So good evening, everyone. I want to talk tonight about courage and facing fear. I'm going to start with a short talk that Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, gave in 1242. And this is from Dogen's extensive record that I translated with Choakok Gomorrah, we call this one The Courage of Patchroad Monks. But for our purposes, we can hear this as The Courage of Dedicated Practitioners. So I'm just going to read the whole thing first, and then I'm going to comment on it, and we'll talk more. So Dogen said, the courage of a fisherman is to enter the water without avoiding deep sea dragons. The courage of a hunter is to travel the earth without avoiding tigers. The courage of a general is to face the drawn sword before him and see death as just like life.

[01:08]

What is the courage of dedicated practitioners? After a pause, Dogen said, spread out your bedding and sleep. Set out your bowls and eat rice. Exhale through your nostrils. Radiate light from your eyes. Do you know there is something that goes beyond? With vitality, eat lots of rice and then use the toilet. Transcend your personal prediction of future Buddhahood from Gautama. So I want to go through this and again talk about courage and fear. So it says, the courage of a fisherman is to enter the water without avoiding deep sea dragons. And I guess at this time, they believed there were deep sea dragons. And actually the first few sentences are paraphrases from the great Taoist ancestor Zhuangzi.

[02:15]

So the courage of a fisherman is to enter the waters, the water without avoiding deep sea dragons. The courage of a hunter is to travel the earth without avoiding tigers. The courage of a general or a warrior is to face the drawn sword before him and see death as just like life. So these are, this is a paraphrase from Dranta. He lived in around 300, 400 BC. our timing, then Dogen says, what is the courage of dedicated practitioners? After a pause, and in these short talks from his extensive record, actually the monks were standing and he was sitting in the Dharma, speaking in the Dharma hall, and he paused after asking, what is the courage of patro monks or dedicated practitioners? And he said, spread out your bedding and sleep.

[03:19]

Set out your bowls and eat rice. Exhale through your nostrils. So that's about everyday activity. The common activity of the monks in Dogen's monastery, the common activity of all of us, sleeping, eating, exhaling. And in some ways this reminds me of the later Soto Zen slogan, Nemitsu no Kafu. This is the house style, the Kafu, the style of the branch of Zen that we call Soto, of Nemitsu, which is attention to detail, picking up every thread. So Pay attention as you spread out your bedding and sleep, set out your bowls and eat rice, exhale through your nostrils, and then, no guess, radiate light from your eyes.

[04:30]

This is not how we usually think of everyday activity. We usually think of eyes as receiving light and color and forms and shapes. The Dogen says, radiate light from your eyes. So maybe this is the everyday activity of Buddha practitioners. There are many sutras where it talks about Shakyamuni Buddha radiating light from, well, from his third eye, sending out light beings to beings. After that, Dogen says, do you know there is something that goes beyond? This is a common way of talking for Dogen. He talks about going beyond Buddha. Whatever awareness, whatever realization has come to you, the practice is to go beyond, to meet the next situation, to meet the next day.

[05:43]

Do you know there is something that goes beyond? And then Dogen says, with vitality, eat lots of rice and then use the toilet. Again, our everyday activity. Then he says, transcend your personal prediction of future Buddhahood from Gautama. So this is a reference to the Lotus Sutra. In the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, before he became the Buddha, talked to all the different practitioners, and for each of the Arhat practitioners, his main disciples, he, as well as to Bodhisattvas, he predicted, you will be a Buddha in the future age, and he would name a time in a certain Buddha field, and he would name the place, and he would say the name of the Buddha that you will become. And then in the Lotus Sutra it goes on, he goes on to basically in effect say that all beings eventually will become Buddha, become a Buddha.

[07:03]

Dogen is saying transcend your personal prediction of future Buddhahood from Gautama. So don't, he says elsewhere, do not try to become Buddha. Do not deliberately practice in order to become Buddha. So the everyday stuff that he's talking about is our awareness, is our awakening, is our practice. You don't have to, we don't practice for some future awakening, some future special state or realization or understanding, just now, just this, all this everyday stuff, this is our practice. We don't need to reach some special state of being or state of awareness. All just this everyday stuff he's been talking about. So the courage of a dedicated practitioner, of a patchwork monk, is just to do this everyday activity.

[08:13]

So compared to a fisherman who goes out and into the deep ocean where there are dragons, or the courage of a hunter who travels the earth, and I guess back then there were lions and tigers and bears. And so the hunter had to face those. The courage of a warrior is to face the drawn sword before him and see death as just like life. Not to worry about death, but just to be present. Those are special courages, but for Tatra monk for the dedicated practitioner. Just to get up in the morning, just to go to work or just to find your seat and do zazen. And exhale, and then of course inhale again.

[09:22]

Eat lots of food and then use the bathroom, use the toilet. Everyday stuff, everyday, everyday. Ordinary life is the way. Don't worry about becoming, don't even think about becoming whatever, a Buddha, sometime else, somewhere else. Just this is it. How do we enjoy? Maybe enjoying is even too much. How do we just take the next, do the next thing? eating our meal, sleeping when it's time to sleep, inhale and exhale. This is the courage of Zen practitioners, just to continue, just to continue in this way, ordinary, ordinary, ordinary, everyday stuff. Just to listen to the sirens.

[10:40]

Just to show up. On our Zazen seat. At our job or whatever. Just to continue. This doesn't seem like great courage, but this is what Dogen is saying. To actually take on our everyday activity. Don't worry about, forget about becoming a Buddha. You're already predicted to become a Buddha, all of you. You will be a Buddha at some future time. Shakyamuni Buddha said it in the Lotus Sutra. And he went around and said, Mike, you'll be the Buddha so and so in such and such a world system. Forget about it. How do you do your life, your everyday life right now? Just show up and just to continue. So this is about the courage of a Zen practitioner.

[11:51]

But when we talk about this, of course, all of us are subject to fears. And courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is that we face our fear. So, of course, in our time, It's easy to be afraid. There are lots of things to be afraid. There's all of the problems of our own everyday personal life. There are wars. There's climate damage. There's injustice. All those things that can happen. Of course, we may feel afraid of those. But the point here is just to keep doing our everyday stuff. So in Buddhism, they talk about five fears. Do you all know the five fears? Maybe you all do. Does everybody know the five fears? Okay, somebody definitely. So, in very traditional Buddhism, they talk about five fears.

[12:58]

There's fear of death. I know some of you feel that. Some of you have told me you're fearful about death. unlike the general or warrior who sees death as just like life when he faces battle. So the fear of death is one. I'm not sure if I have this in the right order, but it doesn't matter. Fear of loss of livelihood. This is a big one. Loss of livelihood could lead to becoming homeless, unhoused, and all kinds of things in our society. I remember when I was in my early 20s and I had a really good job at a big company and I realized that a lot of the people there were just terrified of losing their job.

[14:09]

This was when I was doing film editing. It was at NBC. And instead of enjoying their work, they were afraid of losing their job. And I thought, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be like them. But it's true. We can all fear loss of livelihood. The third one is fear of loss of reputation. So this is very available. What will people think of me? Afterwards, will I think, oh, that was a lousy talk. Why did he talk about that? All of us have ways of thinking about loss of reputation. And we want people to appreciate us and to like us even sometimes. But, you know, what do people think of me?

[15:17]

This is something that's very common as a fear. And the point I want to make is that courage is to face all these fears. It's not to get rid of fears. Maybe some of them we feel more strongly at different times, but we have to actually be aware of these fears. The fourth one is fear of strange states of mind. Oh no, I'm gonna go crazy. So this is very available too. Fear of strange mental states. How many people here recognize some of these fears? Yeah, I think everybody's raised their hand, yeah. The fifth one is interesting.

[16:19]

Fear of public speaking. It doesn't seem as, you know, as powerful as fear of death or fear of loss of livelihood. Public speaking is my job, so I've gotten used to it. But yeah, after we're gonna, in a little while, I'm gonna ask for people's comments or questions or responses. And you may be nervous about saying something out loud. Anyway, courage is about facing our fears. It's about, and that means knowing our fears. Tolkien says elsewhere, to study the way is to study the self. We see our own fear. Sometimes we see our own courage when we're willing to keep going. Just keep going. Just do this ordinary stuff.

[17:23]

But these fears are available. How do we acknowledge them? We say all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born of body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. So all of us have the karma as human beings of having these five fears available. So again, courage is to be willing to take your dharma position, to be willing to do a life that you're doing. and just to continue. And that doesn't mean that things don't change. Sometimes people move to a different house, or they take on a different job, or start a new relationship, or end a relationship. These things happen. There are changes. But how do we just continue and face our fear of loss of reputation, or loss of livelihood, or death itself?

[18:35]

And continue. Just continue. Spread out your bedding and sleep. Set out your bowl and eat rice. Exhale through your nostrils. a good Zazen instruction. Radiate light from your eyes. What about this radiating light from your eyes? How do you face these fears and yet look around, maybe with a twinkle or a spark, or just see that the light is coming forth from our eyes. And here we are. Those of us here at Ebeneezer in this dark room, but there are lights here. How do we just face our lives? So the dramatic kinds of courage of facing dragons or tigers or a drawn sword before you, whatever, the fear that is

[19:57]

overwhelming for people of Ukraine now as they face destruction of their cities and loss of life and more bombs. This can be a difficult world. So courage, bravery is not about doing something dramatic necessarily. It's how do we continue? How do we face all this? How are we willing to be afraid? but not be overwhelmed by it. So a great American president said, all you have to fear is fear itself. Don't be afraid of these fears. This is about, this is also about, you know, zazen, just sitting, shikantaza. As we sit, as we sit upright, inhale, exhale, Thoughts and feelings come.

[21:00]

How do we face them without being afraid? Or with being afraid. Let's still take the next breath. Or with being confused. Or with feeling anger. Or with feeling sadness. all of the possibilities of what we might fear. And yet, we can continue and we can face those fears. So these talks in Dogen's extensive record are short and sort of simple. This one is from 1242. This was the first of four years in which almost all of Shobo Genzo essays were given by Dogen. But here is just, you know, sitting up on a seat and talking to his students.

[22:08]

What is the courage of a dedicated practitioner? So, comments, questions, responses about fear, about courage, about just facing our life. Any comments? Yes, Hoketsu. Thank you very much, Taigen, for this beautiful writing from Ehekuroku. I was struck by, not so much courage, but by vitality and brightness. Yes. And I thought, oh, you know, we're all behind these masks in this time. I don't think, I don't know if Dogen's group was wearing masks, you know, all this time. But the brightness, you know, is also kind of the brightness of this seeing through our ideas of things, let's say, or seeing through or not reifying fear or courage.

[23:16]

And the vitality is, you know, we're also kind of a collapsed society right now. Yes, you know, we've been kind of worn down. So I found it very heartening. So thank you very much for offering this. Yes, thank you, Hoke. So yes, this is about courage, but also what he's talking about when he's talking about courage is, yeah, being alive, vitality. And yes, we are, along with everything else, we are just getting through or, well, the pandemic isn't actually over, but it's fading, it seems. And we're meeting here together. And it's wonderful, it's wonderful. Together. It's great. Bye, everyone. So yes, thank you. I'll get to it. How do we express the brightness? How do we share our vitality? How do we encourage each other? So courage is not just me facing these things.

[24:19]

It's like we do this together. This is also about song, but how do we encourage each other? How do we share vitality and brightness with each other? I wondered, did you know what was happening at that time? I wonder if his monks were a little worn out or not showing up for dinner or something. I wondered what was happening in Jodhens. Yeah, it's interesting when we hear old teachings, what's the historical context? yeah and 1242 we don't know he moved in the next year he moved in 1243 he uprooted his whole Sangha and they moved way north at that time it was I don't know several days or maybe a week's walking to get to far north mountains, north of Kyoto, in what was called Echizen and now called Fukui.

[25:24]

But he never says anything about why he moved. There's lots of speculation. Scholars are always, you know, whether he was feeling pressure from the established Buddhist schools in Kyoto There's some story that his temple was burned down. I don't think there's any historical evidence of that. There was a, where his temple was, Koshoji, at that time in southern Kyoto, he got moved later down to Uji, further south. But there was a new Rinzai temple that was being built at a fancy Rinzai master, and he'd been in China too. And the emperor was building this big temple for him, Tofukuji, fairly close to where Dogen was. So it may have been that competition. But also, he may have moved because of positive reasons.

[26:25]

He had always talked about living in the mountains. He was living in the city like we are, but he wanted, he kind of dreamed of moving to the mountains. And also he had a, a patron, a one-eyed patron of the samurai who lived up there. And some of his students, some of his monks were from there. So anyway, at the time when he's giving this talk, he might've been thinking about that. There, I think there wasn't any armed conflict going on at that time, but there had been. A little bit before Dogen was born, there had been big civil wars and there were bodies in the streets of Kyoto. So it was a time when the warrior, new warrior government was up in Kamakura. So it was a time of change. Let me know about that. Other comments or responses or questions? Anybody on Zoom too? Aisha.

[27:29]

Thank you. This all reminded me of something that I did not create myself, but reposted on Facebook recently about a Buddhist monk who goes to a classroom to give a talk at, I think, a college or maybe a high school, and writes on the chalkboard everyone wants to save the world but no one wants to help mom with the dishes and then he goes on to give a talk about how helping mom with the dishes is saving the world because everything that we do you know is we just we do what's in front of us and i am thinking about you know maybe especially the president of ukraine now who you know, was a comedian, and I guess still is a comedian, but it became the president of Ukraine and has had to take up a whole different situation, you know? And probably, maybe, I don't know, I have no idea, but possibly something that he never imagined would

[28:35]

be happening or befall him. And I think about, you know, how that's true for all of us, you know, where we are at any given time, but we don't know what we could be encountering. And we certainly didn't know two years ago, you know, what we would be kind of brought into with the pandemic. And yet we rise to the occasion. And I feel like that's what this talk is saying, that we, whatever the circumstances, we meet them. Yes. Yes, we meet what's in front of us. So I remember when the pandemic started, March 2020, and we had to, you know, not be present at Irving Park. And everybody thought, well, this is going to be for a couple of months. Here we are. And it's still not really over, but you know, it's eased.

[29:38]

But yeah, so the president of Ukraine now is a symbol of courage all over the world. And the people of Ukraine are symbols of courage all over the world now. They're just facing what's in front of them. Bombs are coming down, buildings are falling. Some of them try to get to Poland or somewhere else to not be in a war zone. Some of them are now hungry with no electricity, with no water. The cities that are mostly bombed out. So Dogen says elsewhere, talking in Gencho Koan, he talks about when the need is, when the field is small, the need is small. So sometimes, you know, just to do the dishes is what's needed.

[30:42]

But sometimes something happens and we have to put on masks. Or in this case, I get to take off my mask because I'm giving the talk tonight. We agreed on that. And the rules. So yeah, this is about following the rules in a way, but the rules are not just something that somebody's imposing on us. It's like karma. It's what's happening. It's, you know, a pandemic or an invasion or I've got to get up in the morning. Thank you. Yes, hi. I'm curious about the The fourth fear is the unusual states of mind. Is that intended to encompass pain, anger, embarrassment?

[31:48]

And the reason I ask is that there seems like a lot of fears missing. fear of illness, fear of just, well, I guess embarrassment could fall under that, but I'm wondering what is implied by unusual states of mind. You know, I think that partly applies to Zazen itself. You know, in Zazen, we can just be sitting there and drowsy or enjoying our breathing, enjoying our inhale and exhale. But sometimes, yes, there's pain. Or sometimes there's heartache, you know, we feel some regret about something that happened yesterday or five years ago or whatever. Or, you know, it just comes up. Thoughts and feelings come up. And sometimes, you know, radiating light from our eyes, you know, from our...

[32:52]

Sometimes there are strange, exotic experiences. Not just in Zaza, in life. And you know, that relates to, all of these in some ways relate to fear of the unknown. When something happens that's beyond our usual state of mind. Oh no, am I going crazy? What's going on? But all of these have to do with facing change, you know, in some way or another. Death, loss of livelihood, loss of reputation, even public speaking. Oh no, what are they gonna think of me? Maybe I'll just start babble-a-ble-a-ble-a-ble-a-ble-a-ble-a-ble babbling. So yeah, I think it's what it's all of them. But it's interesting that they pulled that one out, you know? I wonder if it was also at that time

[33:56]

early in India, I think these come from Indian, early Indian texts, that people also believed that the spirit world was very close. And there were a lot of superstitions, like some of these, you know, take over your mind, body like possession, or, you know, people may have like eaten funny mushrooms that they were picking and were like, what's happening. I mean, that's my literal interpretation. I think it expanded across time, but, you know, it could have been very terrifying to think, oh my gosh, what did that sound mean in the dark? And this was permanent. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. But, you know, I mean, we have this this worldview of kind of science and things are, you know, a normality, whatever that means. You know, the physical world is the physical world.

[35:00]

But actually, reality goes way beyond that, you know. I was just reading another article about the mycorrhizal and how trees, the forests are alive and intelligent. And it's not how we usually think. You know, we think the world is a bunch of dead objects. Suddenly something shows up and it's not how we usually think. And that happens. And so, yeah, in India, but also in Japan, at Dogen's time, And I think in many times, you know, fear of the unknown, fear of spirits, fear of the miraculous, fear of, you know, the extraordinary. Sometimes we can embrace those states, but, yeah, and then we can identify with it. We think we're going crazy because, oh no, I saw this ghost, whatever, or whatever it is.

[36:04]

So yeah, thank you, I think that's good. As you were mentioning the trees and how they think, it suddenly occurred to me that fear of unusual states of mind doesn't have to include or be limited to my state of mind. Right. I meet somebody else with a very different frame of reference, I don't have to be afraid of that either. Well yeah, and if we're walking down the street and we see an unhoused person or somebody, you know, it used to be if you see somebody talking loudly to themselves, you think there's something strange or crazy. Now we know it's just a cell phone, but, you know, fear of the unknown, strange states of being, strange states of, strange things happening. So I want to be mindful of the time here. We have a little bit more time.

[37:06]

How about our online people? Yes. Hi, Matt. Hi, Amina. I don't think I know William, but Amina, did you have a comment? No, I feel like I should because I feel like I have a relationship to fear that has grown as I've gotten older. You know, like, like I was afraid of fewer things when I was younger. I'm afraid of more things now. And I don't know if that's just because I've maybe experienced more loss or I'm like close, you know, like getting, getting older, I'm like, could be closer to death or closer to sickness. Or, you know, those are some of the things that scare me, but I feel like I should have a lot to say because of, because of my relationship, what I think is my relationship to fear. And because the last couple of years have been. you know, with pandemic there has, you know, kind of fearful in certain ways and just because of like the climate crisis and because of things like the present war, you know, and other wars and other places.

[38:11]

But no, I'm just, I'm just listening, I guess. Yeah, there's a lot that we can be afraid of. There's a lot to be afraid of. And what you were saying about being younger, I think younger people maybe are I could say more reckless, but just more willing to try different things. And sometimes as we get older, we get kind of stuck in our ways, as they say. Yeah, I keep doing things, you know? So for instance, I've had a fear of flying for a long time, but I've never stopped flying. And I think about that, you know, sometimes people say you have to face your fears and you just have to do the things that make you afraid. And then I think, well, yeah, so the end result should be that you're no longer afraid of them. But it isn't necessarily true. Because I have to talk in public sometimes, and I'm afraid of it. But I do it.

[39:11]

I haven't stopped doing it. But I think it's a myth that you lose the fear if you just use something enough. I don't know. That's the whole point here. It's not about getting rid of your fears. And sometimes some fears do go away. That can happen. But the point is exactly that we have fears. And so how do we still get up in the morning, take our seat, face our life in the middle of fear? Courage is not fearlessness. Courage is facing fears. Like the hunter willing to face whatever wild animals are around. So that's exactly right, Amina. We have fears. We have to acknowledge our fears when we face them, somehow. And I have a fear of going over time, but... William may have had a question.

[40:18]

No. Hi, William. I don't think I've met you. Where are you coming from? Where are you? Thank you so much. I have been listening to you with your podcasts for about a year. I'm traveling now in Rochester, New York, just for time being. And I'm just now, this is my first time sitting with you after having appreciated you and the song for quite some time. So it's an honor to be with you tonight. Thank you so much for this wonderful talk. And it won't be my last time. I'll be back. Well, you're very, very welcome. Please come again. Thank you. So maybe there's time for one more quick comment or response or question from anyone. Dylan. I think it's possible to underestimate the courage of just continuing every day.

[41:27]

Yes. Because what's underneath that is being ready to meet the unknown all the time. And it's the same thing, but it sounds much more imposing the second way. You know, we think that it's not meeting the unknown. We have this conception that you have a routine, but really everything's new constantly. So we're always meeting the unknown. This last night or this morning, depending on how you look at it, I downloaded, I bought all of the films of Terrence Malick, who's a filmmaker I'm trying to study now. And one of the things I really deeply love about his films is he'll, for example, like he'll have a film, he'll be on set you know, with lots of Hollywood actors, and we're trying to stay on shooting schedule to film the plot, and he'll see, you know, a bird flying overhead, and stop everything to film the bird, or stop everything, or, you know, just follow an actor, and then a butterfly will land on her arm, or a deer will walk through the shot, or something like that.

[42:50]

And those always end up being the iconic studies of his work. So to me, that's a really inspiring courage of being ready to meet the meaning in every moment. That's available all the time. And to not have a preconception about what it is. That sometimes it just shows up. and being ready to meet it. So that's being ready to meet the unknown every day. It's not just meeting it, it's kind of welcoming. Yeah. Welcoming the unusual or the unknown or welcoming our fears and saying, Oh, what is it today? What is it right now? Yeah. Thank you.

[43:51]

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