Good morning, everyone, and welcome. There's some new people here, which is very nice this morning. So I'm Taigen Leighton, the teacher here. We are in the middle of, actually, we're near the end. Next weekend is the end of our two-month spring practice period. And we've been talking at least a lot of the time about a text the Mountains and Waters Sutra from Dogen Zenji, the 13th century Japanese teacher, monk, who started this branch of Zen, Shoto Zen, that we do here. So this is a difficult and challenging and I want to talk about some parts of it, but I want to talk about it this morning in terms of bodhisattva practice. So the practice we do here is the practice of the awakening beings, the enlightening beings common to all of North Asian Buddhism, including Zen.

[01:13]

And part of the point of bodhisattva practice is that we, when we do this practice, both our formal sitting, which we've just done, But through our expression of that awareness in our everyday life and activity, we're practicing not just for ourselves, but for all beings. So this idea of inclusivity, inclusion of all beings. And this is something that we come to not just see or understand, but actually feel experientially in are sitting as we do this practice regularly and for new people to sit to do this regularly every day or many days a week to take some time to just stop and sit upright and keep breathing and see what it is that actually is happening on your Kushner chair.

[02:20]

to actually be aware of this experience now, not just our ideas and stories about who we are and what the world is, but to actually settle and find our inner calm and energy and be present with that. And when we do that, so there is a personal benefit to this practice, of course, but also we see that we are, we feel, we realize that we are deeply connected with everything and everyone and all the people and beings Parents, friends, family, everybody in your life, people you don't even remember who've been in your life, who are part of what is happening on your cushion or chair right now. So the Bodhisattva practice is this deep interconnectedness where we connect with this awareness, which you've all done to some extent as you've been sitting here, and express that each in our own way, helpfully in the world.

[03:35]

So this text I want to talk a little bit about how this text is connected to aspects of our practice and of Bodhisattva practice, of this awakening practice that we train in here. So there are many intriguing and challenging aspects of this text. It starts off by talking about the mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the old Buddhas. the ancient Buddhas. Mountains and waters, though, as a compound in Chinese and Japanese, means landscape. So we could also call this the landscape sutra, which means not just the natural world, you know, when you get out there beyond the suburbs, but actually the landscape of, you know, Irving Park Road and the lake shore and all of the, you know, everything that we occupy in our day-to-day life throughout the week, wherever we are. So I've sometimes talked about this as the Prairies and Lakes Sutra, you know, given that we are living in the Midwest.

[04:45]

So I've asked sometimes, how many of you have never seen a mountain or been in a mountain? Well, so maybe you're not all native Chicagos, or you've traveled a little bit. But anyway, so this landscape of our life is what is the expression of ancient Buddhas, the actual landscape of the world, which we are part of. He says, because this is Well, that this is a circumstance, situation before the Calpa of Emptiness, or we could say before the Big Bang, there's something about this situation of this landscape that is not, that goes as if these mountains and waters and how they work, that is, ultimate beyond our ideas of history and all the stories we tell about ourselves and about Buddhism and so forth.

[05:47]

There's something about the actual place and places and breathing that we occupy that is about the ultimate universal truth. He says this is the self before the germination of subtle signs before we start naming things and labeling things and so forth. So they are actually the liberation of the immediate present. But what I wanted to talk about most today in terms of our actual practice, both when we're sitting on our cushions and When we go out into the world after experiencing this communion with the ultimate, let me find the beginning of this here, that he takes up an old saying by an old Chinese master,

[06:59]

who once said to his assembly, the blue mountains are constantly walking. A stone woman gives birth to a child at night. I've been reading it as green mountains, but actually the Chinese character here can be either one. Sometimes mountains are green, sometimes they're sort of blue. Anyway, but the point is that mountains are constantly walking. So this, of course, challenges our usual idea of the world and mountains as being very solid and stable and settled and, you know, permanent, as if there was such a thing. However, he says the mountains are... Dogen says the mountains are constantly at rest or constantly settled, and also they are constantly walking.

[08:04]

So there are many ways to hear that. Of course, in geological time, mountains shift and change and get worn down. But also, the mountain is the mountain, the rock is the mountain, the trees on it is the mountain, the birds around flying on it. What is the mountain? And when we sit still, as we've just done, sitting upright like mountains. Also, even if you sit very still, don't move, don't change your position. There's this constant movement. There's breath, there's thoughts, there's the blood circulating in our body. So there are many, many levels of seeing how mountains are constantly walking. And he goes on to talk about, although the walking of the blue mountains is faster than swift as the wind, those in the mountains do not sense this, do not know it.

[09:12]

To doubt the walking of the mountains means that one does not yet know one's own walking. It is not that one does not walk, but that one does not yet know, has not made clear this walking. Those who would truly know, truly realize their own walking must also see and experience the walking of these mountains. So what is this about? Well, these writings, the old sutras and especially Dogen's writings, have many layers and implications. One of those is that the Chinese character for walking, or at least one of them, also means conduct or perform, so that how the mountains are steadily conducting themselves or performing their mountainous is that issue here. And also that word means practice.

[10:16]

Combined with another character, it means practice. So actually, we could read it as the mountains are constantly practicing. So how do we How do we see the ways in which the mountains are steadily, constantly performing their mountainous for us? How is our Great Lake over here steadily expressing its lakeness? How is the landscape of our life performing and conducting itself? And how do we see that we are part of that? So our usual way of thinking about the world is that, you know, I'm sitting here in my seat or whatever, and then there are mountains and rivers and lakes and all that stuff out there. But in this constant walking, we're not separate.

[11:20]

We actually are expressions of this landscape of the world and our life. Our cells and tissue comes from the material of the world, and ultimately of the stars, actually, according to physics. These blue mountains are constantly walking. constantly practicing, constantly performing themselves. So one of the things that this has to teach us about bodhisattva practice, about how we realize and express that deepest awareness that is available to us when we sit, is about this constancy. The mountains are constantly expressing their mountainous and for us to do this practice, to realize this deepest wholeness and creativity and love that is available to us always.

[12:27]

It means practicing constantly or regularly. What does it mean for us to constantly practice? One level of that is when you first come, and there's quite a few newer practitioners here this morning, but when you first come and do this Zazen practice, it feels strange, it feels different, it feels other than our usual work in the world where we're working to get ahead or accomplish this or accomplish that. This is not about reaching some particular place. This is about, he says, to be in the mountains is a flower opening within the world. So how do we realize we are in the mountains or in the landscape if there's no mountains around? How do we realize that we are expressions of the prairies and lakes and rivers of our natural landscape? Or the avenues and skyscrapers even of our natural landscape?

[13:30]

How are we expressions of that? And the Bodhisattva practice is about being a flower opening within the world. How do we share and express this deepest creative energy, this deepest wholeness in our own lives. And again, quoting Foo-Rung Tao-Yang says, Foo-Rung Tao-Kai, that's another name of his, that These mountains are constantly walking, constantly practicing, constantly performing themselves, constantly shifting. So sometimes the mountains are like snow, like in the image that Kastanahashi left us on the wall there. The mountains are the snow. Sometimes the mountains are spring-like and spring is arising and everything.

[14:32]

Sometimes the mountains get worn down. Sometimes the mountains erupt and tectonic plates come together and new mountains form. Our life is like that too, on a much different time scale, of course. How do we see the constant practice of our lives? And part of what this is emphasizing, again, is this sustainable practice, this regular practice. So I encourage you all to sit every day or several times a week at least to do this physical practice regularly because part of how it works and part of how we then express the landscape and support the landscape and love the mountains and are loved by the mountains and waters and lakes is to regularly stop and just be able to, whatever is going on, with all the thoughts that are rolling around in our head or wherever they are, with all the physical sensations, the discomfort in your knees or shoulders or whatever, as we are sitting,

[15:47]

Well, some of you may not have this, but probably some of the people in this last period had some thoughts as you were sitting. Maybe a few thoughts came up. Some people are smiling. They actually did have thoughts this time. So some of you may not have had any thoughts during this last period. I don't know. Anyway, either way, the point isn't about whether or not there's thinking going on. This is also just the performance and conduct of our mountainness or our humanness. But when we stop and sit still and upright and face the wall or face ourselves, we have a deeper appreciation of how this can be the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality, like the mountains. So to do this regularly and constantly is one important part of the Bodhisattva practice. There are other things in this text that, that's maybe the main thing I want to talk about is just to do this regularly.

[17:02]

But when we can do it regularly, when we can pay attention, so sometimes, as I started to say, Zazen feels like very special, you know, it's different from our usual way of being in the world. But when you do it regularly over some time, we start to see how even if you're in the middle of a work situation where there's various pressures and so forth, you can stop, you can pause, hit the pause button and just take a breath. remind yourself of this background awareness of the mountains and landscape and your own mountains and landscape constantly performing and in all kinds of situations in the midst of the difficulties of relationships and confusion and fears and whatever's going on in our life and the world, it starts to be that it's not like something radically different from this groundedness.

[18:07]

As we sit on this floor, which, you know, as we're doing walking meditation, we actually, you know, have this assumption, this radical assumption that when we lift our foot and place it down that the floor will be there. to meet our foot, and it kind of works. Nobody fell through the floor this morning that I can tell. So, you know, this, you know, and eventually, like everything, this floor won't be here and something else will. Buildings come and go. Everything comes and goes, like the mountains, like our lives. And yet, our steady walking, our steady practicing, our steady performance of ourselves is how we start to liberate all beings. We do this together with everyone. Again, you can't practice this by yourself. I mean, you can go home and sit by yourself, but also, because there's some thoughts in there, everyone is there. And so, in going back to China and...

[19:14]

Japan and East Asian practice, we have these meditation halls where we come together and support each other to do this practice. And so, like the mountains, there's this, we are doing walking meditation, we are kind of constantly walking, taking each next step. So what is this about? How do we do this? How do we sustain this? Again, there are many, many recommendations. In the Jewel Mary Samadhi teaching poem we talked about last year during our practice period, Just to do this practice continuously, constantly, is called the host within the host, or the master among masters. The ultimate of this practice is just to find a way to sustain it, to continue paying attention to your life, paying attention to your actual experience beyond your stories.

[20:18]

It's not that we should get rid of all the stories. Or we can, you know, when we start to be familiar with these stories, we can, you know, shift how we see them. Tell ourselves new stories about who we are and what the world is. And yet, also, there is the rawness and tenderness and starkness of this next breath. And the exhale that will follow it. And this situation, sitting on your cushion or chair, right now, how do we appreciate the fullness of this? Well, we can't, actually. And this is part of what he talks about, too, is the limitations of our awareness, the limitations of our perception. And I'll get to that, but to know that we can only see, we can only feel a part of all the, everything is

[21:19]

We couldn't, you know, the largest hard drive in all the whole planet could not measure the complexity and fullness and wonder of everything that's going on in this room right now. All the thoughts, all the feelings, all the experiences. So we practice as Sangha, as community. And yet each one of you has a whole network of communities, and that's all part of what's going on in this room right now. So we can't see all of it, and that's okay. Still, we are it. Or it is us, maybe more accurately. This whole landscape of our world is expressing itself. This whole landscape of your world is expressing itself. in your breath, in your posture, in your thoughts even, in the way you're holding your hands right now, all of life is coming up on each of our cushions and chairs.

[22:27]

And we're doing that together. So the richness of our experience helps us connect with all the beings who maybe don't have a way or haven't found a way yet to settle into this deeper reality to calm and settle and enjoy your breathing. And all the beings who are suffering in all kinds of terrible ways all over the planet. And the beings who are confused and suffering on your own Kushner chair maybe too. Or maybe they're not right now. Maybe they're okay. I hope so. And yet all of us have been damaged. by our experience of tumbling around with the other mountains and waters. All of us have had loss or sadness and it's important to see that too. So this constant walking is a very intricate and complex event that we're all part of.

[23:29]

Dogen says a little later, even when we attain the crowning appearance of the vision of the mountains or the landscape as the inconceivable virtue of the Buddhas, their reality is more than this. Very important. Each of these appearances is the particular objective and subjective result of past karma, past breaths and actions and speech and so forth. So he says, explaining the mind and explaining the nature is not affirmed by Buddhas and ancestors. Seeing the mind and seeing the nature is the business of non-practitioners, people outside the way. So the seeing the mind and seeing the nature, seeing the nature in Japanese is Kensho, some of you have made. heard that there are branches of Zen that encourage some experience, some, you know, peak experience, or some realization of, or some satori, or some seeing into the reality.

[24:42]

And, you know, that's okay when that happens, but that's not the point of this at all. That's what Dogen is saying here. How do we instead just sustain this possibility of each of us expressing the flowers opening within the world. How do we enjoy this spring weather here in Chicago where spring is rising and everything and we feel, after a long hard winter, this energy in ourselves and in everything around us. So this practice is not about reaching some special state of being or state of mind or reaching some, you know, peak of spiritual exaltation or any of that. I mean, you know, if that happens, okay, that's part of the flow of the mountains and waters. But how do we sustain our attention and our own practice for the sake of

[25:45]

Well, of ourselves, but of all beings, because we are all beings. We are connected with this ultimate reality. And each of us has our own particular expression of that. So this is a long text, so I just want to talk about a few other parts of this and have some time for discussion. One part of what he says, which I haven't really talked about so much in this practice period, he talks about people who think that such sayings as the Blue Mountains are constantly walking are incomprehensible. And Dogen says very emphatically, simply because you yourself do not comprehend these sayings, there's no reason for you not to study the path. comprehended by the Buddhas and ancestors.

[26:48]

So some people think that Zen teaching is kind of nonsensical or incomprehensible and that gets us outside of our usual way of thinking and that is liberation. And he very much criticizes that. These strange Zen stories and Zen sayings are not incomprehensible. That doesn't mean we should try and figure them out. It just means that what this is talking about is something very deep that we can't completely see. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we see this logic of awakening that is being talked about in all of this. It's not that it can't be understood, but the point of our practice is to actually express it, not to constantly allow the flowing of the mountains and the changes of the water. Water changes from lakes to rivers to clouds to rain to ice.

[27:53]

All of this is constantly the expression of this landscape. So he talks about water a lot too. How water has many different forms and is seen in many different ways. There was a study of water seeing water. Water practices and verifies water. Hence, there was a study of water speaking of or expressing water. Water is not limited to what we think it is. So, for all of us, if we went to the bottom of Lake Michigan, if we stayed there any longer time, we'd drown. But for the fish, if they came up onto Irving Park Road and visited us up front, they would drown. Water looks differently to different beings. And there are many different kinds of beings, beings that we don't even realize. So some see water, he says, as miraculous flowers, though it does not follow that they use flowers as water.

[28:57]

Hungry ghosts see water as raging flames or as pus and blood. So we do a ceremony every fall too. pacify the insatiable beings who are caught up in consumerism and feel like they can't have enough of whatever, can't appreciate what they have. Dragons and fish see water as a palace or a tower. Others see it as woods and walls or as the Dharma nature of immaculate liberation. So how we see water or mountains, how we see our life is limited by our perceptual capacities, we can't see how wonderful this next breath is, how complex it is, or how all the different aspects of reality that go into just this next breath. And the cells in your body, which I've heard every seven years, all the cells in your body regenerate or change.

[30:01]

who you were before seven years ago was a whole different being in some real physical way, even though we can tell stories about things that happened to us eight or ten or twenty years ago. So called us. So how do we settle more deeply into expressing ourselves, being helpful in the world, and feeling our connection to our natural landscape? And by natural landscape, I'm now including the street and the cement and the pavement and the buildings. All of this is a product of this natural world that includes some smart monkeys who have opposable thumbs and build things. So how do we appreciate and express this?

[31:06]

For the sake of all beings, which means also for the sake of us, of course. So water has many forms. Lakes and rivers, mountains and the landscape have many forms. There's one part where he talks about how mountains love the people who live in them. So we... I've been reading from a different translation than the one I've been using most of the last two months. However, many great sages and wise men, we suppose, have assembled in the mountains. Ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. There was only the expression of the mountain way of life.

[32:07]

Not a single trace of their having entered remains. So, when we actually appreciate the fullness of our life, we can love the landscape we live in. look at how to take care of it. And each of us has different ways of doing that. When sages and wise people live in the mountains, because the mountains belong to them, trees and rocks flourish and abound, and the birds and beasts take on a supernatural excellence, he says. This is because the sages and wise men have covered them with their virtue. We should realize that the mountains actually take delight in wise people, actually take delight in sages. So part of this, talking about mountains and waters also is, mountains is kind of slang in a sense for, Zen teachers and temples, a lot of the classic masters took their name from mountains, the mountain where they taught. And water in the form of clouds is a nickname for the practitioners who wandered around in China and Japan, Unsui in Japanese, water, cloud water, and went around to different mountains.

[33:26]

And of course that happens in nature too, as the clouds settle on the mountains. So the point is that we can each find our own way to settle in, appreciate the landscape of our lives, the situation of our lives, even with the things that feel difficult, even with the sadnesses, the complexity and richness of this landscape of our own lives. allows us the opportunity to walk like mountains, to perform the practice of bodhisattvas, to express something helpful for the world. And as we all know, the world really needs it now. We're sort of in a mess. But how do we practice together and each of us in our own way? So it's not one right way to respond to the difficulties of the landscape. But the Bodhisattva teachings give us hints at how to practice for the landscape and with the landscape and as expressions of the landscape of our own lives in this world.

[34:42]

So the Bodhisattva practice teachings are vast, but I'll just mention a few. One is the practice of generosity. How do we give gifts to ourselves and to others? And how do we receive gifts of others? How do we receive the gift of all the beings in our lives that allow us to find a way to be steady and open and expressive in our lives? So this is a complex practice. We might ask, what is the most effective way to give? But sometimes the most effective way to give is just to give without any concern about what the result of it will be. So each of these practices is a great challenge. Another one is the practice of patience.

[35:44]

So as you sit waiting for the bell to ring during a period of meditation, or as you sit waiting for whoever's up here to stop babbling, we learn patience. This is a practice that helps us to be patient. And patience is not a passive practice. Patience in some ways is the heart of our practice. Patience means to be attentive and aware. And then if we're doing that, if we're feeling what we're feeling and studying, sitting with how it is to be the person on your cushion or chair, Then when we see if we're really practicing patience and attentiveness and just watching what it's like to be here and taking the next breath, then we have the opportunity, maybe sometimes anyway, to respond to some situation that needs help. to be willing to respond. And we may not necessarily know what is the most effective response, but the practice of skillful means, another one of these practices, is to, through trial and error, through attention, through calmness, through insight, to be able to respond helpfully to the landscape of the mountains and waters and buildings and avenues all around us.

[37:08]

And then maybe the last one I'll mention is prajnaparamita, the practice of insight. So if we're paying attention, if we're settling, if we're calming, if we're generous to ourselves as well as all beings, we have this possibility of looking into, sometimes it's translated as wisdom, but it's not about some super knowledge, it's about actually being present and looking into what's important right now. And when we're calm and settled, and when we have this regular practice of returning to that regularly through our week, we have the opportunity to see what's important right now and how to respond and how to be a part of the landscape of the mountains and waters and prairies and lakes that is helpful to the whole landscape. So we're connected in many ways. And we can't see it all because water looks different to different beings.

[38:13]

Our life looks different. And this room looks different from where you're sitting in the room. So that's just a little bit about this wonderful practice of enlightening beings. Just to close at the end of this Mountains and Waters scripture that Dogen has somehow compiled for us, it talks about beings in many, many places. There are worlds within water, there are worlds within clouds, there are worlds of sentient beings, within wind there's a world of sentient beings, within fire, within earth, there are whole realms of sentient beings and awakening beings. Among mountains as well, there are mountains hidden in jewels, there are mountains hidden in marshes, mountains hidden in the sky, there are mountains hidden inside mountains.

[39:21]

There is a study of mountains hidden in hiddenness. So just because we can't see necessarily the mountains, Constantly walking doesn't mean that we can't partake of their wisdom and support our own lives to express something deep and helpful and wonderful. So I'll stop there, but I want to encourage anyone who has comments, responses, questions, please feel free. And sometimes the mountains and waters are silent. Sometimes that's the best response, but then we can hear the little ripples of the flowing water. So again, any comments are welcome.

[40:27]

Nirsana is our shuso or head monk for the practice period. Do you want to add anything? Any little bits of whatever. No, I mean, nothing comes immediately to mind. I love this text, and I enjoyed your talk very much. The question that you raise, and partly partly addressed today about how this kind of a piece of Dogen's thinking, it applies or enters into the actual practice, is something that I've struggled with, you know, trying to get a kind of a grasp on or an understanding. So I found that very helpful to talk about that. Because it's good to be reminded, as we often do here, that that's what all this stuff is ultimately for.

[41:44]

It's not for our entertainment or even edification. It's for informing how we might live our lives more bodhisattvically. Yes, Nicholas. And I was feeling similar to how I feel when I watch a no-list special about string theory or, you know, like these mysteries of the subatomic world. And in some way, I feel like that's what, you know, Delvin is describing, is like these incredible mysteries that are scientifically known at this point, but we can't perceive them. You know, literally the mom is in the marsh, you know. Yes, modern science, and especially modern physics, is catching up with Dogen, yeah.

[43:16]

Yes, Jane. Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you and Sensei Kaz for opening the doors to Dogen, because I never thought until your translations that I would in any way be able to perceive it and start to understand it. And so much is wrapped up in the rivers and mountains, so many of the treasures and different marks, etc. I just keep wanting to make it so simple that if we, as a world, understood that we would stop so many of the destructive things that we do. Just that interconnectedness. Even myself, walking down the street, in a room, perhaps, of someone that you're immediately not drawn to. But just to sit for a minute and say, yet still, there's a connection.

[44:22]

There's a relationship. So it's such an important piece. Just this piece could stop destruction. Yeah. And even though our practice period is ending, Next week, a week from today, I've been feeling like I just want to keep teaching from this text for the rest of my life. And how we respond to all the difficulties of the world and the dangers of climate damage and so forth is all kind of clarified or helped or supported by seeing this deep interrelationship of the landscape. And it's something, you know, it's not that it's incomprehensible. We can't, because of the way physics is, because of the way reality is, we can't get a hold of it. We can't grab it. It's beyond our physical and intellectual and spiritual capacities, and yet we are it, and how we respond can make a difference and can help the landscape not just survive, but sustain itself.

[45:40]

So it's important. Yes, Ken, hi. Thank you for your poetic talk. We're using two words nearby each other, practice and performance, or perform, and I was wondering if you could talk a little more about that. Yeah, in some ways, practice means cultivation and cultivating is one way to talk about it. And the etymology of it in Chinese is to cultivate virtues and to become more spiritually whatever. But also I feel like it's really about performance. So this zazen we just did, Each of us was, in our own way, performing Buddha on a Kushner chair. And this is the point. It's not some abstract idea somewhere else.

[46:43]

It's about how do we actually perform the Buddha way. That's where Buddha is right now. So this is still May 2014 in Chicago. Buddha's right here in each one of us. And, you know, we may be, our posture may be, you know, by some, according to somebody, better or worse, or we may be squirming more or less or whatever. It really doesn't matter. The point is that each of us is performing our life in a way that helps ourselves to settle and the beings around us. I was talking to someone earlier who just started practicing recently and his old neighbors recognized something was different. What? When you do this practice, when you perform this practice, there's some different energy.

[47:43]

And you may not see it yourself. And that's usually the case, actually. But at least after a while, if you're doing it constantly, regularly, how you perform the rest of your life, too, will be perfumed, is the word they use by it. Yeah, so this practice is about actually performing the practice. It's not theoretical. It's a physical performance that we each do and we sit on a cushion and sit still for however long it is, 35 minutes I think this morning. Yes? I will mention that there's one of these Oxford books by Steve Hine and Dale Wright edited, and you have an essay, I think it's in the one called Zen Ritual, about Zazen as what, ritual expression or something? Ritual enactment, yeah. Ritual enactment. It's really, I'd recommend it to anybody. It's really a very good, very helpful essay, and perfectly on this point. Yeah, so to start with the word ritual in there, we do lots of these forms here.

[48:49]

For new people, they may seem intimidating or something. That's not what it's about. It's not about doing it correctly. But the way we hold our hands when we walk and the bows and everything we do are expressions of something. And we each work more or less at performing those rituals. But the ritual is a way of finding some physical expression of what we're talking about. So yeah, thank you for asking about performance. It's about time to stop, but maybe if there's one last comment or question, I'll take that response. The air conditioning went on, it's a response, so we'll stop right there.

[49:42]

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