Good evening. This is our fourth of the practice period classes in 2019. We've been studying two fascicles of Dogon, Shoji and Zenki. I think I'd like to read part of Zenki, but I want to go back to Shoji. And something came to mind that I've been studying, a couple of things that I've been studying for the last few weeks that I think are of relevance and interest. So if you remember the last paragraph of Shoji, which is quite wonderful, where he says, there's a simple way to become Buddha. when you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate towards all sentient beings, respectful to seniors, and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha.

[01:16]

Do not seek anything else." So, Someone in India asked me to write an introduction to a translation of a sutra, of a Pali sutra that he had done, that he had translated. It's called the Sigalavada Sutra, and it's in the Digha Nikaya, the Long Discourses, and it's known as the householder or the layperson's code of discipline. at the lay person's Vinaya. And it's in a certain way parallel to the monastic Vinaya. And to make a long story short, it begins with a, very devout layperson trying to give instructions to his son as he was dying and his son is not interested in

[02:30]

taking up Buddhist practice. And so the father says, basically, well, just pay your respects to the six directions every day when you wake up. And the son says, I can do that. And so he begins that, and the father gives him this practice, knowing that with his all-seeing eye, the Buddha is going to see him, paying respect to these six directions. And the son is Israeli. very thorough in doing this. And the Buddha says, basically, what are you doing? And he said, well, I'm paying respect to the six directions. And then the Buddha said, do you know what those six directions signify? And that's the body of the Sutta. And of course, he is

[03:37]

enthralled by the Buddhist teachings and takes on these practices as Buddhist practices for a lay person. So just to say, I'm not going to go through the whole thing, just to say what these six directions are. Mother and father are the east. Teachers are the south. Wife and children are the west. Friends and associates are the north. Servants and employees are the nadir, or the down. And ascetics and holy people are the zenith, up. Who is fit to lead the household life, these six quarters he should salute. Who is wise and virtuous, keen-witted and gentle, humble and amitable, such a one to honor may attain.

[04:45]

Who is hospitable and friendly, liberal and unselfish, a guide, an instructor, a leader, such a one to honor may attain. Generosity, sweet speech, helpfulness to others, impartiality to all as the case demands. You may recognize that if you're tuning into that last language. Generosity. generosity, sweet speech, helpfulness to others, and impartiality to all as the case demands. Those are what Dogen talked about as the four embracing dharmas or the Bodhisattva's four ways of guidance. So it goes back to to this early sutra. But the thing that's interesting to me about this in relation to the paragraph in Shoji is that in Shoji it says there's a simple way to become Buddha, which is basically to do the kinds of practices that are enumerated in the Siddhāvata Sutta.

[05:54]

And in the Siglavada Sutta, what's distinguished is this is not a way to become a Buddha. This is a way to become a good person who follows a path of righteousness and may attain honor. But not, it's different from the path to Nibbana, which is laid out for monastics. So what's interesting as we were talking about it is there is a shift. There's a shift in, there's a doctrinal shift from these early Pali suttas to Dogen's time where he's saying basically these practices and these virtues are the expression or the manifestation of being a Buddha. And that seems to me to be a difference.

[07:00]

Does that make sense? Do you understand what I'm saying? I understand what you're saying, but I'm wondering how do you see that shift? Well, I think in Shoji and Zenki, the audience for them was laypeople. And I think Dogen is quite openly saying that a layperson can be a Buddha, that there's a simple way to become a Buddha. which is just really to live a righteous life. And I'm going to talk about, I'm going to get back to that a little later when we come back around to Zenki, because I think that the logic of that is implicit in the Buddha's teachings, but the distinction between monastic and lay was

[08:16]

certainly more pronounced at different times and in different cultures. I think it was more pronounced in, I suspect it was more pronounced in Dogen's time as he, you know, as he developed his practice. and moved out of the Kyoto area and moved to a more thoroughly monastic practice. He was upholding monasticism. I don't know if you've gotten that far in your study, in the complete works, Ross, whether you've got to that point of view. Yeah. Oh, you're doing extensive record. I think you're doing the whole shop again. So yeah, there's a shift. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, well I think that there certainly is a distinction in putting forth the Bodhisattva ideal and both of these fascicles, and we'll see this more when we're looking closer at Zenki, are about

[10:07]

raising bodhicitta, raising a mind that not only sees into enlightenment and impermanence but also feels the responsibility to transmit those values to the wider society and in the recognition that as as you see over and over again in many of the Mahayana suttas, that everyone has the capacity, is of the nature of being a Buddha. Yeah. I've got to say, when I read this last paragraph, I don't see anything, this may not be the right word, but this seems I'm not seeing what you're seeing in terms of this being accessible to the layperson in a way that has that accessibility.

[11:28]

Well, I think that it's deep in the past, but I mean, to my understanding, the Siglavata Sutta is deep in the past, and yet it's distinguishing a lay path from a monastic path. It's distinguishing the path to a wholesome life from the path to nirvana. And they seem to me to be, when we were talking about it, it seems to me that the same values are put forward in the Siddha-Lavata Sutta as in this paragraph we showed you. And those values being respect to one's... Yeah. But this is... Do not adhere to anything evil. It's a different translation, but that's okay. Do not become attached to what... I'm not calling it from the end.

[12:46]

He doesn't say there's a simple way. I mean, there's nothing simple about this. Well, I think he's putting it forth as something accessible, I think. Alex in India. I think the reason he says it's simple is because there's not all these other things that you might think of. There's not a lot of other rules. There's not just rules, but practices and lifestyle attributes those are the things that he's that he's saying it's simpler than that that's why because all the other indicators that people might not think you know are afforded to them he's saying those things aren't actually that I think the fundamental distinction that I'm seeing is that he's not saying, he's not including in this paragraph that you actually have to be a monastic.

[13:50]

That that is... Or enlightened. No, I'm not... I'm actually just trying to start a discussion here. I'm not saying what's typical or untypical of Dogen. I'm giving this to you because I think it's encouraging and I see the seeds of it. I was very encouraged when I read the Siddhalavada Sutta. You know, even though it said, well, it's not about Nirmana. You know, it's I read it through the lens of what Dogen is saying. And I found the Siddhalavada Sutta incredibly encouraging. And I had never read it before. So that's why I'm sharing it with you. Yeah, it's like Zazen.

[15:02]

It's really simple. It's a very simple practice, which is not to say it's easy. Yeah, Ross. That's when this is actually. Yeah. more than in China. Yeah.

[16:37]

Yeah. Judy? Yeah, I was wondering how this ties in with this principle that when a person really gets in their bones, their marrow, impermanence, it usually comes through some kind of suffering. that relationship is paramount and therefore a wholesome life is like a natural response and the more we sit and the more we practice in the sangha and so on, you know, we get at ethics.

[17:39]

It actually matters because you start to feel what it feels like. So I was just wondering, you know, how that ties in with sort of whatever the simplicity is of, you know, in lay life, You know, life is simple, be a good person. Well, let me move on because that's kind of the segue to the part of Zenki. But first, a digression, something that, a message that Helen sent me. She said, turns out that Zenki in Chinese uses two very common characters, which does mean something like the whole machine. And since machine G in Chinese is a homonym for chicken, it sounds like the whole chicken. The whole chicken with a pot.

[18:41]

So anyway, I thought that was pretty good. It's good to have some people who actually understand the language. The last time we talked about the first lines, and this gets to, I think, what Judy was talking about. I want to review this and then take it again a little further. The great way of all Buddhas thoroughly practiced is emancipation and realization. And I feel like I read that, I've been reading that for 30 years and kind of thinking really fuzzily about it. Emancipation, realization, it's like, it all sounds kind of the same. And looking at it, looking at all the different translations and really thinking about it, realizing that they're two different words. Emancipation, the word is todatsu, which really means dropping away.

[19:43]

And the word that we're translating here as realization or manifestation is genjo. And as we said, Looking at it in western philosophical terms, you can see this as expressions of negative and positive freedom. Negative freedom, emancipation means being free from the bonds or the restrictions of one's life or circumstances. realization or manifestation means positive freedom, the sense of freedom to do something. And this is a very customary division in sort of Western political philosophy.

[20:47]

I've been reading a book Somebody came to me, I forget who it was, somebody came in Dōkasan, they were reading Bhikkhu Bodhi's little book on the Eightfold Path. Was anyone here in this room? Yeah, it's really good. It's pretty short. So in his introduction, Bhikkhu Bodhi says, the internal unity of the Dharma is guaranteed by the fact that the last of the four noble truths, the truth of the way, is the Noble Eightfold Path. While the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path which is right view, which belongs to the territory of wisdom.

[21:49]

The right view is the first step on the Noble Path is the right understanding of the Four Noble Truths. So these two these two principles penetrate and include one another. The formula of the Four Noble Truths containing the Eightfold Path and the Noble Eightfold Path containing the Four Noble Truths. Okay, got that? He writes, given this integral unity, It would be pointless to pose the question which of the two aspects of the Dhamma has greater value, the doctrine or the path, the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path. But then he says, but if we did risk the pointless by asking that question, the answer would have to be the path.

[22:52]

The path claims primacy because it is precisely this that brings the teachings to life. So here we're getting to, I can view, right view, which is wisdom, it's insight into the nature of reality, as In line with what Judy was saying, that is liberative. It liberates us from our delusion. Right view liberates us from our mistaken views. So that's this negative freedom side or the emancipation, the freedom from. It's what allows us to be free in order to manifest or realize the Dharma, which is in doing that is following the Eightfold Path.

[24:03]

So you have realization kind of an opening, an awareness, an insight. and it leads to what Andrea was bringing up. It, in a Mahayana system, leads to the enactment of realization, the enactment of the Bodhisattva path, of Bodhicitta. The path is synonymous with Bodhicitta. And so you have these two interactive principles So Bhikkhu Bodhi talks about them in the context of his understanding of the Eightfold Path, and here we are understanding it from a fresh angle in the context of what Dogon is teaching. Does that make sense? So I thought that was quite remarkable. I just thought I wasn't looking for anything when I was reading Bhikkhu Bodhi's book.

[25:11]

Someone just said, oh, I really like this. Oh, Beifo Path. I'm into that. And so I got a copy of the book. But I realized that it was in alignment with what we were speaking of. Questions about that? Thoughts? Yeah, John? I'm trying to sort of convert it into the Theravada language. Is emancipation divine? Yeah. Well, it's demarcated experientially, but it's also the whole idea of the teaching of the sutras and the commentaries is about, it gives you models of the activities of

[26:24]

of the Buddha and the arhats, how they manifest, because while they're still alive, they still go forward and act. And so that's the realization or manifestation side. I was getting that samsara nirvana being woven in a Mahayana way, and it seems to be that sort of expression. in some sort of way that I don't, I just, does that make sense? Yeah, but I'm not sure that's, well, that's not the distinction I'm making here, yeah. And that it's sort of a, maybe it's a question that's gonna come up further as we're looking at how Dogen speaks about birth and death, Judy. I think how it relates

[27:27]

I'm not sure I can be real specific. I feel like the more that I practice, the more spaciousness I have around, uh, my attachments, the more, the more I accept the nature of impermanence. So I'm not going to be grandiose about it and call it emancipation. But I think that we all experience aspects of emancipation. And when you're from that place, when one acts from that place of spaciousness, which is based on either a conscious or an intuitional insight, then one can meet people and meet circumstances freely. Does that make sense? Is that too abstract? Maybe somebody else has a good example.

[28:57]

Okay. how to deal with that. And my younger sister is saying to me, wow, you know, I know it's going to recover down there, but it feels really weird right now. And they're both the uterus, and they're both this life. And to really show up for each of them, for me, required really getting something

[30:03]

Right. That's pretty good. The emancipation might be that you're free from making it about you. You are free to be with each of them as they were, rather than making that birth or that hysterectomy be about you, which is in our delusion. I think we have a tendency to do that. What would be the positive? Well, the positive freedom is you turning towards them and offering whatever you can to be of use to them.

[31:17]

So you might offer childcare or support or you might offer to go shopping or do the laundry for your friend without kind of weighing the pluses and minuses of it. I think this may be too heavy or it may be helpful in response to the audience's question. Your clear staging of emancipation and realization last time, a term that I heard in Theravada Yeah, I may be somewhat heretical, but I've never met a person who I felt had extinguished all those things.

[32:36]

They may exist. Either I haven't met them or I don't have the capacity to know it when I'm meeting them. So I don't know. What? Sure, I've had it for myself. I've encountered others that way. When we say extinction, and this is one of the things that that's problematic for me in my reading of the Pali Sutra is that it seems to imply that it's a state of being from which there is no backsliding. I don't know about that. I've met great teachers who

[33:36]

were so completely generous and open-hearted and joyous, and I've seen them get angry or frustrated or whatever, be human, and that doesn't trouble me. I think there's a different, I mean, the stuff of Zinky, the stuff of our practice is like, Whatever arises, that's what we work with. It's not that we aim to get rid of certain kinds of feelings or sensations, but we say, okay, that's what I have to work with. Gradually, we refine ourselves. This is what Uchiyama Roshi talked about as refining your life. You refine yourself bit by bit by really experiencing your patterns, your habits, and being able to say, oh, right, I see this.

[34:44]

This is pattern behavior. Is that what I want to do? Is that helpful to someone that I'm engaging with? And we can begin to exercise some kind of control. Ron. Going back to what Judy was saying, where's the emancipation in that experience? One thing is that the emancipation has explored its work. It can also be incremental. It doesn't have to be this big explosion. And that you said that you actually have some feelings for impermanence. What I heard you really trying to get at was you have less resistance to impermanence. You can actually accept impermanence. In a sense, the aspect of us which resists impermanence Linda?

[36:01]

We haven't gone past it. This is exactly where I want to go right now. So go ahead. So go ahead. So, know that there are innumerable beings in yourself. Also, there is birth and there is death. Quietly think over whether birth and all things that arise together with birth are inseparable or not. There is neither a moment nor a thing that is apart from birth. There is neither an object nor a mind that is apart from birth. And you could add, there's neither a moment nor a thing that is apart from death as well. So this is in accord with, to me, one of my core teachings, the Six Ancestors Bodhisattva Vows, Six Ancestors Winning.

[37:16]

So his first vow in the Platform Sutra, he says, sentient beings of my mind are numberless. I vow to save them all. Huining says, Learned audience, all of us have now declared that we vow to deliver an infinite number of sentient beings. But what does that mean? It does not mean that I, Huining, am going to deliver them. And who are these sentient beings within our mind? They are the delusive mind, the deceitful mind, the evil mind, and such like minds. All of these are sentient beings. Each of them has to deliver himself by means of his own essence of mind. Then the deliverance is genuine. Yeah. So when we hear the term like essence of mind, elusive mind, already we're losing the freshness of that.

[38:20]

There are innumerable beings inside of us. So that's what I wanted to... maybe invite people to search out who are the beings inside of us and let them speak. That would just be my idea. Uh-huh. Well, does anyone want to call out any of the sentient beings of your mind? Yeah. Yeah. We left that behind. OK. Because we have a kind of sense, I saw this, I learned this on a t-shirt actually.

[39:40]

Worry is not preparation. I thought that was, I thought that was really. Why would we want to get rid of worries? Yes, everything serves a purpose. It's true. These are broad statements. But usually, my experience is my worrying is not particularly helpful. My first thought was I have a big stomach.

[40:42]

Big stomach beings are always making itself kind of noticeable. It's always, you know, like I have a big stomach. I can tell you what I mean by that, but you don't even have to know. What do we have? These beings are alive. Well, I didn't say that, Dogen said that. But I think what Linda is saying, what I hear Linda saying is, can you meet that worrying being? And I would say, can you meet it with kindness and compassion? Right.

[41:48]

And I want to continue to meet them. I don't want to reach a state where I'm not meeting them. Well, you don't know what you'll reach in the future. Yeah, you don't know. But if you just keep meeting them, and I would, from my experience of meeting the teens inside myself, usually the real problematic ones show up first and stay forever. But I can't even tell myself always to meet them Yes. Well, I think in the song, Our Hero from the Lotus Sutra, there's a line and that's people know that song about Bodhisattva never disparage. Yeah, there's a wonderful line in there. So they beat him and pelted him with clubs and stones and tried to drive him away.

[42:52]

So those are sentient beings in his mind. In that case, he just run off to a safe distance and he turned around and say, I would never disparage you. So it's like you don't go and throw your arms around a being that is running amok necessarily. You may want to find a safe distance but still turn towards that being and not ignore it. This is what Suzuki Roshi says in his chapter on control. The best way to control your horse or cow is to give them a big pasture. The worst way is to ignore them. So you're giving them a big pasture, still somewhere in that pasture, somewhere there's a fence. There's some boundary to it. But you are paying attention to it. And we all have, I've got depressive beings that I meet frequently.

[43:56]

I have frustrated beings that I meet frequently. I have beings that say, you're not good enough that I meet frequently. You know, on the one hand, go ahead, yeah, say. That's what I was going to say. You're talking about whether we aspire to get to a place where we have this wall. Well, I think that we aspire, but I don't think that's the ultimate goal. So you don't mind that we aspire? Well, I want us to aspire. But that's what you didn't like about the building. No, no, I didn't say I didn't like it.

[44:58]

worry or something. The next question is, for me, I understand this sentence as saying, it's a sentence that has to do with the natta, there is no self. So it's really in Chohok Okomura's commentary, he says, Zenki is the total function. It's a total working. It's the whole deal, which includes self and myriad dharmas. From one side, the self is total function itself. Only the self is there. No myriad dharmas. Myriad dharmas are simply part of the self. From another perspective, only myriad dharmas are there.

[46:19]

There is no such thing called the self. Or we might say, there is only total function. There is neither self nor myriad dharmas. Can I go on from talking about reading? Yeah, this is really good actually. So it gets to Bodhicitta. The Buddha's eternal Dharma body manifests itself within our practice in the reality of impermanence. So that's a pretty... Yeah, the Buddha's entire eternal dharma body manifests itself within our practice in the reality of impermanence. I got to read the next sentence though. However, when we don't practice, there is no such thing called Buddha's eternal body. Because, well said, is such a dharma body really eternal? Not in our common sense usage of the word. then Dogen said he also said the same thing in Shravakansao, Hotsu Bodhichitta.

[47:26]

But here he's talking about Bodhichitta, so he's talking about the eternal Dharma body, he's talking about what arises when we see into impermanence, which is emancipation, and when we practice realization, which is enacting bodhichitta. Yeah, Alex? Well, one really clarifying thing about what Srila Bhogomora is saying is that I was looking at Sankhya King realizing they only say the word Buddha once in the whole thing at the very beginning. The rest of it, they don't say the word Buddha at all. So to me, what Dogen is attempting here is to try to find a way to describe what Srila Bhogomora is calling the Buddha's eternal body. about creating some kind of idealization or anthropomorphization in people's minds. So I think that's a really cool part about the text.

[48:32]

But also, he only mentioned Buddha at the top because what he's saying is, you are Buddha. If you can understand, if you can be free, and an act with bodhicitta, then we go back to the last sentence of Sogyi, then that's a simple way of being Buddha. Just let go of your preconceptions and act for the benefit of all beings. And that is manifesting, then you are the eternal Buddha body, a particular being or a particular, in a particular place in time. Yeah, Dan. Who he?

[49:59]

It doesn't matter which translation you read, does it? I want to look at Dr. Abe, if I can find him. It should take me a moment. Yeah, just go ahead and then... It's dharmas, right? Dharmas, yeah. It's not beings. Beings is probably the wrong translation. Well, I'm not sure. I mean, it's dharmas. Dharmas are the very... Beings we throw, or being. No, I think it's beings. In the Platform Sutra, it's beings. I mean, I really think in the Platform Sutra, he's getting to the very thing that Linda was talking about. He's talking about, and the way I see it is, you know, in Buddhism, we talk about the six realms, the sort of Buddhist cosmology, the six realms, human realm,

[51:03]

hungry ghost realm, fighting demon realm, hell realm, animal realm, and godly, divine realm. Those six realms. To me, those six realms are emblematic of countless realms and states of mind. And I think that Just the way it's useful to me is pretty much, I think, the way Linda was putting it. It's like, I have all these beings within myself and when causes and conditions arise, a being comes forth. We should check that, actually, because the way the other translator pointed out, Give me a moment here, okay?

[52:15]

Let's take a break. Take five minutes. Come back. Come back in five minutes. Yeah, yeah. I think he means it as the beings of mind. Yeah. I also just wanted to add, I'm a little out of sync because I'm thinking a little bit too academically or scholarly, I think, but it's implicit in Dogen that we all are buddha nature. So we don't need to keep talking about buddha because then things about the total activity is about the activity of our buddha nature. Right. He still is emphasizing that.

[53:24]

He still talks about it. Yes, but it's not separate. It's not separate. So we're not talking about the Buddhas being outside of ourselves. We are here. This is our activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, wait. But he, you know, Shoalker's also saying, if we don't practice, we are not manifesting that Buddha nature. Surely, that's Dogen's question, right? Right, so yeah. Yeah, and so part of the answer to the, have I died to get rid of it, or worry being, one of the dimensions of answering that is, no, worry being is Buddha nature. Not only can you not get rid of it, but it's Yes, thanks.

[54:29]

I think somewhere. Maybe not. OK.

[56:50]

I have not forgotten that Dan had a question and I want to do. there's some there really is ambiguity about beings and dharmas uh in in shohaku's translation which which andrea found he speaks of beings in dr abhi's translation which i want to read to you so this is parallel this is the translation of the paragraph Dr. Avi's translation of this paragraph, know that there are innumerable beings in yourself. Also there is birth and there is death. Quietly think over whether birth and all things that arise together with birth are inseparable or not. There is neither a moment nor a thing that is apart from birth. There is neither a moment nor neither an object nor a mind that is apart from birth.

[57:53]

Okay, let me read you his translation. You should know that within the incalculable dharmas that are in you, there is life and there is death. you must quietly reflect whether your present life and all the dharmas existing with this life share a common life or not. In fact, there can be nothing, not one instant of time or a single dharma that does not share life in common. for a thing, as well as for a mind, there is nothing but sharing life in common. That's a bit of a different take on it. But I think to me, when he says the incalculable dharmas within you, I can see that as innumerable beings.

[58:58]

But that's just my reading. Yeah, Ross. I don't think so. No. They are always working together in mysterious ways. This is what I was talking with somebody today, you know, we were looking around my office and just think everything that I could see had to be made by somebody and had to be made by incredibly complex processes, whether they were natural processes or mechanical processes, and they work together in these amazing ways.

[60:02]

This radio that's sitting next to my desk has been working there for 15 years. How does it do that? These are all the interacting of dharmas, whether they're animate or not. Yeah, Dan. Can you read that again? No, they're completely intimately intertwined.

[61:11]

There is nothing that is apart from birth and death. There is nothing that can arise that does not go away. And everything that goes away has at one point arisen. So this is the next part of actually Choako Mori's commentary. He says, our lives arise and perish within each ksana. One ksana is like a dharma moment, an instant. Their swiftness is like this. Moment after moment, practitioners should not forget this principle of impermanence. while being within this swiftness of arising and perishing of transmigration in each jhāna, if we arouse one single thought of ferrying others before ourselves, the eternal longevity of the Buddha immediately manifests itself."

[62:14]

That's Dogen actually, it's not Shōhaku. He's quoting which is a fascicle about Buddha mind. Let me read it again. Our lives arise and perish within each jhana. their swiftness is like this, moment after moment, practitioners should not forget this principle of impermanence. While being within the swiftness of arising and perishing of trials migration in each jhana, if we arouse one single thought of ferrying others before ourselves, the eternal longevity of the Tathagata immediately manifests itself. So what I'd say is that on the one hand, I feel like the nature of practice is that we learn to open to the arising of that thought so that we can act for the benefit of all others before ourselves.

[63:23]

It will arise because our Buddha nature is there. We just have to kind of get out of the way. and let it surface. But if we are caught in our customary habits and resistances and likes and dislikes, then we will create barriers for it to arise. Yeah? For me, it was bridges to awesomeness. Go on. Why not worry? I was thinking that where that comes up for me So I was thinking, well if I have a being that likes or needs to, urgently needs to ask why, so in a really painful and sudden situation, why me, why you, why us, the stakes can be incredibly high, so rather than pushing that away,

[64:46]

But to really, you know, sort of plunge into the why, if I'm really there with it, the cessation of it, it often will take me to, oh, this is how it is. And then, how? How to live, how to love, what's most important. They're not separate. I can't say, you know, exactly, I'm free from the why and I'm free to ask how. It's like they're arising at the same time. I understand that. I mean, I would say because I've been practicing here for 35 years or more, I have, based on Sojin's teaching, I very quickly move from why to how.

[66:09]

When the why question comes up, which I think was my previous, you know, my pattern growing up, it's like mindfulness bell to, go to the, oh, the real question is, how? How is it, how is this unfolding? How do I move into just, but that's me. You know, I'm not, I'm not saying there's something mistaken or deluded about it. Just, you know, we feel, I feel like, okay, I've had that drilled into me. And I, you know, it's, it's fine. I enjoy it. And Yes, there are situations that call for why. Right now, I'm reading a book, a very powerful book, A Tibetan Buddhist woman, Ellen Mains Corman, writing about her, basically her investigation into her background as a child of Holocaust survivors.

[67:23]

It's really, really difficult to get past the why question. I'm not sure that you'd want to get past the why question. You know, but you have to see what arises from it. Right. Right. So let me, let me go on one more paragraph. No, no, we're back in Zanki, yeah. Birth is just like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and you row with the oar. Although you row, the boat gives you a ride and without the boat, no one could ride. But you ride the boat and your riding makes the boat what it is.

[68:27]

Investigate a moment such as this. At just such a moment, there is nothing but the world of the boat. The sky and the water and the shore are all the boat's world, which is not the same as the world that is not the boat's. When you ride in a boat, your body and mind and the environments together are the undivided activity of the boat. The entire earth and the entire sky are both the undivided activity of the boat. Thus birth is nothing but you and you are nothing but birth." It's a wonderful paragraph that to me it's resonant with some of the most wonderful childhood memories that I have because I spent a lot of time on boats with my grandparents and we would go out cruising and I remember cruising between Miami and the Bahamas and it was just, you'd be out in the sea and there'd be nothing but you and the boat and the sky and the water and it was one thing.

[69:47]

It was one being in that moment and it was so It was so peaceful. So that just a, that there's a great resonance there for me. But he's using this as a, he's using this as an analogy with total dynamic working. That it's actually your presence and your consciousness that's turning this thing into a boat. And the boat's nature and shape and form that allows you to ride and to create the whole situation. You're all working together. And without the ocean, you'd be stuck on dry land. And without the air,

[70:51]

you would be asphyxiated. So it's all just working together in this wonderful, harmonious way. And this reminds me probably this passages, many of you flagged the portion of Genjo Koan that also speaks about a boat. I don't know if you, some of you remember it for sure. He says, when you first seek the Dharma, you are imagined that you are far away from its environs. But Dharma is already correctly transmitted. You are immediately your original self. Then he uses a boat metaphor. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves.

[71:52]

Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So that's, that opens another door. Nothing at all has unchanging self. I don't know whether, what the meaning of nothing is. There's nothing that doesn't have an unchanging self, but nothing has unchanging self. But it's when you ride in a boat, It's not, there's never a stasis. There's never sitting still. It's always one of the great things about being a poet is it's always rocking.

[72:59]

It's always moving. It is existing in a fluid reality, which is a way that we are existing in each moment of our life. We're all drifting about here. What? I really have nothing clever to say about that. But ultimately they were cancelled, right? Their contract was not renewed. But not just the things that we see as moving, but rocks, trees, walls, everything.

[74:04]

They're all moving. They're all changing. They're in constant change. Yeah, John. Is this saying anything different than the Heart Sutra? And is the Heart Sutra saying anything different than this? Is Dogen just repeating the Heart Sutra over and over again? Yeah. I mean, that's what That's what Buddhism is about. It's like you keep presenting the same stuff again and again, and at any given moment, some version or other might actually kind of resonate with you and wake you up. But there's nothing new. Well, every time you study something, It's really new and every time, you know, and studying this with you guys for this practice period, this is really new for me.

[75:39]

Talking about it is new. What I learned by studying it is new. What we learn from interaction is new. And so a new light can be thrown upon anything that we read or study. Yeah, and I don't mean to belittle. No, I don't hear it that way. I esteem the Heart Sutra profoundly. raise it up to a quality like the Heart Sutra. It's mantra form.

[76:42]

That the mantra to say it is to embody it or to bring it into oneself. There is a sense that Dodo is trying to rise to that occasion. I think so. But that's each your own different sense of the word mantra. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it's also You know, also, it is our, in every respect, it's our thought, our mind that makes it a boat.

[77:45]

If you didn't know what it was, you know, if you saw it just sitting on the beach and you had no idea or any word, you had no word for boat, you wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do in it. yes yes yes yes it is yeah Alex the other thing about this boat metaphor is to me where it intersects with our practice is like to me it rhymes a lot with with we're sitting zazen to make a buddha um the boat in this sense i mean i lost my OK, well, what I'll say about the boat, which is what I always feel about this, this room is like a boat. I always feel like this room is like Noah's Ark, yes.

[78:48]

It's very boat-like. It's really ship-shaped. We keep it in great order. It's relatively waterproof, except when the rain comes down really hard. And I just, I feel like we're, you know, it's like we should have, it should be like a, we should have oars, you know, sticking out through the walls. We should be rowing. We might, we might get someplace, you know. Just before you said that, I was thinking that this makes me You're the dancer of the month, you're the choreographer, next year. So I just wanted to, there's something, and we really have only a few minutes and it's probably a mistake to open this up, but in my commentary, in Sho Haku Okamura's commentary, he says, when we are alive, death does not exist at all.

[80:05]

When we are dead, life is completely gone. It is never half and half. No matter how sick we are, even if we are in a near death experience, we are 100% alive. And, you know, this birth and death, we see it as kind of bookends. And what we call life exists between those bookends. My friend Cohen France, who also commented on this, he speaks about our interest in vampire and zombie stories. You know, the undead beings who do not die, but live outside the ordinary bounds of life.

[81:08]

There's something wrong with that reality to our mind. They're not, you know, they're just, they're outside of, they're defying impermanence in a sense and it's still, you know, if you, you know, all these movies are always impermanent and they always die in the end, right? the stakes of their heart or their head cut off or something like that. But we have some fascination for the undying, the undead, much more fascination for the undead than we do for the unborn, which is something that the Zen teachers speak of. I'm really taken by the fact that there is no half and half. You know, if you are even a little alive, there's total dynamic working.

[82:17]

And there's a moment when that consciousness ceases and the beating heart ceases and then we we call that that's also total dynamic working because it's not like the working of the body stops it just takes it takes a very different form and it decays uh and this is I mean, I think this is this is the question that he's bringing up in these in these two fascicles is what is this total dynamic working? You know, what does it mean? How does it encompass both? Our ideas of birth and our ideas of death. I was thinking and You know, I think often about my friend Jarvis Masters on death row.

[83:25]

He had a hearing, he's been waiting 25 years for this appeal hearing that he had two days ago. It was a train wreck. It was a disaster. His lawyer was, he wasn't sharp. He wasn't clear. And he didn't make good arguments. Now, that's maybe or maybe not determinant what the outcome is going to be because the court may have already, this is California Supreme Court. They may have already decided, but we had a very intense phone conversation today. Me and Jarvis are going to, we've learned how to We've kind of learned how to yell at each other without, and then step back from that without there being malice in it.

[84:30]

But it's, I really felt for him, you know, because he said, oh, this is what 26 years heads up to, you know, and realize he's living in a place where the state has decided has made a decision about his death. They haven't set a date, but they've made a decision and he's been living with that decision there. He's been living with that decision since like 1988. And it's a decision of life and death. And he has to live with that every day. And it's true in a sense that, in a sense, all of us do. And yet, I have to say, in my respect and admiration, there's total dynamic working.

[85:39]

even though the shape of his reality is so different than ours and the place of his confinement is so different than ours, you know, it's completely alive. So I don't know, not exactly sure what the relevance of that is, but it's been on my mind for the last three days and it touches these fascicles to me and I haven't, you know, it's not like I could figure out exactly how it all fits together but it really, it touches what we're looking at. Well and also in those moments, which can include this horrific thing that's happening.

[86:46]

But, you know, like I remember when Ross gave that talk about really seeing this psychosphere for the first time. And, you know, I've had moments like that. And in my experience, they tended to come after a really powerful experience of someone dying or maybe even with them. passing by a tree I've walked by many times, it actually doesn't feel hyper real. Something shifts, and it's just real. And then I feel better. I feel like I'm there. I feel like it's another one of those, oh. Yeah, well, that's my experience. I've been out to San Quentin so many times to visit him, and you know, you visit him, well for a long time I visited him through, you know, non-contact.

[88:01]

visit which was like through three quarters of an inch of plexiglass and a very bad telephone connection. And then we've had contact visits which are in a small, literally a cage. And they're probably, there's a line of about 10 cages, five on each side, each with a lawyer or a legal worker consulting with somebody from death row. And those are very human, wonderful contacts. I buy really bad food from the vending machines for him. I usually buy him a big-ass burger. That's actually what it's called. Big-ass burger. But when I walk out, You walk out through these sliding gates, there's two sets of them, and you walk out right into the brilliant sunlight, or the brilliant light of the bay, looking out over the bay, and it has that moment of hyperreality, and it's just like, oh.

[89:11]

And then I set off walking, and gradually you sort of walk into your ordinary perception. But I'm also aware, oh, I'm walking into my ordinary perception and my ordinary perception is such that it leaves this guy back in this cage. So, I think we'll stop there. And let's chant the Bodhisattva vows.

[89:47]

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