I'm going to speak this morning about my new book that was just published last month, Zen Questions, Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry. This will not be a book reading, but a Dharma talk, but I will read some from a few different chapters. So this book has a number of parts. The first section is about Zazen. So I'm going to talk about one of the chapters in there, about this practice of meditation we do. The next two chapters are about, next two sections are about Ehei Dogen, the 13th century Japanese founder of Soto Zen, who I've translated a lot and talk about a lot here.

[01:04]

And the fourth section, so I'm going to talk about one of the sections about Dogen from his extensive record. And then the fourth section is about several different poets I like as examples of Zen expressions, Rumi, Mary Oliver, Cary Snyder. Bob Dylan's song about sashayners and retreat. I'm not going to talk about that this morning, but the fifth section, I will talk about one of the chapters, is about American Zen engagement and how the Zen principles apply to our situation today. So all of the sections of this book are based on and heavily edited from articles and dharma talks I've done going back 1994, I think is the first. The first one I want to talk about actually is from a talk I gave in this room soon after we moved in here almost three years ago.

[02:11]

So a few of you here may have been here for that. The next two I'm going to talk about this morning were talks I gave at Green Gulch Farm, one eight years ago and one 10 years ago. So I want to talk about these as aspects of our practice and of Zen awareness and activity. And again, I'll read some from the book. But first I want to talk about the idea of Zazen as the gateway to repose and joy, or joy and ease. So we sometimes chant Dogen's in Japanese, fukan zazengi, which is instructions, introductory instructions for this sitting meditation practice of zazen. And there's a word there that, well, Dogen says that this zazen is the gateway to anraku, which I usually translate as joyful ease.

[03:12]

Norman Waddell says repose and bliss, and this word repose is interesting. How do we find our true pose and settle into our posture when we're sitting and also in the work as we're interacting in our everyday activities? So it may feel strange to hear that this practice is the gateway to joyful ease. We've had a couple people doing this form of meditation for the first time formally. for a long time this morning and, you know, for all of us sometimes it doesn't feel so easy. It doesn't feel so peaceful. And yet, this is what Daugin says. So I want to talk about why he says this. And the first thing to say is that we find this repose, this peacefulness, this joyful ease, this settling, When we're willing to actually just give ourselves totally to just being present, in the middle of thoughts and feelings and concerns that come up, in the middle of aching knees or backs or whatever, just to continue to be, to settle and to, as the song of the grass hut we sometimes chant says, to let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.

[04:39]

So this looks like this somber, stoic practice, everyone sitting still and quietly. But actually, this is a way of finding our inner joyfulness. It can't be. It's not all it is, but it can be. So one part of this for me is that we not try and use our meditation to get something else, to actually just be present with this. we're used to everything we do as some means towards something else. It's pretty rare to just show up and be present in our activities without, you know, looking forward to some result or outcome or, you know, what's going to happen later. So I think part of this joyfulness is to just not hold back from being ourselves. without trying to get anything from it, and also not trying to get rid of anything. Do you not hold back at all?

[05:41]

Do you not hold back from just being yourself, from just fully enjoying or engaging this present experience? Whether you feel good, bad, or indifferent about it, this is the heart of Zazen practice. So I'm going to talk, actually, in the third section about consumerism as an obstacle to our practice. But this also applies in terms of this gateway to propose and join. If you think about what you are going to get out of this experience, that's just consumerism, or turning your experience into some kind of commodity. If you try to get rid of anything, that's also a kind of holding back from actually just Being yourself. This is a practice about learning to be radically yourself, to be completely ordinary. In fact, to be a human being, a human being on your cushion or chair right now. So can we give ourselves to just this activity of sitting quietly, settling, enjoying this situation with whatever thoughts or feelings come up, with whatever physical sensations.

[06:51]

And then part of that is noticing that we do most of what we do in order to get something else. It's very easy to think of this practice as a method for something else. So I'm going to talk about this also in connection with another dogma in writing. But in this way of sitting, it's not that we sit, do meditation in order to have some fancy experience or understanding sometime in the future. Whatever brought you here, whatever brought you back here this morning, whatever it is that encouraged, that somehow stimulated you to take up spiritual practice, meditation practice, right in that is this awareness. It's not some enlightenment, it's not something you can go down to the store and get a six pack of. It's right here on your cushion or chair.

[07:54]

So again, I'm going to talk more about consumerism in another section, but our consumerist culture particularly, but also our human faculties of discriminating consciousness lead us into thinking we have to get some benefit from our activities. People come to spiritual practice as well with consumerist attitudes. They want the coolest teacher, or the flashiest experience, or the neatest Sazen. And this happens on very subtle levels. But our idea of what we think we want to get, and of what we want to get rid of, is not how we deepen our realization, and not how we may loosen our attachments, actually. Sazen and Buddha heart are much deeper than our ideas about them. Simply do not run away from yourself. So in our society now, maybe in all human societies, but particularly now we have all these fancy technologies and distractions and ways of, you know, not paying attention to ourselves, not being present in our own life.

[09:02]

This is a practice, this joy and ease of zazen is about being willing to actually occupy your seat, you know, pushing your chair. So another thing I talk about in connection with this Joyful Ease is that this is not a passive practice. This meditation is attentive, calm, settled, with attention to body and mind, without trying to manipulate or turn ourselves into yet another commodity that we're trying to get something from. It's not easy to let go of that manipulative habit. It's very deep. Maybe we need to, informing our egos and surviving adolescence, we need to learn to manipulate things to get where we want. This is part of what it means to be a human being. But thinking that if I could just improve this or that, we get caught and become commodities ourselves.

[10:04]

So again, what I say in this book, many of you have heard me talk about many times, I don't know who here was actually at this talk I gave about this three years ago, almost. But the other part I talk about, another part I talk about in connection with this is responsibility. We have the ability to respond. And to really appreciate this joy and ease, we must engage this responsibility. the Bodhisattva precepts provide guidelines to how we may respond and how to return home to Buddha. So we have a formal ceremony of taking refuge in Buddha, but for all of us, just to show up and sit on our cushion or chair is about coming back to Buddha, whatever that is, coming back to awakening, awareness. That aspect in ourselves that knows there's something deeper.

[11:15]

We return home to reality, to community, to fellowship, to friendship. How do we settle into a way of taking responsibility for how we see the world, acting on that, coming from a settling place and forgiving ourselves for being human beings? As I often say, we can beat ourselves up for our greed, hate, and delusion, which is part of what's happening on your cushion, as well as this Buddha nature. But we find our joyful ease by being willing to be the person we are, by not running away from ourselves and our patterns of attaching and grasping. So this joyful ease is about meeting reality. What is, you know, and maybe there's not one reality, but the complexity of reality. Reality never happens according to our expectations. Reality is not merely our little meager idea of reality.

[12:23]

And yet, we can take responsibility for our efforts. When we show up and befriend ourselves, we start to see more subtly the ways we try to grab onto or get rid of things. But we have to forgive ourselves for being human beings. Doesn't it a practice for human beings, not some super beings? So, you know, you might look at the Buddha on the altar and think, oh, this is some special, exotic, oriental, whatever. fancy thing to do, but actually this is a very natural practice. This is a way to find out how to be ourselves and how to express ourselves. So the next section I want to read from or talk about is one of the chapters on Dogen, I've already referred to, but the founder of Soto Zen in 13th century Japan.

[13:25]

And I translated a very much thicker book than this called Dogen's Extensive Record with his short talks to his students. But actually, part of that book I'm going to comment on, that I comment on in this chapter, is not one of those talks, but actually the Hoko or Dharma words, which started out as letters he wrote to particular students. So these actually go back to this earlier period, the first 10 years in Kyoto. And he talks about the point of this practice So I mentioned one very basic teaching of this branch of Zen that Dogen talks about a lot is the oneness of practice and realization, of practice and enlightenment, that we're not practicing in order to get something in the future. It's OK if we have some flashy awakening experience that happens sometimes.

[14:30]

That's cool, but that's not the point of it. And it's OK if we actually understand Buddhism. That's possible, too. But again, that's not the point of it. how do we actually practice this, whatever realization you have right now? And in this one letter, he talks about the oneness, not just of practice and realization, but the oneness of practice, realization, and expression. So I feel like this practice, again, this very stoic-looking, somber, just sitting upright practice that looks very stern, is actually a kind of mode of expression, a kind of creative expression. One of the themes of the book is questioning, and for all of this, part of the creative expression is to wonder, to look at and wonder what is What is this? What is this reality in our lives, in our everyday lives?

[15:31]

And as we're sitting, just to be present with thoughts and feelings, to pay attention. And in doing this, we express ourselves. So each of you, in this period of meditation that we just did, was expressing yourselves completely with your body and mind. Whatever was happening, you may have some judgment that, oh, that was a crummy period of zazen and I was really distracted. Or you may have a judgment that, oh, that was a great period of zazen and I was just really present, or whatever. But that's not the point, your idea about it. that this is a way of expressing something very deep and that it connects to everything else in our life that we do creatively to express ourselves and our caring about the people around us in the world. So it's in that context that Dogen talks about, he talks in this very kind of intricate way about the oneness of practice, realization, and expression.

[16:40]

And I'm not gonna maybe read from that section, but he also says, truly the point of the singular transmission between Buddha ancestors, the essential meaning of the direct understanding beyond words does not adhere to the situations of the koans. or the teaching stories of the previous wise ones, or the entryways to enlightenment. It does not exist in the commentaries and assessments with words and phrases, in the exchanges of questions and answers, in the understandings with intellectual views or mental calculations. So it may be that there are many very, very bright people in this room right now. Actually, everyone in this room right now. And there's a number of advanced degrees and all that kind of stuff in this room. But that's not the point of this practice. It's OK if you're smart or bright. It's not too much of an obstruction. It's also OK if you're stupid.

[17:41]

But the point is, how are you expressing your practice realization right now? So even though there may be many wonderful phrases and understandings expressed, the emphasis in this practice and teaching and expression is just how to take care of the present situation. How do we pay attention? How do we find our restfulness, our complete relaxation, our repose and joy in this situation, whatever it is? And this applies in the meditation hall, but also in the difficulties. We have a lot of challenges in our society now, but how do we engage our life from this place of just taking care of what's in front of us? So Dogen also says in this letter, without begrudging any effort in nurturing the way, for you I will demonstrate the precise meaning of the ultimate truth of Buddha. talked about this recently, but he says, in this case, if you do not hold on to a single phrase of half a verse, a bit of talk, or a small expression in this lump of red flesh, you will have some accord with the clear, cool ground.

[19:00]

If you hold on to a single word or half a phrase of the Buddha ancestor sayings, they will become dangerous poisons. If you want to understand this mountain monk's activity, referring to himself, do not remember these comments. Truly avoid being caught up in thinking. This doesn't mean you should get rid of your thinking. So there's this heretical school in America of lobotomy, Zen, but that operation doesn't really work. This isn't about getting rid of your thinking. But how do you find a way to not be caught by it? It's the precise meaning of the ultimate truth of Buddha. But again, it's a problem because you might remember this. And you say not to remember, but you might forget it. And then also, you might, if you do not remember that you do not need to remember these words, you might remember them and make them into a poison.

[20:05]

So, Kendokin is challenging in various ways. He's kind of funny in various ways. In this section, he talks about, it's customary that such practice is not abandoned even after reaching Buddhahood, so that it is still practiced by a Buddha. So even after he became Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, 2,500 years ago, continued to practice every day. He continued to awaken every day. When he became enlightened, that was not the end of Buddhism, but just the beginning. We easily tend to think of this practice that if we wait long enough, we will eventually be enlightened. We imagine if we put enough hours into sitting on this cushion, or enough lifetimes, someday, somewhere, when you least expect it, there will be enlightenment. The token says the principle of Zazen in other schools is to wait for enlightenment. He says some people even think of practice as having crossed over a great ocean on a raft, thinking that upon crossing the ocean, one should discard the raft.

[21:06]

This notion is very similar. I'm sorry. This notion is very sensible. The simile of the raft is common in Buddhism, that once we have reached the other shore, we do not need the raft anymore. But Dogon implies that one should still carry the raft while climbing up the mountains. The practice continues. So enlightenment and realization naturally lead to practice. There is no enlightenment. that is not actually put into practice. If you have some experience or understanding of enlightenment, if you're not practicing it, if you're not expressing it, then that's not it. That would be just some idea of enlightenment, not true enlightenment. So again, he talks about this expression in the middle of it. There's no enlightenment that is not expressed. So am I talking about This enlightenment that you are expressing, which is the enlightenment of your practice right now, is not some idea about enlightenment that you might have. Actually, if you have ideas about enlightenment, you should realize and practice and express your ideas about enlightenment, but these ideas are not the enlightenment that you are expressing and practicing.

[22:15]

There's another section in this long letter about practice realization. Yeah, actually, I mentioned it. The precise meaning of the ultimate truth is not to remember things. That was a separate letter that he wrote to one of his favorite students, a nun named Riona. He had many women students. But again, this is a problem if you try and forget. So again, don't worry about remembering anything I said. There's no test. And how is it to just be present? So in this section, I also talk about the passion of practice. When you enter a zendo and look at people sitting, you may think they are being very stoic or stern. But actually, to keep doing this practice, period after period, day after day, year after year, is a very passionate practice.

[23:24]

is passionate because it is compassionate. We are willing to be with our own passions and the passions of others, and this being together with the suffering and passion and confusion of others is a definition of compassion. We are willing to be with this suffering, willing to listen to each other and ourselves, because we know how wonderful it feels to actually be heard ourselves. When we are willing to then also hear others, this is the response of compassion in Buddhism. So we have a responsibility, Dogen says, this single matter never comes from the forceful activity of people. Our responsibility is not based on our ideas of how things should be. He says, from the beginning, it is the expression and activity of people. When we are realizing and practicing and expressing this, we do offer some response. Sometimes just being present and listening. his greatest gift.

[24:27]

With the songs of birds or the cries of our friend, there's some way to respond. So in the next section, I want to talk about how we respond to the difficulties of our society. But it's relevant to this too. My faith is that this practice and teaching of the Buddhas is actually relevant to our world. It requires some work for us to see how this practice relates to our own lives. That's the point. This practice, awareness, expression, has something to offer. And it's very easy these days to feel overwhelmed or despair. Things in the world are, you know, there's a lot of cruelty and amazing corruption and militarism and a failing economy and a failing environment and it's a pretty serious situation.

[25:33]

So we can feel afraid. But not being afraid is actually more fun. Courage is not about being without any fears, but it's willingness to stay upright amid our fears, as the persons we are, in a damaged world. So actually, the situation we're in is a wonderful opportunity to express our practice realization in a way that can make a big difference. So, most people come to practice because we have some loss or sadness, some difficulty with our lives and the world, and we want to find some peace of mind. And so we start by turning within and facing ourselves and being present with our own grasping and frustrations and fears and attachments and aversion and so forth, and anger.

[26:41]

And part of this practice, a big part of this practice, is just being willing to be this human being with those human qualities, and to become friendly with ourselves, to become intimate with ourselves. When we do that, we actually can start to... One of the basic Buddhist principles is to not cause harm. So even when these patterns of attachment and anger and so forth are still here in us and we can recognize them and they may become more and more subtle, when we're friendly with ourselves, when we're intimate with this, we don't need to react and we can actually respond more helpfully. And sometimes we do get caught by those patterns, but then, okay. So there it is again, and we can come back to being upright and pay attention to it. So that last talk, that last chapter was based on a talk I gave 10 years ago.

[27:50]

This one was at Green Gorge Farm. This one is based on a talk I gave. This is about consumerism and the Bodhisattva precepts. And this is based on a talk I gave in 2001 on a Sunday morning at Greenwich, two days before the 9-11 attack. But I think what I said then, so this book is pretty heavily edited from the original talks, but I think what I said then still applies even in the post-9-11 world. So I started off by talking about how Western Buddhism is interacting with many different Western traditions and Western religions. So obviously Buddhism in America is interacting with Christianity. I've been involved in a lot of Buddhist-Christian dialogues with Judaism, with Native American religion, with psychology. So we have quite a few psychologists in our sangha, several of whom are here this morning.

[28:58]

But I suggest that the one religion that is contradictory to Buddhism is the religion of consumerism. So David Loy, who was here in Chicago a couple of years ago, talks about this, about consumerism as a religion, where that teaches us what the world is and our place in it. And consumerism fits that. David Loy says, there are two tenets or unquestioned items of faith for consumerism. One is that growth and subsidized world trade will benefit everyone. The second is that growth need not be constrained or curtailed by the limited resources of this finite planet. Well, maybe many more people realize that these two tenets of consumerism are not viable now than they did in 2001. But also, this is relevant to talk about this time of year.

[30:07]

Of course, the major holiday for the religion of consumerism is one that's appropriated from Christianity. It's often called Christmas. And so I think a lot of people now, we're a week away from it, feel a kind of pressure and depression and it's also the We're entering into winter, although Wednesday is the solstice, so the days are going to start to get longer. It may not be so apparent at first, but this is a difficult time of year because of this religion of consumerism, at least in part. There's some idea that we should be happy and that we should go out and buy lots of gifts. And so there's some pressure about that that many people have around now, that we should go out and conserve. So we are affected by this.

[31:10]

So I say, talk about this in terms of the Bodhisattva precepts, to benefit all beings, to support life instead of killing, to support generosity instead of taking what's not given, to support awareness rather than intoxication. So reading, trying to lead compassionate lives informed by the precepts brings fundamental conflict with some basic values in our society. In the mainstream media, especially due to the religion of consumerism, the fundamental values are greed, material acquisition, and even vengeance. All the television commercials and the other ads we see are designed very skillfully to create more needs and more desires. So we had a ceremony not so long ago. We have a ceremony once a year to appease and feed and make offerings to hungry ghosts. who are one of the realms of being in the Buddhist idea. And these are beings who are never satisfied. They have tiny throats and big bellies, whatever.

[32:19]

There's nothing that can satisfy them. So we try to make offerings to them. And I would suggest that consumerism is about creating hungry ghosts. We're supposed to need more and more. Whoever dies with the most toys wins. It's the value of the religion of consumerism. So we need to pay attention to this. There is a basic Buddhist value that responds to that, called contentment. To be content with what we have and enjoy the world as it is. We can be grateful for the Great Lake, the birds and the trees, our friends and family. This gratitude does not mean being passive and accepting everything without question. The precepts encourage response to suffering. We try not to harm, but to benefit all beings, to see our lives in the context of all beings, benefiting not solely our own profit margin, but working to foster awakening and awareness. True satisfaction comes from dynamic and responsive activity, not through creating or indulging craving for more material wealth.

[33:27]

So this is the basic Buddhist value of this contentment. So it's not that we have the choice between accumulating more and more, getting more and more toys, having fancier and fancier cars and homes and whatever. the consumerist version of the American dream, and giving away everything and just being, you know, wandering homeless people. Of course, this is happening to many people through the logic of how consumerism has developed in the economy now. So I talk a little bit in this chapter about Rio Kahn, and I think I should give a talk about Rio Kahn sometime soon, just talk about him. a wonderful 19th century Soto Zen monk and great poet and meditator and fool. He's most famous as being very foolish in some ways.

[34:33]

And we could call him an anti-environmental, anti-consumerist, excuse me, environmental, anti-consumerist extremist. He lived in a little hut outside his home village meditated and had almost nothing. But his calligraphy was very famous and actually valuable as a commodity, even in his own lifetime. And he talks about contentment as a value. But it's a little extreme. So there's a middle way. Wealth actually offers an opportunity and a responsibility to find the middle way between extremes of consumerism and asceticism. And Buddhism are many examples of non-consumers who have used their material resources and power to help the poor and needy. So some of us have been joining the Occupy Chicago site Tuesday afternoon from 4.30 to 6, and meditating or doing walking meditation there.

[35:35]

And there's the reality of the inequities in our society, and this was written. 2001. Since then, up to then, but since then even more, there's this drastic inequity in what's happened with our economy, and it's pretty obvious. And so the Occupy movement talks about the 99%, but even among the 1% or the 0.1%, there are lots of people who are not trying to make, you know, cut and trying to destroy the middle class. There are many people in the 1% who are, Bill Gates is just one example, who are trying to use their resources responsibly. So it's not about, you know, we don't have to all go and give away all our goods and be like Ryokan. Ryokan once was sitting in his hut and a thief walked in. And Ryokan didn't have anything to give him, so he gave him his blanket. And Ryokan had just been sitting, looking at the moon outside his window.

[36:39]

And he gave this thief his thin little blanket. And the thief walked out, maybe embarrassed. And Ryokan said, I wish I could have given him the moon. So there's that side of things. But how do we use our resources? So here's a poem by Ryokan that represents his response to greed and desire and his own experience of contentment. He wrote, without desire, everything is sufficient. With seeking, myriad things are impoverished. Plain vegetables can soothe hunger. A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body. Alone I hike with a deer. Cheerfully I sing with village children. The stream beneath the cliff cleanses my ears. The pine on the mountaintop fits my heart." So how do we learn to be content with our situation?

[37:46]

Not passive, but to appreciate what we have. This is a big part of Buddhist teaching in all aspects of Buddhism. So one of the main precepts is that a disciple of the Buddha does not kill. This doesn't mean only that we don't kill, but to try and help others not to kill, and also to support life. Consumerism as a religion can kill the life of the world by making things into dead commodities. Do we see the world and each other as alive? or instead see the world, each other, and even ourselves as just commodities to be consumed? Is the world an array of dead objects, or is it alive, dynamic, and interactive, as Buddhism teaches? So, this is a question of basic values and basic view of reality.

[38:50]

Dogen talks a lot about seeing, and other East Asian Buddhists talk about seeing the world as alive. Grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles can actually show us reality in the Dharma. When we see forests as just, you know, commodities to clear-cut so we can liquidate our assets as happens, or increase profit margins, quarterly profit margins. We're killing the world. We're seeing, and it's based on this real ignorance, ignoring the reality of the aliveness of the world. Another precept has to do with intoxication. We say a disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. and we had a meditation recovery group here Tuesday evening, Dawn Leaves, to see our own patterns of addiction and intoxication.

[39:55]

And this happens not just with alcohol or drugs, of course, but based on the values of consumerism, advertising and entertainment industries very skillfully distract us from being present in our body and mind. They aim to increase our desires and cravings, in effect, making us hungry ghosts. This is something in our culture, but also it's something kind of a fundamental and existential. In the Gendron Koan, we sometimes chant, Dogen says, when Dharma does not fill our body and mind, we think it's already sufficient. When the Dharma, the reality and the teaching, fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. This something missing is exactly our life problem, our sadness and frustration. In Zen practice, we sit facing the reality that something's missing.

[40:58]

We face the reality of lack in the world and in our lives as Dharma fills our body and mind. The problem with consumerism is that it attempts to fill this something is missing with new toys, to distract us from our own fears, sadness, and frustrations, thus to take away from our life. Buddha's practice is about learning not to be addicted, not to consume our world. We can appreciate the forest, wildlife, and our lives as they are without needing to accumulate more toys. If we do have a lot of toys, how can we use them beneficially? So it's okay to enjoy the entertainment and technology available in our society, but how can we be present and not use that as a way of running away from ourselves? How can we be present in that rest and recreation of enjoying going to a movie or whatever? So, In terms of what's happening in our society and the way in which we're all, having been raised here, caught up in consumerism to some extent, how can we enjoy actually just being content with how things are, not needing to have more and more and better and better and fancier and fancier?

[42:30]

So how do we find our repose and joy? How do we settle? So this practice of sitting is about settling into our lives as they are. Facing our fears and our anxiety, being willing to be present and upright in that. Just sitting amid the realities of our life is itself a way to find a kind of really deep contentment and inner dignity. We don't need something else. At the same time, there's something lacking always. There's some sadness, there's some sorrow, there's a problem, a big problem in our society, and for each one of us in our own lives. How can we be upright in the middle of that? I would say this is repose and joy. This is non-separation. To be present in the middle of that and then express it.

[43:37]

So again, this isn't a passive practice. This is a practice of expressing ourselves deeply, subtly, exploring how to do that. So there's a kind of creative questioning that I'm talking about in this book in various ways. How do we explore for ourselves how to live our life most fully? That's what this practice is about. So, again, thank you all for being here. We're not gonna do the usual temple cleaning this morning, and I'll talk more about that in the announcements, so we have a little more time. If anyone has comments, questions, responses, I've read about half of the book and I wasn't asking a lot of questions, but I think what I'll do is to say that it resonated with me because Except for opening the hand of thought, this is usually my second favorite.

[45:22]

Sorry, who's young? That's in good company, thank you. That's very kind. And yeah, I mean, the questioning is important. That's what this is about, that we not settle for some fundamentalist literal faith, but actually question the Zen teachings, question teachers, question Sazen itself. how do we bring it to life through our inquiry? So in addition to talking now, I'm going to be available to, if anyone's interested in having a book signed or whatever, I'm going to be available for that instead of temple cleaning. So if you have particular questions you want to ask me, go ahead. But if you have one of them you want to ask now, The other one was something like returning to the home village of self.

[46:26]

I've never heard that phrase before. I didn't know if it was a new translation of Dogen or if it's a... that really hit home too. Yeah, I love that phrase. I'm not totally clear on that. Yeah, so there's one of the Dogen essays where he talks of the awesome presence of active Buddhas, which I have talked about a lot here. Some of you have heard me talk about it. But he has this phrase, return to the home village of the self. And yeah, this is about coming home, taking refuge in Buddhas, taking refuge in our deepest self. And the phrase about not running away from yourself, So when I did my dharma transmission ceremony at Tassajara with my teacher, Reb Anderson, it's a three-week-long ceremony. It's very involved and lots and lots and lots of frustrations. Just as I was about to leave Tassajara and getting on the car going out, he said, don't run away from yourself. So I've found that very helpful myself and repeated it.

[47:31]

Thank you. Questions, responses, comments? Yes. Maybe you should buy the book. But anyway, I actually refer to him a lot in different quotes. And I try and get a quote from him into most of my drama talks. I don't always do it. But the specific song that I hear as being about Sashin, about Zen retreats, it may be about other things, too. But it's called Visions of Johanna. Do you know that song? Yeah, so you can read how that's the song about sashay.

[48:36]

Other comments, questions, responses? Steve, hi. Hi. Question on some of what you were reading with practice realization, which I appreciated in those words. Practice, realization, expression. And the word expression, I mentioned in the chapter, can also be translated as to expound. So it's practice, realization, and expounding. What got me from that is a little bit from my past, and something that I was a little bit confused about, or maybe I just, for whatever reason, it kind of went the wrong way, but I like practice, realization, and expression, and I like the expression part to it. practice and enlightenment are one. And that's funny, because I do think that there is something to that. But I also had heard that we practice because we are enlightened.

[49:42]

And there was something with that that kind of rubs me the wrong way. I really hate using the word enlightenment. I wish it would be... Yeah, I don't like it either so much, but, you know, it's around. But the more I get into this, you know, the more I really hate that word. I use awakening and realization more, but people use it, so I have to address that. I think I understand what you're saying, that we practice because we are already enlightened. Well, yes, in a way, but also awakening is not something. Awakening is a way It's a kind of activity. There are no enlightened or awakened people. There's enlightened activity or awareness, maybe. So it's not that, you know, the danger, and this is something Dogen talks about in his traditional warning in Zen, is that if you hear that you practice, that you are already enlightened and you just have to understand Buddha nature, then you wouldn't practice.

[50:45]

And the point is that awakening only is awakening when it is practiced. But also it's not just that everything is already there. Awakening unfolds and develops. I talk about the transformative function of zazen. So there is a way in which the awakening that is on your cushion or chair right now, when we take on practicing regularly, It does develop and unfold, and so it's not one thing. It's not like there's some enlightenment somewhere up there on some mountaintop or up in the sky or something. It's your own deep expression of the awareness on your chair now, and that's something that unfolds. sometimes get bothered by, or I guess I'm probably reacting fairly harshly as far as the word enlightenment, but I'm taking, the more I get into this, the more I see that, or the more I feel, that if you practice because you're enlightened, there's probably nothing wrong with you.

[51:55]

You know, you might go to the beach. You know, Suki Roshi said you might awake, get awakened and not like it. So it's not, you know, enlightenment or practice or realization or expression, whatever word you want to use, isn't something that fixes everything. Something is missing. There's some problem, there's some lack in the nature of reality in our world. Another great American sage, a great American yogi, said that if the world were perfect, it wouldn't be. Great American League yogi. So it's not about, you know, we're already awakened and that fixes everything. Quite, quite contrary. So I appreciate your, you know, kind of questioning that. Thank you. Any other comments, responses, questions, reflections?

[53:02]

Yes, Jeremy. I think I told you I was really enjoying reading this book. And recently, I've been able to see why. It reminds me of when I first started I guess the question is how would I have all these experiences and how would I be able to face that? So, being awake doesn't fix things. It doesn't mean you're going to, you know, that suddenly you'll get a great job and a great relationship. It's about being awake to the fact of, you know, the way... I'm sorry, Laurel. You've already got a great job. Yeah, this is about being alive and facing reality.

[54:08]

And then we can respond and we can interact and things do happen. But again, it's not a commodity. Is there something else? Yes, that's right. During the talk, in one of the sections, you were talking about facing, I was taking it as facing fear, facing the negatives, or what brings us to practice in the first place. Yes. And I think it sort of ties in with all of this. Maybe I'm way off, but what it reminded me of was that story of the guy who is obsessed with dragons, and he collects all the dragons, and then a real dragon hears about it and decides to pay him a visit, and he goes hide under the table, totally afraid. And I think sometimes it sort of struck me, isn't it true that sometimes

[55:12]

we can kind of play with this, or it helps us to deal with the little fears or the little problems, but we aren't quite brave enough to really face the big things. Yeah, and practice helps us develop the trust in ourselves and the world to do that more and more.

[55:34]

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