Good morning. So in addition to this being our monthly all-day sitting, this is the beginning of our annual spring practice period, ongo or peaceful abiding. Traditionally in Asia, up in the mountains and amid the waters of Asian monasteries, this was a time of seclusion and reclusion where people did not leave the monastery for a period. Here, practicing as laypeople in the Storefront Temple in Chicago, we do a version of this where everyone who is participating formally commits to an intensified schedule of practice

[01:04]

and we have various events and study and more practice and intensify our commitment to the Dharma and to expressing the Buddha way. And we usually take a particular theme and this for these two months we're going to be using as a background focus a writing by the great 13th century master Dogen who founded what we now call Soto Zen. This is one of his writings from his one of his great masterwork Shobo Genzo called Mountains and Waters Sutra. It's the only writing of his that's called a sutra. Usually sutras are the words of the Buddha, but this is a particular, it's a special writing, it's a long essay and

[02:08]

we're hardly going to fully exhaust the study of it in two months, but we're going to use it as a background, as a touchstone. We may talk about other things of course also in this practice period, but I thought I'd start today. Most of the people in the practice period are here as well as others sitting for the day and others who've joined us for the talk. Welcome everyone, but I wanted to talk about some of the major themes in this Mountains and Waters Sutra and I don't know maybe there's eight different themes I'm going to talk about and each one of those could be a whole practice period in and of themselves, but I wanted to kind of give a survey of some of what's in this long essay. So I'm just going to jump in. Often in Dogen's essays and Shobo Genzo, the first paragraph is

[03:18]

kind of an introduction that's maybe aside from the main topic or indirectly deals with the main topic. This one is very rich and I'm going to kind of end with it, but I'll just say it deals with the liberation of immediate actuality and abiding how mountains and waters abide in their dharma positions. So I'm going to come back to that at the end. The main story, well there are a number of them, but the main, we could say the main koan or the main case that Dogen comments on, starting out right after that is a saying by a great 11th century master in the Sao Domo Shoto lineage named Furong Daokai, Fuyo Daokai in Japanese, and Dogen quotes him and Daokai said, the green mountains are constantly walking,

[04:25]

the stone woman gives birth to a child by night. So a lot of this long essay takes off from that saying. And he goes on to talk about the mountains walking and he talks about how, and just the strangeness of the idea of the mountains walking. Usually we think of mountains as the most solid thing, the most permanent thing, although we know that mountains get worn down and there are younger and newer mountains, higher and lower mountains. But he says that that mountains lack none of the qualities proper to them and for this reason they constantly remain settled, they constantly abide and they constantly walk.

[05:31]

And that quality of walking should be investigated in detail. Then he says the strange, further strange thing, because the walking, Dogen says, because the walking of mountains must be like the walking of people, don't doubt that the walking of mountains, don't doubt the walking of mountains just because it doesn't look the same as the walking of human beings. So one of the themes of this long essay is simply walking. And how do we walk? And how do we know our own walking? So this is a teaching, part of one of the themes about this is to study our own walking as well as to study how the mountains are walking. What does it mean that mountains are constantly walking? How do we see um these mountains walking? And part of this is that when he talks about mountains and waters he

[06:35]

talks about mountains in various ways at length and he talks about waters in various ways at length. But also he's talking about how we are connected to our world. So the in Chinese and Japanese mountains and waters, pronounced sansui in Japanese, is the common word as a compound for landscape. So you can see landscape gardens in China and Japan. And you can see landscape gardens that develop much later in Europe and Western Europe. What is our connection with the landscape? What is our connection with the environment? So really what he's talking about here to say our connection with the environment is actually it says it all wrong because we are the environment. We are the mountains and waters walking. We're not separate from the landscape.

[07:40]

We are elements of the landscape. In traditional old Chinese and Japanese landscape paintings there are these wonderful ink brush paintings of mountains and waters and clouds and they go off into the distance. And often there'll be a human maybe a hermit wandering or somebody sitting in a hut and they're very tiny you know. We're very small in the landscape but we're part of the landscape. So part of what this mountains and water sutra is about one of the main themes that pervades all of it is how we abide, how we walk as part of the landscape. So to talk about the environment or the landscape as something we're connected to is isn't quite it because we are the landscape. How do we see the mountains and waters? And here in

[08:47]

the midwest how do we see the prairies and lakes? How do we see the skyscrapers and avenues? How do we see that the skyscrapers are constantly walking? That the loop is constantly making a circle? How do we see the movement of the walking of the world around us and that we are? So this he talks about this in many specific ways. Because the walking of mountains must be like the walking of people don't doubt the walking of mountains just because it doesn't look the same as the walking of human beings. So again we think of mountains as the most solid thing. One of the basic teachings in buddhism is impermanence.

[09:54]

That there's that nothing is actually fixed and permanent and settled. Just like mountains people get up and move around. And even as we sit still through the period of zazen something inside may be moving around. Thoughts may arise. We may imagine that we're not sitting inside this room but we may imagine other spaces. It's possible that some of you who've been sitting here all morning have had a thought of something that was happening outside this room. I don't know if that happened but it's possible some of you may have thought of something that's outside this room this morning. Even though your body was inside this room. So mountains also may think of things beyond the mountains. But what is the mountain?

[11:06]

Mountain is well is it is in another essay Dogen talks about mountains are painted with rocks and earth and trees and brush and water and maybe with people. How is it that we that we walk and if the mountains walk in this world that we inhabit? How do we study these mountains walking? He says so the walking of the green mountains is fast as wind and even faster. People in the mountains are unaware and don't recognize it. In the mountains is looming of flowers that is inside the world and people outside the mountains are unaware and don't recognize it. People who do not

[12:09]

have the eyes to see the mountains do not notice do not know they don't see don't hear. What is this principle? If one doubts the walking of mountains one does not even yet know one's own walking either. It's not that one's own walking doesn't exist it's that one does not yet know or understand one's own walking. If one knew one's own walking one would know the walking of the green mountains. So part of one of the themes of this of this sutra this mountains and water sutra is walking itself. So this morning we've done walking meditation between periods of sitting meditation and you know there's a bell that rings to start to get up and start the walking and there's a clapper that hits to to stop the walking and start the sitting and so forth.

[13:15]

Now the word that's the Chinese characters that's used they're used to in the sense by Furong Daopai that Dogen talks about literally just mean walking. Aruku in Japanese or as a compound there's two characters that are used but there's another character which he uses later on which means walking but it also means just to travel or to conduct oneself or to act uh it also means practice so it's a it's a compound with shu shugyo the practice to do austerity so one way to say what we're doing here is shugyo. So this walking also means just to practice how do we conduct ourselves so that so that when he talks about the mountains walking it's the

[14:21]

practice and maybe sometime during the during this practice period we'll do some extended walking meditation like the mountains walking. So studying our own walking what is it like to lift your foot as you inhale and place it down as you exhale so you know there are all kinds of walking meditation and we the formal walking meditation we do in the meditation hall here is very slow very very slow half steps healing the soles of our feet and we step and put our foot down and we trust that this floorboard this floor made of boards that may come from trees that maybe they grew in the mountains so actually maybe that there are mountains that we're sitting on or maybe it's a forest that you

[15:21]

know do a flat area in wisconsin or minnesota or somewhere anywhere but we trust we have deep faith that when we put our foot down the floor will be there our walking is based on that. Later on Dogen says that the but he quotes actually the great master Yun Man who says the eastern mountains travel on the waters so he says it so Dogen says about this for this reason the manifestation the experience of the of the nine mountains and the great mount mount sumeru i've called eastern mountains but how could young men pass freely through the skin and flesh bones and marrow the livelihood of cultivation and realization of the eastern mountains

[16:26]

so how is it that water moves how is it that mountains move how is it that we walk how is it that we practice this way of being aware of what's going on of our own dharma position of our own situation of our own place in the meditation hall so we're each looking at this space space from a particular place in the room so and and we also have a particular place in time so that's also part of this mountains walk at a very different pace than we'd walk in terms of geological time and how mountains travel or wear down or climb up through volcanic and tectonic action

[17:29]

their movement seems very it almost seems like they don't move mountains are very solid to us whereas you know from the point of view of mountains we're jumping around they can't they can't even see us we're just we're so fast it's like how we see bugs that are flying so fast maybe trees that that seem to move very slowly to us move pretty quickly to mountains the growth of trees and you know seems quick to mountains maybe so part of what's part of is going on and studying our walking and studying the walking of the mountains and waters is seeing this different time frame so a big part of of what Daoguang is talking about here has to do with shifting perspectives

[18:32]

he talks about this in terms of both mountains and waters but he talks about it especially in terms of water he talks about this in a lot of his writings how do we how can we recognize the limitations of our own awareness so our practice is about awakening and and one of the big things we awaken to is that we don't know so much about the reality around us and in us and that we're sitting on he says water is not strong or weak not wet or dry not moving or still not cool or warm not existent or non-existent not delusion or enlightenment when frozen it is hard as diamond

[19:38]

who can break it when melted it is softer than wave who can break it thus one cannot doubt the quality it manifestly has for the time being you should study the time when you must look upon the waters of ten directions in the ten directions that means this time this is not the study of only when humans or celestial beings see water so we have our own perspective on water but there are other perspectives we see water one way fish see water another way we would drown in water fish drown if they come out of water but then there's also the study of water seeing water because water cultivates and realizes water there is the investigation of water expressing water so how does water express water

[20:42]

how do we express our humanity same question because water cultivates and realizes water there is the investigation of water expressing water one should actualize the way through where self meets self one should advance on the living road where others other meets other and should leap out how do we meet water how do we meet fishes how do we meet dragons so he says seeing mountains and waters has differences depending on the species so we're connected with everything of course that's where we are a part of the landscape along with the mountains and waters fishes and dragons and everything else and yet how and how mountains and waters are seen different is different depending on the species that is to say there are those who see water as jewel necklaces nevertheless that's not seeing jewel necklaces as water so Duggan plays with these things and you know part of

[21:49]

um studying this is being patient with all ways he turns things inside out and using it as you will as what forms would we see that which they take to be water their jewel necklaces we see is water there are those who see water as beautiful flowers that's pretty nice can you imagine just seeing water as flowing and beautiful flowers but they don't use flowers as water hungry ghosts see water as raging fire as pus and blood dragons and fishes see palaces and pavilions some may see water as precious substances and jewels or as forests and walls or as the natural state of pure liberation or as the real human body or as the characteristics of the body and nature of the mind people see it as water it is an interdependency of killing and enlivening

[22:51]

so what one theme one thing this is about is how we bring our life and the life of all beings to life and again this has to do with being able being flexible and seeing that there are other perspectives even though we can't necessarily see water the way fish see water of course not still we can recognize that how we see water is only how we see water so speaking of enlivening there's i want to go back to this other part of the statement um where he says um um flipping the pages around here a bit yeah um oh yeah um

[23:57]

the green mountains are constantly walking a stone woman gives birth to a child by night so i want to talk about the stone woman that that means a barren woman but we also say when uh in the joel mary somalia system the wooden man begins to sing the stone woman gets up to dance so there are lots of images in the senate about how out of stillness something arises some vitality arises as for a stone woman bearing a child by night dogan says the time when a stone woman bears a child is called night generally speaking there are male stones and female stones and there are stones neither male nor female they patched the sky and patched the earth these are celestial stones and earth stones though this is a folk saying it is rare for anyone to know it you should know the principle of bearing a child when bearing a child to parent and child

[25:10]

emanate together would you only approach the study of this in terms of child becoming parent being the actualization of bearing a child so a parent only becomes a parent when a child appears so maybe it's the child that gives birth to the parent you should study and penetrate how the time when a parent becomes a child when the parent becomes child is the practice and realization of bearing a child so uh there's a lot here we could spend you know two months just on that paragraph um i'll say a little bit um stone woman gives birth at night we sometimes um chant the harmony of difference and sameness by uh chateau who was one of the older ancestors in our lineage who talks about this balancing of

[26:16]

of differences the most all the different particulars the multiplicity of differences between fish and dragons and birds and people and all the different people everybody in this room is very different and then there's also the same uh everything is empty at home and one and how do we see this relationship and he talks about um i'm gonna borrow your chat book so i can quote him accurately so

[27:18]

he says the spiritual source shines clearly in the light the branching streams flow on in the dark so he talks about light and dark and day and night he says in the light there is darkness but don't take it as darkness in the dark there is light but don't see it as light so this idea of light and dark has can be used in various ways and here we we have forum dakai saying a stone woman gives birth to a child by night how does birth arise forum dakai says that along with mountains constantly walking birth occurs at night and here he means this night as in this darkness this oneness the sameness so part of studying how it is that the mountains are constantly walking is seeing

[28:20]

these two aspects of our reality in practice and of our walking of our own walking of our own practice there is the light and the lights are up full now so i can see each of you and each of you is different and wonderful each in your own way really each of you is a beautiful expression of the mountains and waters and then there is night or darkness so sometimes we turn the the light the lights down and we sit facing the wall and you know in our practice we keep our eyes open so you see a little bit but it's pretty dim and it's in that darkness that we kind of taste this possibility of

[29:28]

of what the universal wholeness totality any word i say doesn't doesn't get it but something is born the stone woman gives birth in that darkness so that takes me back to the beginning and i've skipped um i've skipped some of the themes i was going to mention so i'll i'll bracket that i'm gonna i'm gonna go back to the beginning to talk about this this uh light and dark a little more but just to mention briefly some of the other themes that are in this long mountains and waters sutra he also talks more towards the end about how about different worlds different realms and how um there are many realms in the mountains and waters it's not just it's not just mountains or waters there are when we look closely at our at the landscape that includes us

[30:36]

at this interconnected landscape at this environment that we are it is so i'm just going to read this this one section towards the end and there's more there's lots more in this essay but um it is not just that there is water in the world there are worlds in the realm of water and this is so not only in water there are also worlds of sentient beings and clouds there are worlds of section beings in wind there are worlds of sentient beings in fire there are worlds of sentient beings in earth there are worlds of sentient beings in phenomena there are worlds of sentient beings in a single blade of grass There are worlds of sentient beings in a single staff. So there are other sutras that go into more length about all the different Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that are existing on each single blade of grass. So if you look actually, this may seem kind of mystical or unmythical or something, but

[31:41]

if you look at things in the microscope, the way scientists do, you can see cells and beings and actually microscopic beings in the earth, in phenomenal, in single blades of grass, and in a single set. So crawling around on this may be many small little tiny microscopic beings. Where there are worlds of sentient beings, there must be the worlds of Buddhas and Zen adepts that exist. You should meditate on this principle very thoroughly. So part of understanding and seeing and walking this landscape of mountains and waters is to see how it is interconnected and interpenetrated with many different realms of beings and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So that's another thing that is part of this shifting perspectives

[32:43]

when we look more closely at the mountains and waters and how they walk and how we walk. But I want to go back to the very beginning now. So I was talking about giving birth at night and basically I've just been kind of giving a survey of some of the things that are in this mountains and waters sutra and we'll explore some of them more deeply in this two month practice period. But I want to go back now to the very first paragraph where Dogen says, the mountains and waters of the immediate present, right now, are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. So when he talks about ancient Buddhas, those are like the old guys who passed away a thousand years ago in China or maybe many ages ago. Together abiding in their Dharma positions, in their own situation, on their own seats,

[33:47]

just like you are sitting on your own seat right now. They have consummated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness, Dogen says. They have realized completeness. Then he says this amazing, two amazing things actually, these next two sentences are going off. Because they are events prior to the empty eon, they are the livelihood of the immediate present. So events prior to the empty eon is kind of Zen slang, it's like your original face before your parents were born is another way they say it in Zen. In terms of the parlance of our times, I like to say it because they are events prior to the Big Bang, which I know some physicists get upset about because they don't know what happened, what there was before the Big Bang, if anything. But I don't know, I like to say it that way. Anyway, the livelihood of the immediate present. So you might just hang out with what is the livelihood of the immediate present. I think if you spend the rest of the day just hanging out with the

[34:56]

livelihood of the immediate present, you would not be wasting your time. Then he says, because they are the self before the emergence of signs, they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. Because they are the self before the emergence of signs, that's before anything arises, before there are any forms, before any forms appear, before there's anything to name, before there's any way you can indicate a self sitting on your cushion. No social security numbers, no names, no dates, no personal history, nothing arises. Because these mountains and waters are the self before the emergence of signs, they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. So that's another good one. What's the liberation of immediate actuality? Then he goes on to say, by the height and breadth of the qualities

[35:56]

of the mountains, the virtue of riding the clouds is always mastered from the mountains. And the subtle work of following the wind, as a rule, penetrates through to liberation from the mountains. But, you know, this giving birth at night, giving birth in the midst of darkness, something appears from this settling into our dharma position, from this willingness to just settle into, what to call it, wholeness, the universal emptiness, I don't know, any word I give it is no longer it, you know. Just call it night, just call it darkness,

[36:58]

just call it, you know, sitting on your cushion and, you know, sometimes, not that you should try and get rid of thoughts and feelings, but sometimes there's just a space. And I don't know if it's this room or outside this room or, you know, the walls or the floors, anyway. Just by being willing to settle into this immediate actuality, to this livelihood of the immediate present. Something can be expressed. When we connect with this, something is born. A stone woman gives birth at night. We each can find our own stone woman. We each can find our own way of expressing the ultimate. We each can find our own way of walking. We each can find our own way of walking. How do we walk this walk? How do we walk Dogen's

[38:04]

talk or our own talk or whatever? So this is a little bit of what this Mountains and Water Sutra is about. And we're going to hang out with parts of this over the next two months, whether you're formally doing a practice commitment period or not. Those of you who are signed up for this, you know, are asked to find a line or a passage or you can just pick one of these themes and focus on it. But anyway, this is a chance to just settle into our own dharma positions and allow the walking, the constant walking, the flow of our immediate actuality. This livelihood of the immediate present. So for those of you here for the

[39:11]

day, we'll have a little, we'll have time over tea this afternoon for some discussion. But we have some people here for the talk. So if there are one or two comments or questions or responses from anyone, please feel free. There's an exhibit at the Peggy Notenberg right now and it's called the ferns and photographs. All the ferns as they're just unfolding from the ground. They're just coming up from the ground and then they're blowing up. And it's amazing to me what I don't see that's invisible to the eye. And the detail and the complexity of these ferns as they're so tight and tasty as they begin to unfold. Thank you. Yeah. There's so much that we can't see and then we have tools to see more fully

[40:21]

or more differently otherwise. Thank you.

[40:25]

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