I love to taste the truth. So through the last two days, I've been commenting on Dogen's Fukan Zazengi, and I'll finish today. third day of Sashin already and I think we're beginning to feel it, really feel immersed in Sashin today.

[01:22]

I stopped yesterday this short paragraph. So I want to go over this short paragraph again. I don't think I quite finished it. In the previous paragraph he talks about the various ways that people have been brought to enlightenment. And he says that these ways cannot be fully understood by one's discriminative thinking or known by supernatural powers either. And it must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing. And that it's a principle prior to knowledge and perception.

[02:34]

And then he says, this being the case, intelligence or lack of it does not matter. We discussed that. Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction. If you concentrate your efforts single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating away. Practice realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness. So I want to talk about that a little bit. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the way. I did talk about that yesterday. Practice realization is naturally undefiled. So Dogen, of course, always talks about practice and realization in the same breath.

[03:38]

So when he talks about practice, he's talking about realization, and when he talks about realization, he's talking about practice. So that's pretty common knowledge in our school. And he says, practice realization is naturally undefiled if you concentrate your effort single-mindedly. We tend to think of good practice and bad practice, or practice as being something good, or our Is my practice good enough? As if there is a quality of practice that is good and a quality of practice that is not so good.

[04:53]

Well, that's true. There is a practice of quality that's good and a practice of quality that's, or a quality of practice that's not so good. Whether practice is good or not so good is not as important as just the practice. Practice itself includes good practice and not such good practice. wholeheartedness and determination are fundamental to practice. And it's the same as saying intelligent practice or, you know, stupid practice.

[05:58]

The intelligent and the stupid. It doesn't matter whether you're intelligent or not. It doesn't matter whether your practice is good or not. If you have the determination to practice, what counts is your determination and your effort. So as we sit Zazen, you may think, my practice is so bad. Here I sit, and I can't keep my mind clear. I can't. All these thoughts are flooding in my mind. My back hurts. My legs hurt. I keep on crossing my legs. I wish I could get out of here. You may think that's bad practice. That's a problem. But even though you may think it's bad practice, practice is not so good.

[07:01]

You're still there. All this is going on while you're still in your seat. and you realize this is just the machinations of your mind spinning out. It's like this kind of thinking, you know, It's normal to think this way, but it really doesn't make any difference. There's no way that you can really judge whether your practice is good or bad. Good practice, really good practice, is to have all these problematic thoughts.

[08:12]

and stay in your seat. No matter what the difficulty is, or how well you think you're doing, or how badly you think you're doing, just stay in your seat and be there on each moment. Sometimes people, a person will come to me and say, I can't maintain my posture. I can't maintain, you know, I can't keep my legs crossed. My mind is always full of distracting thoughts. I can't keep my attention on what I'm doing. And I just say, it's all right. Just stay in your seat. Just stay there with all that. Don't worry about it. Being upset with our state of mind, or our state of body, body-mind, is a hindrance.

[09:30]

Allowing ourself to get upset is a hindrance. Just accept the fact of what's going on. No one ever said that you should not have thoughts and zazen. The purpose of Zazen is not to eliminate thoughts. Your mind will always be full of thoughts. But just keep coming back to Zazen. Don't let the thoughts bother you. It's when you're bothered that it's a problem. Thoughts themselves are not a problem. What is a problem is thinking I shouldn't have these thoughts, or these thoughts are not good, or my mind should be clear and tranquil.

[10:40]

This is the problem. Just don't let things bother you. This is how you reach your mind of equanimity. If you want a mind of equanimity, you can't stop the world. You must find equanimity within the problems you have. The pain in your legs gets to be very prominent, dominant. Don't let it bother you. I'm sorry. In the same way that you don't let the thoughts bother you.

[11:46]

Just find the mind of equanimity, moment after moment. That's all you have to do. And if you don't find the mind of equanimity, don't blame yourself. Don't judge yourself. You're just sitting with a disturbed mind is all. disturbed state of mind. That's just another state of mind. Next moment, it can be a tranquil state of mind. That's okay too. It's all right to have a tranquil state of mind. It's also okay to have a disturbed state of mind, as long as you're not bothered by it. Just don't let anything bother you, whether your mind is disturbed or tranquil.

[12:55]

We have residual thoughts that we bring with us. They come with us through the door, and they sit down with us on the seat, and they go over and [...] over. and you can't get rid of them because they're so dominating. Just when I say don't be bothered by them, don't let them bother you, I know that that's not possible, you think. But it is possible. Just let them be there. Let those thoughts be there. Just pay attention. Keep coming back to the task at hand. So it's very difficult when you have dominating thoughts that go over and over and over again to sit.

[14:11]

But If you can make an effort to sit with those thoughts and putting your effort into zazen without worrying about competing, this is a good, strong practice. It means that You are in control of your mind. So it's important to be in control of your mind, to be able to direct your mind toward what you want to do. So there will be this competition between the obsessive thought and what you want your mind to be doing.

[15:21]

And sometimes we want the obsessive thought to be there, because if it's not there, then we feel that we're betraying our suffering. Yeah. You know, when we, we like strong emotional feelings. And when we don't have a strong emotional feeling of joy, then we're satisfied with a strong emotional feeling of suffering to take its place. So we allow our suffering to dominate us, to dominate our mind in place of some other state of mind. So we should be careful about that.

[16:29]

It's very difficult to let go of our suffering state of mind, to let go of our self-sorrow. and just be free. So, this is an opportunity to really free yourself from your suffering state of mind, if you can allow yourself to do that. And you won't be betraying your emotions. So then he says, going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness.

[17:37]

It's not something special. It's not something that we set aside especially to do, which is different from our everyday life. If you only sit sushins, then zazen is something different from your ordinary, everyday life. But if you practice, if your practice is daily practice, then Sachine, although it's a concentrated period of practice, it's still your daily practice. It's still your daily life. It's not different from your daily life. was emphasized daily practice more than Sashin.

[18:41]

When Suzuki Roshi was around, and there were other teachers, a lot of the other teachers emphasized Sashins more, these concentrated periods of practice. But Suzuki Roshi emphasized daily life practice. Sazen every day as part of your life. And once in a while, you sit Sashin. That's an intensive practice. I think he emphasized that more than most other teachers. He wasn't interested in something special. That was always his trademark, nothing special. Zazen is not something outside of your daily life. And so practice is a matter of just everydayness.

[19:45]

And whatever you do is Zazen practice. So then Dogen says, in general, this world and other worlds as well, both in India and China, equally hold the Buddha seal and overall prevails the character of the school. In other words, this is in India and China and other places in the world. This is the authentic practice, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting. I think Dogen exaggerates a lot here. He tends to exaggerate sometimes to make his point. Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are people, each one is different, still all these different people negotiate their way solely in Zazen.

[20:58]

That's his ideal world, I think. Why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? This is an interesting statement. Somebody said to me, well, didn't Dogen go to China? But Dogen went to China in order to understand this. So he didn't say this until he came back. But his point is not that you shouldn't go someplace. He's saying that you should be able to find what you have is right where you are. Right where you are is where you have to find what you have. And it's okay to go someplace else to find who you are, where you are, but wherever you are, you're always where you are.

[22:04]

He's emphasizing this point that she should just stop. Stop seeking and settle down. Stop wandering around and settle down. This is actually what sitting is. Sitting is to stop wandering around and just settle down. And this is the place where you have to find it. And like Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha sat down under the Bodhi tree and said, I'm not going to get up until I have some understanding. So you wander around and then boom, You sit down, you stop everything, and this is the place where it is.

[23:14]

And you bring all of your stuff to it, or you let as much as you can go, and what you can't let go of, you bring with you, and that stays with you, and you use that. a kind of stone that rubs your mind, body and mind, and polishes your understanding. All the stuff that we bring to it, to sitting with us, is like a polishing stone. It's abrasive, but It helps to clarify your mind, just like sharpening a knife with a stone.

[24:26]

But then he says, if you make one misstep, you go astray from the way directly before you. Misstep here, he's talking about it's easy to get off the path. And the easiest way to get off the path is to practice in a dualistic way. As soon as you start practicing in a dualistic way, you're off. As soon as you want to gain something through practice, you're off. As soon as you start to sit zazen for some reason, you're off. As soon as you start to sit zazen to gain enlightenment, you're off. So actually, it's not so easy to stay on. Because we're always wanting something.

[25:31]

It's very difficult to stay out of that. Because, as our Buddha says, wanting is the problem. What you want is just to be still. That's good. It's not that you would get rid of desire. You know, we say, get rid of desire. But get rid of is the kind of crude way of speaking. Without desire, there's... you don't know what to do. So it's a matter of turning desire in the right direction. So when we say desire, it's kind of a general term like love, one of those words that has multiple meanings. So desire, We have a desire to eat, a desire to sleep, a desire to walk and sit and breathe and so forth.

[26:37]

Those are normal desires. But then there's the desire to go someplace. Which way do we go? So if you let go of all the other desires and take the desire to sit for the sake of sitting, to do something for the sake of itself. This is called letting go of desire. You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. do not use your time in vain. We say in Buddhism that it's hard to be born as a human being, even though it looks easy.

[27:40]

There's so many of us. But given the fact that we can be born as a human being, So in Buddhism, the purpose of a human being is to fulfill what a human being is. To be whatever it is that's the highest state of being human. That's what practice is about. And we call that enlightenment. So we have this opportunity to fulfill our humanity.

[28:44]

So he says, don't waste your time doing other things. Don't waste your time in trivial pursuits. Don't use your time doing in vain, doing things that don't amount to anything, or paths that don't lead anywhere, or become dead ends, or destructive. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. That's fulfilling your life. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? Our life is like a spark, right?

[29:53]

Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, very transient. Destiny, like the dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. So he's saying, even though life seems fairly long, it's actually quite short. And we should take the opportunity while we have it. Otherwise, you look back and you say, if only I had done that. And then in the last paragraph, he says, please honored followers of Zen, He's talking to, you know, he's just come back from Japan, and he's talking to Japanese people, Buddhists, who he feels, up to now, have not really grasped the essential dharma, even though Buddhism has been in Japan for quite a long time.

[31:10]

And he feels that people are still groping around for the Dharma. He had a very difficult time himself being such an idealist, ideal realist, that he had to go to China because he felt that there was no one in Japan that he could study with. So then he's talking to, addressing Japanese Buddhists, he's saying, please honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, did not be suspicious of the true dragon. I know you know these stories, right? The groping for the elephant is an old Buddhist story. The blind man, seven blind men or five blind men, or five, seven, ten blind men are looking for, the king says, or the Raja says to his ten blind men, presents them with an elephant, and he says, what is this?

[32:46]

And each one of them, because they can't see the whole elephant, They're feeling the elephant. One feels the legs, and he says, oh, it's a tree. And someone feels the trunk, and he says, oh, it's a snake. And someone feels the ears, and they say, oh, it's a banana plant or something. So each one has a different version, because they can't see the complete elephant. This is called the blind man. elephant is. None of them can see the whole thing. So, don't be, don't, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, don't be suspicious of the true dragon. There was, this is a story of a man who loved dragons. And he had pictures of dragons all over his walls. He had sculptures of dragons in the garden.

[33:49]

He had books on dragons. And his house was shaped like a dragon. And one day there was a dragon that heard about this. And he said, oh, gosh, he could probably like me if I come over. So the dragon came by and, yeah, there's the house. And he put his head in the window. And the man saw the dragon, the true dragon. So don't be suspicious of the true dragon when he comes. Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. Revere the person of attainment who is beyond all human agency. That's the translation that Dr. Ebbe used. Beyond human agency means beyond contrivance.

[34:54]

beyond all contrivances, beyond your ability to do things in a partial way. A person of attainment who is beyond all human agency is a person who has dropped body and mind. Gain accord with the enlightenment of the Buddhas. Succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestors' samadhi. Constantly perform in such a manner and you are assured of being a person such as they. Your treasure store will open of itself and you will use it at will. That's the end. So I want to talk about the ancestors' samadhi.

[35:58]

to succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestor Samadhi. There are many names for Samadhi. Basically, it means Jiju-Yu, what we call Jiju-Yu Samadhi, Zamae. There's Ichigyo Zamae, which is single-minded attention to one thing. The different names for the same thing, but it depends on how you are looking at it, what you call it. So Zazen is Ichigyo-zamai, one act. Samadhi. Samadhi of just doing one thing and penetrating one thing, totally.

[37:03]

No separation. This is the samadhi of not thinking, actually. Samadhi of think, not thinking is one act. Body, mind, totally absorbed in one act. When there's no separation between thinking and the action, that's the samadhi of one act. And then there's jishu zamai. Jishu zamai is the samadhi of self-mastery. where it's the samadhi of equanimity. Samadhi of where nothing can push you off your place.

[38:13]

The samadhi of not being disturbed by or what you do like. Then there's Zamae O Zamae, the King of Samadhi's Samadhi, which is another name for Zazen. Dogen has a fascicle called Zamae O Zamae, the King of Samadhi's Samadhi, which I thought about talking about, and I might do that. But it's just his hymn in praise of Zazen. So I don't know if I want to talk about that or not.

[39:15]

And then a komyo zoho zamae. Komyo is radiant light. Komyo zoho zamae is Samadhi, a radiant light, which actually is Ji-Ju-Ju-Samadhi. They're really all the same, but they're just different aspects, different ways of speaking about the same thing. So, and of course, Shikantaza, just doing. Ji-Ju-Ju-Samadhi, is Vairochana's Samadhi. Vairochana Buddha is the Buddha of radiant light. And we say, take the backwards step.

[40:23]

Taking the backward step is called GJU. Take the backward step that illuminates the self. Dogen says that in this Prakasazengi. Take the backward step that illuminates the self. That's GJU samadhi. Samadhi of self-joyous samadhi or self-fulfilling samadhi. That's one aspect of Bhairavachana's Samadhi, or Bhairavachana's actually penetrating light. And then the Tadjuyu Samadhi, which is the Samadhi that having fulfilled that within yourself, you offer that to others, or those others are touched by that light, and can't find it in themselves.

[41:27]

So Jiju-Yu Samadhi has these two aspects. One is taking the backward step that illuminates the self. And Tadju-Yu, which offers it to others and takes delight in lighting up others. Vairachana, you know, Buddha is yourself. And these are the two aspects of your samadhi. One is for yourself and the other is for others. We practice for ourself and we practice for others, but actually we do Shikantaza, which is just practice for the sake of practice.

[42:35]

That's true Samadhi. Just practice for the sake of practice. When we practice for the sake of practice, then Buddha takes care of the rest. Our practice emanates everywhere. And then he says, your treasure store will open of itself. Treasure store is komyozo samadhi. Treasure is the treasure store of radiant light. enlightenment, in other words. So that's what we have within ourselves, and that's what needs to be stimulated and opened up.

[43:44]

So Dogen says, if you practice the Samadhi, your treasure store, inherent in the practice. The practice. We don't practice to open it up, but it opens up because of practice. Someone defined Samadhi as the ever renewed continuation of the present. the ever-renewed continuation of the present, which we tend to think of time as passing, but we tend to think of time as passing and as if it were

[45:04]

on a reel or something, like going somewhere. But we tend to think of time in various ways, but you can also think of time as not moving, not going anywhere. And activity, things, just changing, on the face of or within the present time, which is not going anywhere. So it is always just the present. The present time, which doesn't go anywhere, doesn't come or go. There's just changing phenomena on the face of but it looks like time is going because of where we're standing.

[46:10]

Hard to see. Totally. So, we're always being renewed in the present moment. But the present moment hasn't gone anywhere and is not coming from someplace. So we call it the ever-present moment or the eternal moment. Well, it's just, you know, a way of speaking.

[47:37]

It's just a matter of speaking. I mean, um... Sit down. In two signs of it. Sit down and allow the light to come forth. Let go of everything. And instead of looking out there, look here.

[48:13]

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