ox herding pictures. And piercing nostrils is an image that was used for allowing oneself to be trained, to have the one's nostrils pierced so that there could be some rope or line or whatever to the teacher to guide you. So that's the colloquial image for that. So to make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils implies allow yourself to appreciate and hear the teaching and express the teaching. So as I said, some of these are very dense. Karma consciousness is endless with nothing fundamental to rely on. So that's from, I think that's from a sutra or a Zen story.

[170:28]

Nothing fundamental to rely on is, you know, a way of talking about non-attachment. Like Dogen said to Ryonan, don't get caught up in, don't remember some particular phrase or teaching. Karma consciousness, and again he's talking about karma consciousness here and about, he's not denying karma consciousness, acknowledge karma consciousness. It's endless with nothing fundamental to rely on, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not causes or conditions. So our karmic awareness is endless, not caught by any of those things, not self or other, not sentient beings. And then he says, although this is so, eating breakfast comes first. So there's this venerable tradition, this venerable lineage of enjoying breakfast that Dogen is citing here.

[171:31]

So I just enjoy this as an example of Dogen's humor, but again, to say dropping off body and mind is good practice is kind of funny, coming from Dogen. Not taking things too seriously. Comments or questions, responses? Uh-oh, I have many more. There are so many more of these in this, in this, uh, extensive record of Dogen. Um, so I'm going to skip ahead. So don't worry about screen sharing now, David. Um, again, before you go on, may I ask you to say more about karmic consciousness in this context, and why, why Dogen says karmic consciousness there, rather than just saying awareness or consciousness? Well, again, this question of, um, causes and conditions,

[172:40]

karmic, and whether to, you know, going back to the Foxkoan and Alan's questions about it, that a karmic consciousness is endless, and the causes and conditions are endless. And, um, it's possible to try and track and trace, you know, what was the proximate, and there's a whole science of causality in early Buddhist Abhidharma teachings, and Abhidharmakosha and other texts, and there are various kinds of causality that Dogen talks about, or that is talked about in those teachings, in terms of, you know, some kind of underlying causes, or the most immediate causes of some particular situation. So he's, so, but he's acknowledging karmic consciousness. It's not that we can go beyond karmic consciousness, even if we're greatly awakened. Karmic consciousness is endless,

[173:43]

where it's, it's this reality that we live in. Karmic consciousness is endless, and there's nothing fundamental to rely on. We can't, um, you know, rely on some particular teaching, or phrase, or koan response, or whatever. And, and also not, so not relying on anything, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not even causes or conditions themselves. Still, even so, eating breakfast comes first. So he kind of brings it back to everyday practical reality, you know. You better eat breakfast. Well, you know, you can skip breakfast, but, you know, and there are practices of fasting and stuff like that, but anyway. So I have so many more of these, and we have much more time, 20 minutes or so. Well, you know, I'm tempted to go to some of the poetry,

[174:59]

just for a little break, and then come back to some of these other, some of these are really funny. So the book is available, you can read this, but I'm, I'll read, I'm going to read a few of his later poems, verses. There's also here in the, in volume 10, which has the verses, there's also verses from early on when he was studying in China. They're not as interesting to me. Here's a, let's see. Okay, I'm just going to read a couple of verses on dwelling in the mountains. There's a whole series of them, and these are four line verses. It's a kind of formal Chinese poetry form. David, before I do that, is there another thing in the chat?

[176:04]

Once, okay, never mind. Okay. So Dogen said, and these are later on, after he's been at Heiji a while, the ancestral way comes from the West, come from the West. I transmit to the East, polishing the moon and cultivating clouds. I long for the ancient wind, teaching style. How could red dust from the mundane world fly up to here? Snowy night in the deep mountains in my glass cup. I'm just going to read a few more of these, a couple more of these. Sitting as the night gets late, sleep not yet arrived, evermore I realize engaging the way is best in mountain forests. Sound of valley streams enters my ears, moonlight pierces my eyes. Other than this, not a thought is in my mind.

[177:08]

Then there's a whole series of verses at the time of leisurely seclusion, and this is referring to back to the time after he came back from China, before he had his temple in Kyoto. So these are from volume 10, this is number 69. You don't have to look for them. In birth and death, we sympathize with ceasing then arising. Both deluded and awakened paths proceed within a dream, and yet there's something difficult to forget. In leisurely seclusion at Fukuoka, sound of evening rain. This is going back to before he had his temple in Kyoto, just the sound of evening rain on the leaves. One or two more. These are from his Dwelling in the Mountains verses. How delightful, mountain dwelling,

[178:31]

so solitary and tranquil. Because of this, I always read the Lotus Blossom Sutra. With wholehearted vigor under trees, what is there to love or hate? How enviable, sound of evening rains in the autumn. When I love mountains, mountains love their master. For rocks big and small, how can the way cease? White clouds and yellow leaves await their time and season. Already discarded are the nine mundane streams, which refers to nine world philosophers' philosophies in Chinese heritage. Okay, I just wanted to share a little bit of a poetic spirit, and I want to go back and let's see, which one should I do? This is number 449 from 1251, again late in his career. What is called zazen is to sit,

[179:50]

cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. Just become unified, never reaching the end. In dropping off body and mind, what are the body and limbs? How can it be transmitted from within the bones and marrow? Already such, how can we penetrate it? Snatching Gotama's hands and legs, one punch knocks over empty space. Karma consciousness is boundless, without roots. The grasses shoot up and bring forth wind or bring forth the wind the Buddha way. So this is a really, I think, really wonderful description of zazen. What is called zazen is to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. So some of you have mentioned all the smoke and clouds of the difficulties of this world

[180:59]

in our lives. What is called zazen is just to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds. Doesn't mean getting rid of them. So these four bodhisattva vows, maybe you all know, the first one is beings are numberless, we vow to free them. The second one, delusions are boundless. We used to say we vow to end them, but more literally, delusions are boundless, we vow to cut through them. So not to be caught by delusions. We live in a world of delusions, our body-mind is in the world of delusions, but how do you not be caught by them? How do you not be caught in the actions based on your own greed, karmic greed, hate, and delusion? How do you see through them? How do you become intimate with your own habits and patterns and grasping so that you can respond to situations without being caught by your habit patterns of anger or greed or whatever?

[182:04]

So again, what is called zazen is to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. Then he says, just become unified, never reaching the end. After my first zazen instruction, I had this feeling, which I wouldn't have articulated this way, but just that everything was okay, that there's a wholeness to reality. Just become unified, there's no end to that. It's not about getting rid of delusions or causes and conditions, just feel the wholeness of this situation. This is why in zen we celebrate the full moon, just the roundness and wholeness of reality. And then he says, in dropping off body and mind, and of course, this is just dropping off body and mind that I've spoken of, is Dogen's expression for zazen and for total awakening.

[183:10]

In dropping off body and mind, he says here, what are the bodies and limbs? So in dropping off body and mind, you might look at what's going on. How is dropping off body and mind? How is this zazen? What is my body? What are my limbs? How can it be transmitted from within the bones and marrows? Already such, how can we penetrate it? So he's saying, how do we share this in our everyday activity? And he ends up, the grasses shoot up, causes and conditions, all beings arise and bring forth the wind of the Buddha way. So somehow I want to read, this has to do with Dogen's biography. In 1248, he went for

[184:18]

maybe five months, four or five months to Kamakura. And I mentioned amongst his students, Hatano Yoshishige, who was a samurai who had provided, excuse me, Dogen had other students who were from Echizen, which is now Fukui, where he built a heiji. But Hatano Yoshishige was probably his great patriot. And most Buddhist temples have one or two major patrons. This is a lesson for our situation in the West as well. Anyway, he provided the materials and financing for a heiji. In 1248, he persuaded Dogen to go to Kamakura, which was the new capital after Kyoto in this,

[185:24]

during this period. And I think Hatano Yoshishige provided an introduction for Dogen to the shogun. And we don't really know exactly what happened, but it looks like the shogun wanted Dogen to move to Kamakura and wanted to build a temple for him. And we don't know if Dogen was tempted or not. But anyway, okay, so this is after he returned from Kamakura back to a heiji, he gave this talk. And it's a little long. Yeah, you know, I'll just read it. On the third day of the eighth month of last year, this mountain monk, Dogen, departed from this mountain, a heiji, and went to the Kamakura district of Sagami Prefecture to expound the Dharma for patrons and lay students. So the shoguns and other samurai who

[186:28]

were in Kamakura. On this month of this year, just last night, I came home to this temple, a heiji, and this morning, I have ascended the seat to give this Dharma discourse. Some people may have some question about this affair, speaking to his monks. After traversing many mountains and rivers, I did expound the Dharma for the sake of lay students, which may sound like I value worldly people and take lightly monks, moreover, or dedicated practitioners. Moreover, some may ask whether I presented some Dharma that I never before expounded here at a heiji, and that they have not heard. However, there was no Dharma at all that I have never previously expounded, or that you have not heard. I merely explained to them that people who

[187:32]

practice virtue improve, that those who produce unwholesomeness degenerate, that they should practice the cause and experience the results, and should throw away the tile and only take up the jewel. Because of these, this single matter is what this old man has been able to clarify, express, trust, and practice, which is a reference from the Loan Sutra, actually. Does the Great Assembly want to understand this truth? After a pause, Dogen said, I cannot stand that my tongue has no means to express the cause and the result. How many mistakes I have made in my effort to cultivate the way. Today, how pitiful it is that I have become a water buffalo. This is the phrase for expounding Dharma. How shall I utter a phrase

[188:35]

for returning home to this mountain? This mountain monk has been gone for more than half a year. I was like a solitary wheel placed in vast space. Today, I have returned to the mountains, and the clouds are feeling joyful. So clouds is also a reference for monks. My great love for the mountains has magnified since before. Anyway, so this is his expression after returning from the capital, where he was offered many fancy expenses, rewards for his teaching. How are we doing? So aside from that biographical note, I want to go back and do a couple more.

[189:43]

Okay, this is number 476, also from 1251, no doubt. Practice realization manifests completely, not exhausted throughout the ages of time. The cause and its fruit are completely fulfilled, unlimited by their beginning or end. In the realm of Dharma, there is no center or edge. For the body of wisdom, there is no front or back. Tell me, how is it when we practice in such a way? After a pause, Dogen said, the three thousand worlds gratefully receive Buddha's beneficent blessing, and all living beings follow his guidance. So again, this is a statement of all beings are Buddha nature, receive Buddha's guidance.

[190:57]

This mention of the three thousand worlds goes back to actually a saying from Chianti or Tendai, where Dogen started his practice, and which, as Alan was mentioning, is based on the Lotus Sutra. Three thousand worlds in one moment was a teaching of the founder of Tendai. So this idea that in each moment of our experience, there are three thousand worlds. I think of this as a wonderful way of expressing the complexity of reality and of our experience. There are three thousand worlds in each moment. Three thousand, of course, is a way of talking about an infinite number, but there's a particular

[192:06]

way in which they came up with three thousand. So it's a way of honoring the complexity of our experience. In each moment of thought, there are three thousand worlds. So I can read a couple more of these, or we have a few minutes. Does anyone have any general comments or questions about Dogen or about his extensive record or anything else? Okay, I'll read another one. Let's see if somebody has something. Was there anybody who had their hand up, Dave? Okay, this is number 124 from 1243. This is before he left Kyoto for Echizen, an ancient... These days are a good time for Zazen.

[193:10]

Yeah, you can say that anytime. If you pass this time vainly, how can you have full strength? If you have no strength, how can you fully engage and affirm the way? Borrowing energy from this time, we can easily cultivate the way. Now the spring winds are a whirlwind, and the spring rains have continued for many days. We're actually experiencing autumn now, but maybe you can remember spring. Even this smelly skin bag, born from our father and mother, cherishes this time. How could the bones, flesh, and marrow, correctly transmitted by Buddha ancestors, despise it? Those who despise it truly are beasts. This time. He's talking about this time, this time of horrible war and terror.

[194:15]

After a pause, Dogen said, in spring, beyond our own efforts, a withered tree returns to life and flowers. For nine years, unknown by people, how many times did he cross the desert? That's a reference to 40 Dharma, who sat in a cave for nine years, and who crossed the desert to get from India to China. In spring, beyond our own efforts, a withered tree returns to life and flowers. For nine years, unknown by people, how many times did he cross the desert? This recalls one of my favorite single lines from He Koroko, which is in a short Dharma and all discourse, but it's just the last line that I like, which is, the plum blossoms again on the same withered branch as last year. So, this returning to life is a central motif in Zen, and they talk about it in terms of plum

[195:26]

blossoms, because plums are the first tree to blossom while it's still winter, and they're white blossoms and they fall down on the snow, and there's various sayings about seeing the plum blossoms on snow. But anyway, in spring, beyond our own efforts, a withered tree returns to life and flowers. For nine years, unknown by people, how many times did he cross the desert? So, well, there's something in the chat. David, can you help me? Yes, Shinjin is saying thank you for the, so very grateful for these many Dogen Nuggets. Yeah. That's so right, yes. Thank you for enjoying them. So, there's many, many more Dogen Nuggets in this extensive record.

[196:35]

I'm trying, I'm tempted to, oh here, here's one, short one. I'll close with this. This is about aspiration. This is from 1241. It's Dharma Hall Discourse number 40, so it's from early on, before he moved to Kyoto. And Dogen said, each of you, without exception, has the aspiration to penetrate the heavens. Just direct yourselves towards clarifying what the Tathagatas clarify. Just direct yourselves towards clarifying what the Buddhas clarify. And then Dogen descended from his seat. So, thank you all for coming to enjoy Dogen's extensive record. Again, there will be a recording of this whole thing for those who came late, or those who just want to have a recording of it. Email info at ancientdragon.org, and

[197:42]

we'll send you a recording. And please enjoy your practice. Please enjoy your study of the way. Thank you. Thank you, Taigen. Thank you. You're all welcome so much.

[198:07]

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