I wanted to talk tonight about a short essay from Shobo Genzo, or actually really a story with a short comment that Dogen did in Shobo Genzo, and I translated with Kaz. And it's also in Dogen's extensive record, this later work, that I translated with Shohaku. So I'll say a little bit from both versions. But this really is a commentary on this very far-out, radical, wild, fundamental teaching of Dogon, one of his first writings that we just chanted, the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, and he says this outrageous thing, when one person sits sasan, displays Buddha mudra with their whole body and mind, even for a short time, all space becomes enlightenment. What? So I've been working with that for a few decades.

[01:05]

And this story that actually is a commentary on a statement reportedly by the Buddha from several different Chinese masters, and then by Dogen himself, is related to that. And again, Dogen repeats it both in Heitoroku and Shogogenza. So I'll read the version in a Koroku Dogen's censored record. This is something he told his monks in 1246, the Sherabu Genzo essay that I'll mention, which has basically the same stories from 1244, just a couple years earlier. Anyway, the story starts with, as Dogen says, the world honored one said, Shakyamuni Buddha, said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions disappears. When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, what is that about?

[02:12]

What does that have to do with us? Notice he doesn't say, figures out reality, or understands reality, or experiences reality or has some dramatic vision of reality. It just says when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions disappears. So then Dogen quotes four different Chinese masters, including his own teacher, who all say, make comments, beginning with when one person opens up reality and returns to the source. So this is the basic issue that each of them are commenting on. And I was talking yesterday about another Shobo Genzo essay on expressing the dream within a dream, where Dogen starts by saying that the path of all Buddhas and ancestors arises before the first forms emerge.

[03:24]

It cannot be spoken of in terms of conventional views. And he says, the Dharma wheel has been set to turn since before the first signs of forms emerged. So when he says, return to the source, what is that about? When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, and then these other teachers repeat that. So I'll come back to that. What they say about it is interesting and varied. There's this mode in Chinese and discourse where teachers will repeat a story and say, well, if it had been me in that story, I would have said such and such. And sometimes scholars will say, well, that means they're criticizing the former. And the others say, it doesn't have to be that way. We can actually appreciate all six versions But I'll just read through them first.

[04:28]

Then I want to come back and look at what's this about. When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions disappears. This is what supposedly the Buddha said. All space disappears. Dogen, remember, said in the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, all space becomes enlightenment. Did the Buddha mean that? all of the conditioned phenomena disappear and everything puffs into Parinirvana? Maybe. Did he mean that all the space between us and everything else disappears and we all merge in glorious oneness? Well, maybe. How to interpret these is part of the point of the story. When one person opens up reality and returns to this source, And there's an implied encouragement that this is our practice as followers of the Buddha.

[05:34]

And I won't resist putting in a footnote here, and we'll talk about it more later, but this quote from the Buddha is from the Churangama Sutra, which maybe Paul knows, is supposedly a spurious sutra. It was not actually written in India. It was written in China. And yet it was important in Chinese Buddhism. But some of the... Dogen himself questioned it with his teacher, Rujing. It didn't seem like it was really the Buddha. And his teacher, Rujing, agreed. And it talks about that in the Shevogin's commentary. So I'll get to that, this question of what is the word of a Buddha and what is not. Nevertheless, the sutra was important in Chinese Buddhism, and Dogen heard about it. Anyway, okay, the Buddha said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions disappears. Another teacher, Wuzhu,

[06:38]

above Mount Phaion said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions crashes together, resounding everywhere. Well, maybe all the space would celebrate one person opening up reality. That'd be a great clamor. Anyway, that's what Uzu-Phaion said. Zen master Yuanwu Kexin, who was actually the commentator who put together the Blue Cliff Record based on earlier verses. He said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, in all space in the 10 directions, flowers are added on brocade. That's kind of nice, to see reality and all space in the 10 directions as brocade, and then flowers are added on. So what does it say in the, This is part of your chant book, and what we just chanted, it also, Dogen also talks about Buddha, Buddha Tathagata's adorning, where is it here?

[07:54]

Something about him adorning, oh, Buddha's increased the dharma joy of their own original grounds and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. So maybe this is gilding the lily a little bit, to use the English phrase. Flowers added on brocade. Anyway, that's Yuanwu's commentary on the Buddhist statement. Then there's a teacher named Fuxing Fatai, who said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, All space in the ten directions is simply all space in the ten directions. And that's actually one of my favorites of all of these. Just things as it is. All space is just all space. My late teacher, Dogen Gozon, Chow Chow Roo-ching said, although the world honored one made the statement, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions disappears.

[08:59]

This utterance cannot avoid becoming an extraordinary assessment. So he's criticizing the Buddha a little bit. And then Tian Tong, Buddha's dog and his teacher, said, Tian Tong is not like this. And then he says, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, a mendicant breaks his rice bowl. What's that about? Maybe breaking your begging bowl, fulfilling your practice, or maybe it's Anyway, it's not as clear, but there's something that happens that's a kind of culmination of something for the practitioner. So after saying all of that, Dogen says, the previous five venerable teachers said it like this, but I, A. A. Dogen, am saying it is not like this. And then Dogen says, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, All space in the ten directions opens up reality and returns to the Source.

[10:04]

Get it? I like that. When one person opens up reality and returns to the Source, the Buddha says, All space in the ten directions opens up reality and returns to the Source. And it's kind of like him saying that all space in the universe completely becomes awakened, completely awakens. You know, to open up reality and return to the source, and all space in the universe. So we know all space in the universe that we see includes greed, hate, and delusion, and corrupt governments, and terrible things, cruelty and violence, and anyway, we live in a difficult world. Can these statements that are all in some ways about the joy of opening up reality and returning to the source. When each of us does that, can they give us something?

[11:11]

When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the universe opens up reality and returns to the source. One thing that this is about is that our practice our Zazen, is not just about us. All of these statements are about the relationship between our practice and what's going on in the world, all space in the universe. So, Zazen, Dogen Zazen, Zazen in our tradition is not some spiritual exercise that's about reaching self-awareness or even becoming a more aware or better person oneself. Not that that's not good, but in a very deep way, all of these sayings have to do with what is our relationship to the rest of the universe.

[12:28]

When we practice, we don't practice alone. It's impossible. Even when you're sitting at home, which I encourage, you know, to not just sit when you come here, but to actually take time through the week to stop and sit down, face the wall and face yourself. And can you open up reality a little bit? Can you return to the source? What is this returning to the source? I mentioned Dogen talking about and this other essay that the path of Buddha's is there before the first forms emerge, before creation. So as I was saying yesterday, this is one of the ways in which Buddhism is radically, radically different from the Western Abrahamic religions that are based around a creator deity who created all of this at some point.

[13:33]

What does it mean to return to the source? To return to creation. There's the line from Wong Wei that I like about following the stream. I follow the stream back to the source and sit and wait for the time when clouds arise. What does it mean to sit and open up reality and return to the source. So a very basic Buddhist teaching, pratityasamutpada, is that everything arises together. Everything is dependent on everything else. Innumerable causes and conditions allowed each of us and each person together in this room tonight to be here. The source is not something that happened back 6,000 years ago or whatever.

[14:38]

The source is always underlying everything. And it's a lively source. It's alive. Our life is alive. Can we face this suchness, all space in the universe. And what is our relationship to it? So this is not, you know, another basic Buddhist teaching is non-self. This is not about, your practice is not about you. Of course, it includes you and all of your descriptions and stories and narratives about who you are and what the world is. But anyway, what Bizazen Dogen is talking about is something much more fundamental. It's about our connectedness with all space.

[15:39]

And so what happens when we actually are willing to face ourselves and not be distracted, when we're willing to open up reality and return to the source? Dogen says, Again, like he said, when one person displays Buddha Mudra with their whole body and mind, here he says, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions also opens up reality, returns to the source. So I feel like I should say something, too, since all these teachers are saying these different versions of it, and, you know, here I am up here, and, you know, so what would I say? When one person opens up reality and returns to the Source, all space in the ten directions rises up singing, spreads its wings and takes to the sky. But maybe that's a little too much.

[16:43]

Maybe it's better to just say, when one person opens up reality and returns to the Source, all space in the ten directions also opens up reality. and returns to the source. So again, the question here is, what is our relationship to our environment, to our world, to the people and things around us? How does our practice inform this space? How does this space inform our practice? How do we each here tonight support each of the rest of us face reality, to turn towards the source. In the version in Shobogenzo he did two years later, it's a little bit longer, and he changes the order a little bit. He starts with what his teacher said, then he mentions the others. They're basically the same. And then he goes into a whole thing about the Shurangama Sutra in the commentary.

[17:47]

And again, there's also the Shurangama Samadhi Sutra, which is a different sutra and is definitely from India. And people here have studied it. And my teachers talked about it. But the Shurangama Sutra, which is Dogen said himself, and now modern scholars also say is not authentic, wasn't from the Buddha himself. But he says it's lasted until now. And he mentions the different translations. And then he talks about how all these different masters commented on the saying from the sutra. Thus, these words have already been turned by the dharma wheel of Buddha ancestors. The Buddha ancestors are turning this dharma wheel. In this way, the words turning the Buddha ancestors and these words have already expounded the Buddha ancestors. because these words have been turned by Buddha ancestors and have turned Buddha ancestors, even if the sutra was spurious, has become a genuine Buddha sutra, an ancestor sutra, an intimate and familiar dharma wheel.

[18:56]

I think this question has something to do with how do we take on practice here in Chicago in 2011. In the self-fulfillment samadhi we just chanted, there's a kind of notable passage about, Once you sit Zazen with, how does he say it? I'll quote it rather than paraphrase. Thank you. Yeah, there's this statement, from the time you begin practicing with the teacher, the practices of incense burning, bowing, nembutsu, repentance, and reading sutras are not at all essential. Just sit, dropping off body and mind. And this phrase, dropping off body and mind and going beyond Buddha are Dogen's descriptions of zazen itself and of awakening. He doesn't say you shouldn't do those. And you might notice that, actually, this evening we burnt incense, we did prostrations, we chanted names of Buddhas, or the, yeah, the Kokyo did, and we're reading sutras or texts.

[20:06]

So it's not that you shouldn't do these things, and some people have misunderstood Dogen that way. The point is, how one does these, how one engages in these Buddhist practices is life's awesome. It's just dropping thought in your mind. And here, Dogen gives us a little content on how to read sutras. So if it's not an authentic sutra, but it's commented on by Buddha ancestors, then there's material there that's Dharma. There's a Dharmagate there. How do we see our own reality? How do we see our own life? How do we see our own practice? He says, because these words have been turned by Buddha ancestors, Even if the sutra was spurious, even if Buddha back then didn't speak it himself, it has become a genuine Buddha sutra. So he says, even if the sutra itself is inauthentic, the saying discussed above is an extraordinary Buddha saying, an ancestor saying that cannot be compared with usual words.

[21:17]

He also says, how the dharma wheel is turned is by taking up sound and form and smashing sound and form, by leaping out of sound and form and turning the dharma wheel, by gouging out the eyeballs and turning the dharma wheel, or by raising a fist and turning the dharma wheel. The dharma wheel also turns itself when the nostrils are grabbed and empty spaces grabbed. That refers to another story, and there are many stories he's referring to here. He says, taking up the sayings discussed above at this immediate moment is to take up the morning star, grasp the nostrils, the peach blossoms, or empty space. This is no other than taking up Buddha ancestors, taking up the Dharma wheel. So how do we see the teachings of Buddha in the space around us? This is part of opening up reality and returning to the source. So we don't have to rely on Dogen.

[22:26]

We don't have to only rely on the words of Shakyamuni Buddha. And I often quote from various other sources. So one can turn the words of Bob Dylan or Walt Whitman or many other Dharma sayings and find Dharma there. How do we see the Dharma in Rumi, in many beings? So last Sunday of next month, I'm going to give a talk on what I consider very advanced Zen koans or Zen sayings from a great American yogi who actually also played catcher for the Yankees. We can find the Dharma in many places, and the point is, how do we open up reality and return to the source?

[23:30]

And what happens then? What is our relationship with space? How does our engagement with reality, how does our engagement with facing ourselves, with being willing to be present here in the midst of this ongoing emergence of causes and conditions, thoughts, feelings, sensations, how do we settle into that in a way that we are dancing with space, dancing with the world around us, responding, engaged with the situations we meet in our life? How, when we get up from our cushion... Well, it happens. Yesterday, there were a bunch of us sitting here all day. How we were engaging with our own meeting of reality affected everybody else in the room.

[24:38]

But also, when we get up from our sitting and we go out into our life and our situations and the world, how does our engagement with reality How does our own practice of turning back to what is important, returning to the source, how does that interact with the space around us? How do we notice the space around us and the flowers on blockades there? So, you know, Dogon is very challenging. His practice is very challenging. Can we actually meet ourselves? Can we actually go beyond ourselves and see that we are deeply connected with everything?

[25:47]

I could add some words after that, everything. Everything includes it all. So maybe that's enough for me to say to open up the question of opening up reality and returning to this force, and then what happens? What happens to the space around us? Any comments, questions, responses, other versions of the same? Please feel free. Douglas, something's going on there. Well, I think it's interesting that Doug had some leisure time. and there is no space.

[27:09]

There's space for action. Dogen always comes back and emphasizes the things in this world and the power of form. So that when you step outside of yourself, you meet the 10,000 things and then together you realize this life of separation. He always wants to start and then end again with the 10,000 things. 10,000 things, nothing. 10,000, nothing. 10,000, nothing. He never wants to get stuck with the sort of cliched thought that everything dissolves. Yeah, taking care of phenomenal world is such an important part of our practice. So yeah, maybe what Buddha said is, form is emptiness, and then Dogon is saying, emptiness is form. One thing that caught me is the 10 directions is unusual vernacular.

[28:11]

It's three dimension. It's eight points of a compass up and down. You don't hear that too often. I was wondering, in something like this, is the source always in present time? It's present time. It is in present time. I mean, is the return to the source, is the source like right now, or is the source a long time ago? Yes. So the issue of what is the source is an essential part of this question. So open up reality and return to the source. What is that, returning to the source? And again, I compared it with Western idea of creation happening in some time in the past in Buddhism. And Doggett talks about time in terms of being time. Time is multidimensional. So the creation is happening all the time.

[29:14]

So it's now, but it's also not some narrow version of now. I'm not sure if that answers your question. But part of the point is, how do we see You know, the Wong Wei poem about following the stream back to the source. In our own version of the ten directions, sitting on our cushion or chair now, can we see the source of this sensation, this thought, this feeling? Can we settle deeply enough into the space of our own body and mind here to see how it's connected to all space? So there's a kind of, there's a depth to this question. And yet it does come back out to, okay, what is our relationship to space?

[30:15]

to the challenges of the world, and the challenges to our patients, and all the distractions, and all of the frustrations of space in the 10 directions, too. And then it comes back to, OK, what's the switch? Where does that all come from? Hi, Serena. Hi. The thought that I have about the different interpretations is that perhaps it also might, it might also be pointing at the nature of reality and the nature of Neo that we kind of attend to it, we pay attention to it, and when you kind of try to focus inwards, reality just takes care of itself and so that it doesn't necessarily need our attention.

[31:28]

We can take that time for ourselves and reality is okay with us. That's a really interesting question. That gets to the heart of the tension in this. to open up reality and return to the source, and most of these expressions are kind of celebrations in some way. There's this implied sense of reality as something ultimate and joyous. That's right. And yet, in subtle ways, I feel Dogen encouraging us to not see reality separate from ourselves. Reality continues, reality constantly flows, and yet, how do we engage that?

[32:34]

So, reality is alright by itself, maybe it doesn't need you, but on the other hand, you're responsible for it. away from 10,000 things for a moment to return to the source. Yes, right. Let 10,000 things take care of themselves, you know. Yeah, we need to. Circulating through reality and back to the source to, you know, just as a cycle. Not to disengage from reality, but, you know, to keep it moving. As a way of letting go of our own self-involvement, sure. Thank you, yeah. I saw a number of you look very puzzled by this whole way of talking. But feel free to jump in with any question or comment.

[33:46]

Jim? Part of what this whole, these different versions of the story are about is encouraging those kinds of questions. Where's the source? Where is, you know, this next thought, where does that come from? This sensation of warmth or cool or tension in our shoulders or, you know, where? What's that from? From the perspective of Buddhism, it's not enough to just say, God made it, or something like that. We're all involved.

[34:49]

Where's the source? What's this about? So, partly, it's okay that if you don't have some response to this, The right response is those questions. This is a kind of very brief, really rich teaching that encourages us to dig in, to question. Where's the source? What is reality anyway? What would it mean to open up reality? Returning to the source. I hear that as also turning towards taking refuge in Buddha, turning towards awakening, turning towards wholeness. Where is it? The practice of that is asking, where is it? Where's the source? So thank you. Dawn. I'm not exactly sure which one it was that I watched, but we watched one of the Star Trek movies last night.

[35:54]

So it was one of the older ones, where they get the whales. Which one? Star Trek IV. Josh has it all down. Thanks. And, you know, what they, they could, you know, if we had that, you know, between computer and stock and like everybody, you could figure out where the source was and then do the time travel and the time warp or whatever and shoot around the sun or the star and go. But then I think it would really mess up, because once you found out, like, oh, I want to find out why my shoulder hurts, because that's important, or my legs, especially my knee. And that would be really important, but then if you figured it out, then it would probably mess things up, you know? It wouldn't, because then what would I have to sit and wonder about or think about, but I thought about, I didn't think about what your talk was tonight, but I kind of thought about that stuff tonight, like I wonder how far you could go back, because even when you were saying that, I'm thinking volcanoes and return to the source, I'm thinking volcanoes and water.

[37:05]

And that's the source I'm thinking about. On Star Trek, I could go there, and right now I can sit and think about it, but so am I. Again, one point is that it's not about, he doesn't say when one person figures out reality. It's about opening up reality. So yeah, many dimensions to reality, as Tom was saying. you know, ten directions is an abbreviation for many directions. But you were reminding me of another movie that I saw recently, Tree of Life, with Brad Pitt, Terrence Malick movie, where he has the whole, I don't know if anybody else saw it, but there's this kind of very cosmic scene that, you know, the story and dialogue don't matter, it's just this cosmic vision of, I don't know, creation. What's that? With angels singing the whole time. Well, there's all kinds of stuff going on.

[38:07]

There's dinosaurs in it, too, though. And whales, and lots of other stuff. I don't know where that leaves us. But I was thinking, too, that at the same time in this Star Trek movie, that when they were in the one time warp, that there was still the other time going on, I think, but maybe not. But that's also, I guess, why I was thinking that, too. Because then it could make it more real in my head. Well, according, as I don't know, I can't claim to understand modern physics and string theory and all that, but what I've heard of that, they say that there are multiple temporal dimensions at the same time. So it's all much more complicated than we can see. And yet, here's this ancient Buddhist text with all these masters commenting on. what happens to space when one person opens up reality and returns to the source.

[39:11]

Our potential impact in the world, this implies, is not insignificant. So, that leaves us with lots of questions, but does anyone have a last comment or a movie reference? Hey, Tom. Space dominates. Space between planets, solar systems, space between the nucleus of your atoms and the electrons going around. And somehow, through dynamic forces, these molecules that come together, I think they're just separate from the rest of the molecules in space. But I just learned something interesting recently that's kind of timely, that mosquitoes can actually sense you from as much as 60, 165 feet away. part of your body that are radiating out, that are spreading out, that another life form can detect and pick up part of you from a football field away.

[40:19]

I mean, that's just, we think we're here, this space, but actually... The skin bag here and now is bigger than that. Space is enormous and we are vast. Yes. Thank you for that.

[40:31]

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