An important part of Zen practice is shifting perspective. So this is one of the major themes of Dogen Zenji, the 13th century founder of Soto Zen, the branch of Zen we do, who I talk about a lot. So just for a few examples, he talks in Genjo Koan, one of his major writings, about being out in the middle of an ocean or the middle of a lake. And if you're riding along in a boat and you look at the shore, it looks like the shore is moving. But of course, if you pay attention, you realize eventually it's the boat that's moving. And our practice and our perspective is like that.

[01:02]

And actually, if you're out in the middle of the ocean, and I've experienced this, and I understand this is true of great lakes like Lake Michigan also. Many of you have been out far enough in Lake Michigan so that if you look around, you can't see any shore. Yes, Caitlin's been out that far. So if you look around and you don't see any shore, it looks like it's round. All that you can see all around is a round horizon. So you might imagine that the ocean or the lake is just this round body of water. But if you look more closely, you see that the shore has lots of very particular dimensions, very particular shapes. Navy pier juts out into it. And there are rocks and bits of sand and anyway, very many particular elements to the circumference of the body of the water.

[02:12]

Similarly, I was talking yesterday about another writing of his. Oh, well, yeah, in Genja-ko. And he also talks about how our perspective, the range of our practice, ranges more widely depending on the need. So some birds fly great distances. in their migration, some birds not so far. The same with fish, they may range very, very far in their travels. Depending on their need, their range is large. And it's the same for our practice. We may see, we may practice, I think Emily Dickinson lived in one small place, in one small town her whole life. and didn't leave her house much either, and yet made beautiful poetry. So, you know, depending on each person, they may travel, their range may be wide or not, or their range may be wide in other dimensions besides foot travel or boat travel or air travel.

[03:30]

I was talking yesterday about another writing of Dogen's, Flowers in the Sky, And he talks about how flowers and the flowering of flowers happens particularly on different flowers in different ways on different plants. Each plant has its own kind of flower, he says. So he's talking about the flowers in the sky. And he talks about the sky being one plant. But he talks about that the precise moment of the arrival of a flower is not arbitrary. Each plant flowers at a particular time. And apricot flowers flower on apricot trees. Willow flowers flower on willows. Cherry blossoms don't bloom on apple trees. Sky flowers don't blossom on the earth.

[04:35]

Earth flowers don't bloom in the sky. So flowering happens each in its own way. So how does flowering happen? If we think that there are only certain kinds of flowers and not other kinds of flowers, we miss the possibility of flowering. Gene Reeves will be here in a few weeks. He talks about the Lotus Flower Sutra, the Dharma Flower Sutra, which he's talked about as the Dharma Flowering Sutra. Our job, the Buddha work, is to help the Dharma and help Buddhas flower, to help the flowering of compassion and wisdom and insight, to help the flowering of the way of awakening and the relieving of suffering. for all beings, so we care about all beings and trying to, we say we talk about, we will chant the Bodhisattva vows to free all beings.

[05:46]

How do we support that, the flowering of Buddhas on the particular seats that they are sitting on? So how do we see the flowers in the sky? How do we not pretend that flowers only blossom in certain places and not in others? How do we not deny the flowering of the sky, the flowering in space, the flowering in emptiness? This requires changing our perspective. We don't usually think that flowers blossom in the sky." But Dogen says, of course, Buddhas are flowers in the sky. They cannot be anything else. He talks about awakening being a dream, that we must express the dream within a dream. Awakening is not the opposite of dreams.

[06:49]

Awakening is what we do in dreams. He also talks about time as not something that happens outside of us, so I do have a watch to know when it's time for us to stop and have tea and cookies, but time is not ultimately some, go again, some external arbitrary container. Time is us. So it's just like toys are us, time are us. We is time right now. So how long was that period of Zazen, Dave? 35 minutes. For some of you it may have felt like 5 or 10 minutes, or maybe 20 or 25 minutes. For some of you maybe it felt like an hour or two, I don't know.

[07:50]

for people who've sat for a while. All 35-minute periods, according to the Doan, don't feel like they're the same. You know that. Some days go by very slowly. Some days go by very slowly, and that sort of feels painful. Some days go by very slowly, and that's so lovely. Oh, what a nice, leisurely day. Some days go by very quickly, and it's just frantic, and oh my gosh, I wish this day was over. And some days go by very quickly, and it's just full of wonderful things. So time is us. We don't understand what's happening now. Of course we have various ideas about reality.

[08:57]

We may have many very good ideas about reality. We have in our Sangha many very highly educated people. So they may have very refined, cultivated ideas about reality based on the views of reality in our culture and civilization. And that's lovely. There's nothing wrong with that. But what Zazen and the Dharma teaches us is that we have a very, very, very limited perspective as human beings. on what this reality is. So just this 35-minute period of zazen that we just enjoyed together, if we sat down as an exercise and we each tried to write for the next 20 minutes, or maybe the next 20 hours, all the things that happened in the last 35 minutes period of zazen, we might say lots of things, or we might just space out and not have

[10:16]

be able to say a word or more than a couple of sentences. But even if we wrote constantly for 20 hours, we couldn't possibly encompass everything that was happening in this room in the last 35 minutes. Each person in this room, and with all the storms going on outside, There were people who tried to get here tonight who couldn't. So we have a relatively small group tonight. But even so, each thing that was happening on each cushion, very complex, many things going on. Some of you had some thoughts during those 35 minutes, probably. Maybe some of you, maybe. Well, I'm sure that a few of you at least had some thoughts. Katie, did you have some thoughts?

[11:18]

She had some. And then if we think about all those thoughts and where they came from and all the sensations, lots of things were going on. And so the point is that reality is much wider, much deeper, much more tender. and raw than we can possibly ever explicate in mere words. Many things going on. As I sit up here babbling, many dimensions Shatokan says we see only what our eyes of practice can reach. But when our need is large, the field is large, and we can enlarge that.

[12:24]

And even according to modern science, we have, what, three or four dimensions? We can see this way and that way and up, and then time is another dimension. Not only are there people in this room here, but there were a bunch of people in this room yesterday, some sitting all day. So, you know, are there traces of the thoughts of the people here yesterday still in this room? I don't know. Some people here have hypothesized, I don't know if this is science or not, But some people have hypothesized that the dust that accumulates in the corner, and we did have a temple cleaning period yesterday, so some of that dust is gone. But the dust that settles in the corners or wherever, or even between the cushions, is partly the skin of people who are sitting here.

[13:31]

So maybe there is bits of People who were sitting here yesterday still here in the room today, I don't know. If you accept that hypothesis, or even of people who were here last week, I don't know. I'm not an expert in dust. And of course, modern physics, well, I don't understand it, but I've you know, just read a tiny bit about string theory and they say there are eleven dimensions, not just four. I don't know, I don't understand what that means. Any physicists here? Anybody who's studied physics? I mean, we have a few people who've studied physics, but anyway, so whatever that means, it's much more complicated than we realize. And according to the Mahayana Sutras that Zen is based on, the Lotus Sutra, and the Flower Ornament Sutra, and other Buddhist scriptures.

[14:35]

There are many Buddhas in Buddha fields everywhere, and Buddhas on the tip of every blade of grass, and Bodhisattvas all around them. And on the tip of every hair, there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So I don't know what that means, but anyway, that's what they say. What is this world? What is this reality? So partly it's just that zazen, this practice, and doing it regularly and settling into being willing to be present and upright in this world, and not having to hold on to some fundamentalist, literalist understanding of reality, allows us a wider range of capacity for imagining, what is really happening here?

[15:35]

And for admitting that I don't know. I have opinions about things. I have things I see that are going on in the world and in my life and in our Sangha and in, you know, and how different Buddhas are blossoming on different seats in the Zen Dogma, we don't know. It's far beyond our control. So Dogen talks about the practice of generosity as just allowing the way, giving the way to the way, allowing the way to be the way, allowing the process to unfold, letting the flowers of the way blossom. Now this doesn't mean just being passive and letting things be and going with the flow.

[16:39]

It means that we pay attention and we respond. It means doing the Buddha work. It means that we free all beings, that we end all delusions, that we enter all dharma gates, that we realize the Buddha way. What does that mean? Well, I don't know, but I look around and I see that our world is in a big mess. So maybe this is just my opinion, but it looks like there's this massive, we're in the middle of this massive class war against the American people and against most of the people of the world. We know that the government is reading all our emails Corporations are financially controlling the government and the media.

[17:40]

There are trade treaties being worked out where the corporation's legal rights supersede all the government's. environmental rules and workers' rights rules and so forth, and jobs and living wages are becoming scarcer, and they're telling us to be afraid of terror, and meanwhile there's a war on drugs, but we have to allow everybody to have guns, and there's gun violence everywhere, and meanwhile the fossil fuel companies and the nuclear industry destroying our climate and the habitat for beings in the future. No, this is going on. From one point of view, this is clearly going on. So I'm not saying that everything is just cool. I'm just, you know, clearly in this world, in this material world, from this perspective of reality that I can see, this is what's happening.

[18:47]

And by talking about different dimensions, I don't mean to say that, well, you know, We'll just invoke some other dimension where somebody will, some extraterrestrials will come and save us or something, or let's go to some other dimension where Jack Kennedy and Bobby and Martin and Malcolm and John Lennon are still alive and doing good work and everything's cool. Maybe there is some other dimension like that. That's really lovely for them, but that's not where we're at. So anyway, but how do we take care of that? I don't know. I can only see three or four dimensions, you know? So it's not that this is some magical solution, but we don't know. We have to recognize that we don't see all that's going on.

[19:50]

Aside from that story, that reality, all the stories are true on some level. Every version of reality we have to pay attention to because even the ones that sound really weird, it's true to somebody maybe. But, okay, even with the destruction of our climate, well, something else is going on and we don't know what that is, and we don't know how that's working. So how do we stay open to the various possibilities of all the people in the world who are sitting together like this, I don't care if they're Buddhists or not, but trying to pay attention to their lives and trying to take care of how they are taking care of the world. So many things are going on that we don't see.

[20:54]

So I'm not trying to be mystical or New Agey or something. We just don't know all of what is going on. How do we stay open to possibilities? How do we free all beings and all delusions? How do we do the Buddha work? in our situation, recognizing the difficulties in the world we are in, in this realm. And if we can be open to possibilities, maybe there are other levels on which we can respond. There are many things going on right here. So last Monday night, Shoto String was here. She's responding to the tar sands pipeline that's been proposed by doing this compassionate earthwalk, walking from the tar sands source in Alberta to the end of this special pipeline that's been proposed in Nebraska.

[22:05]

She's going to walk for three months with some native peoples and a small group of people. And, you know, Maybe, of course, the mass media won't pay any attention to her, but what is the power of somebody doing that? How does the Earth respond to that? So one thing I know from sitting for a while now, I get up in between periods of sitting, There's some way in which the earth is alive and it's responding now to what we're doing. It's connected to us. Dogen says this too, he says, when one person sits for even a little while, space itself awakens. The sky awakens. So how is the awakening of the earth happening now? How can we listen to it and support it and let it support us? And there's all those other, so seven other dimensions according to strength theory, I don't know.

[23:13]

That's just a theory. Maybe there are other theories, I don't know. But anyway, this is what our practice challenges us to be open to, deeper possibilities of reality. We don't know the answers. Oh, sometimes, you know, in some particular realm, we might see some answer, we might see some way to take care of some problem, and then we should do that, you know, of course. But, and so Shoto, something called her to go walk the pipeline. So that's what she's doing. And, you know, here we have the Sangha and we're trying to take care of this. How do we do that when, you know, things change and we have a couple of key people in our Sangha who have to relocate and so we have to take care of what they're doing.

[24:30]

That's happening somehow. Anyway, maybe that's enough for me to say. So, part of what we do here is listen to each other. So, does anyone have any comments or responses or other perspectives to share? Please feel free. What's up? Thanks for watching Mr. Nothing. I've been digging deep into YouTubes. called the light echo, which is an area of almost Mahayana Buddhism.

[25:42]

And he talks about it being 13 dimensions. So he talks about it. So he's gone beyond strength theory. He's gone beyond. Totally beyond strength theory. It's only like 13 dimensions. It really is other dimensions. Instead, it's dimensions of Yeah, so some of these problems, the only way we can solve them is through, in the realms of love and wisdom. What that means, how that takes care of the realities of climate change and nuclear radiation, I don't know, but we have to invoke different perspectives.

[26:49]

Other comments or responses, questions? Janet. In Dettol's tank, It was a very dark book. So let me say for people who don't know, and for people who might listen to this, Jan's talking about a really important book called The Devil's Tango by a woman named Cecile Pineda about the reality of the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima and their impact and the whole horrible truth about the nuclear power industry. Proceed, please. that I wrote a review of this book, and every time you watch Democracy Now and somebody's on there that knows something really horribly, and well, they begin to say, what is she called?

[27:55]

And so I thought, what am I going to say at the end of this review? And I just thought about it. She doesn't end with hope, but she ends with love. And she ends with expressing her love for the planet, and the earth, and the moon, and the people that she's fond of and that she's met. And I thought that was really interesting because I was dressing for someone. Right. what I found at the end of the book, you know, was love, not hope, but love. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really important because talking about all this stuff, you know, I feel some responsibility in my role as a teacher here to share some of this information sometimes, but I, you know, sometimes don't want to talk about it because I don't want

[29:06]

people to feel hopeless. I don't feel like that's helpful. There's a Bob Dylan line, if you cannot bring good news, then don't bring any. But I don't feel like, if we talk about the truth, that that means hopelessness. I don't feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel, you know, it's daunting, but there is love, there is beauty, There are good people, so many, so many, so many good people all over the world. So many people caring about each other. That force is stronger than just the facts of the class warfare that I was talking about. I believe that. So we have to hold that in our hearts, that sense of caring, that sense of that which

[30:26]

which is beautiful in the deepest sense, in the deepest way. To us, in our own way. We each have our own sense of that. We each have our own way of seeing that. That which brings caring to us. The people that that inspire us in the world around us, people we know, people in the world. And each of us, each of us in our own lives. The things that you respect about yourself. Very important. Each of us has things we know about ourselves that we may feel crummy about. We all have that too. We all have regrets about things in our life. We all have that. That's being human. But don't forget the things about yourself that you respect.

[31:38]

The things you've done that helps a little bit. A little bit is a lot. Each thing we do makes a difference. It's done. It's pretty funny because over the weekend it's kind of like Sometimes I need to learn to keep my mouth shut about the things that I want to respond to. Sure, but please go ahead. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but my girlfriend is an anthropology major, and I can't help it with the sort of evolution that she's studied and everything about it.

[32:50]

know their facts and go prove them proven otherwise. And I can't help wondering, like, how do they, you know, I don't know. How could they possibly know this, knowing some things, and getting into talks about that? And it's just, I mean, I question things, and I look at things, and I notice things that are going on, and I have my perspective, and then I've come to a point now where I realize, you know, my perspective isn't always great. you grew up and the way that you are. I feel that sometimes, I mean, talking about things, I feel like I'm being negative towards others, and I'm giving my opinion about things, and, you know, some people are stuck on the ways that they're living, and it's, I can't help having different opinions and looking at things differently, and talking about it, and I feel like it's offensive to a lot of people out there to discuss these things, and it makes it, kind of hard, and I do question, kind of like, should I respond, should I keep quiet?

[33:54]

But this is like really interesting stuff that people should be looking at that I feel that somebody should look at in a different way, and I just, I guess I don't know the line of where to balance it. I guess I just, you know, I'm talking. things that I feel that I'm doing, you know, being positive about. That's the way I live. As long as it's positive, I'm not trying to mean anything wrong by it. I'm trying to say that I'm right or wrong. Thank you. That's a really important point. Yeah, so I think it's important that Well, there's always the situation and is the other person able to listen to what you have to say. But to me, the most important thing when we want to try and express some opinion we have, and I like to express my opinions too, but what's most important, and to me it's kind of the heart of the Buddhist precepts, is respect. So if you can express your opinion, but respect the other person, and be willing to listen to their opinion, and not try and force your opinion on them, but just say, hey, here's my opinion, for whatever it's worth, man, you know, and share that.

[35:12]

And then, you know, you have to be willing to listen to what they have to say, too. But that respectfulness, where you're not trying to impose You better believe this, you better convert to my viewpoint. That's where wars start. But if you could just respectfully say, hey, this is how I see it, I wonder about this, to respectfully bring forth questions, then we have dialogue, then we can talk together. Quezon. I really appreciate a lot of that and I want to speak to, I think, how we all feel that sort of pressure. I want to speak to the reality of how much poisonous disinformation we are submerged in all the time and how profoundly disempowered a lot of, you know,

[36:15]

commonly held, commonly disseminated views, paradigms. So part of that, you know, it's uncomfortable to speak about, as Trungpa Rinpoche said, the Muffin and Meyer of this dark age. I think about that line sometimes, and how that's really true. It's a very dark time. There's a lot of hope, but if we don't speak to the darkness, if we don't speak to the reality of how disempowered, not just in a political way, or in an economic way, but everything that's implied with that, psychological, if we don't speak to that or acknowledge it, then our real capacity for tenderness is really hampered.

[37:26]

And I know, I just want to say how much I appreciate this place and the teachings. I feel like it allows me to be able to open to that tenderness by acknowledging some of the difficulties and have a space Yeah. Thank you. Yes. And yeah, so this is why I keep trying to talk about this, because I think we have to acknowledge it. And, you know, amongst all the other issues, you know, issues, it's more than issues. It's paradigms that I was talking about, gun violence. climate and the environment and the economy. I also want to mention the war on women that's happening. It's disgusting. The war on women's health. There's so much that's distressing about what's going on in our world, and yet we can speak about it clearly and respectfully.

[38:31]

So anyway, thank you all for being here and listening.

[38:37]

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