This weekend we had a three-day sasheen, or intensive sitting. Sasheen means to gather the mind. or heart, so three days of intensive zazen. And I spoke all three days about a short essay by Ehei Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan in the 13th century, from one of his essays in his long Shabogenzo collection called Zenki. And I spoke about it in terms of seshin and zazen. And I want to speak about Zenki tonight in terms of practice in the world. So Zenki, I talked a lot as I spoke this weekend, and I'll talk tonight a lot about just the name Zenki, which there's a translation we were looking at from Kaz Tanahashi called Undivided Activity, and another translation from Tom Cleary called The Whole Works.

[01:06]

So Zen, the Zen of Zenki is not the same Zen as the Zen of Zen Buddhism or Zazen, but it means, Zen in that context means complete or total or the whole universe. And ki is a very complicated character which means, it could mean activity or function or mechanism or operations, potential, functioning, could refer to a practitioner. It also means a loom, like a loom where one weaves. So how to translate just this phrase is complicated. Kaas talks about it in terms of undivided activity and non-separation. And it also could be talked about the universe functioning, or the completeness of our functioning.

[02:18]

So it's a good, and I'll read some of the essay itself, it's a good teaching for Zazen itself, and for Sesshin, and for the containment of Sesshin, and for the focusing of Sesshin. But I want to, tonight, try to bring it out into how it applies to our practice in the world. And first I'll say something about the chant we did tonight, Bucho Sonsho Dharani. So we haven't chanted this so often. It's Sino-Japanese Dharani. Dharanis are particular incantations that come from the Sanskrit, although in the Japanese tradition they're chanted in Sino-Japanese, which is sort of strange because part of the point of Dharanis is that they're not, their meaning, they don't have a particular, they don't necessarily have a meaning.

[03:25]

Some of the words clearly, are related to Sanskrit words that have meaning like tata, gata. There are words that I recognize that are like Sanskrit. Mani, mani, mani is like a wish-fulfilling jewel, or, well, often it says, tatagataya, tatagata, which is like tatagata, which is one of the names for Buddha, the thus-come-one, or thus-gone-one. But the point of Dharani's is not the meaning, but the sound itself. is said to have particular function. So in some ways it's relevant to functioning of our total dynamic activity.

[04:26]

The idea of Zenki is that our Functioning, our operations, our movement, our activity, is a reflection of wholeness, of the totality of the whole universe, each one of us in our own way. And together we function. to support completeness. And it's kind of easier to see that in Sashin, when we're all working together and each person has a position in the Sashin, serving or helping in the kitchen. So it's also a Sangha kind of teaching. This Buchoson Sho Dharani is literally the Buddha's head top Dharani and is a protective Dharani.

[05:34]

A lot of them are for protection. So part of the teachings and part of the teaching of Zenki, the whole works, is a description of how the world is, how the world is complete in a sense. But it's also, it's not just a description, it's also a kind of practice instruction. It's a description, but it's also, it's a description that implies our role in the world, each of us individually and collectively, that we help make the world complete. The world is complete, and we make it so, each one of us. So the Bhushan Sun show, Dharani, we chanted during the three-day sitting and this evening for the benefit of, there are various Buddhist temples endangered by the fires in Santa Rosa and up through Northern California. A couple that I know of that,

[06:34]

that there have been concerns about Genjoji or Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, Jokcho Bill Kwong's temple near Santa Rosa, which he is a successor of Shunryu Suzuki Roshiya, and that it had to be evacuated. It was surrounded by fire, as a lot of places were in the Santa Rosa area. As far as the last I heard, it's safe. A couple of his sons went back to help protect it, as has happened to Tassajara, another temple that people were concerned about is Tempyozan, which is further north, I think near Ukiah, that Akiba Gengo Roshi, the abbot of Soto Shu in North America, is building, according to Japanese standards, to be like a Japanese training temple. And it's near some of the fires. And as far as I know, there have been no Zen temples destroyed, but many homes, and many, many people are

[07:41]

displaced and many people are housing refugees from these fires. So, you know, this is a time when how the whole works is a question. It came up a little bit in Sashin, and I'm going to try and talk about it tonight, but we are in a situation in the world where there is great suffering, and maybe there's always been great suffering, but now the potential scale of it is catastrophic. Climate breakdown is endangering millions of people all over the world, in South Asia and Africa and now in the Northwest and in California and in the Gulf Coast and Florida and so forth.

[08:47]

And of course, any one event is not caused by climate damage, global warming, whatever you want to call it, but this climate breakdown clearly caused by human use of fossil fuels clearly has intensified hurricanes and the danger of forest fire. That's not a question according to science. And the droughts and so forth in California. a whole series of causes and effects. So, prayers and Dharanis are not enough. We need to change our system of energy and we have now alternative means of energy that is enough to, that technologically can supply our needs. It's just a matter of the political will which

[09:50]

needs to change. So that's a whole topic in itself. But related to what Dogen was saying in the 13th century about how it is that the universe functions, you know, this has to do with how we contribute to the energy of the world. And it is a teaching about zazen and this practice and about how we take care of our energy together. So let me read a little bit of it. And we have these two, I printed out these two different translations. There are some others around. The great way of the Buddha's and his consummation is passage to freedom, is actualization. The passage to freedom in one sense is that life passes through life to freedom, death too passes through death to freedom. Therefore, there is leaving life and death, there is entering life and death.

[10:56]

Both are the great way of consummation, of fulfillment. There is abandoning life and death. There is crossing over life and death. Both are the great path of fulfillment. Actualization is life or realization. Enlightenment is life. Life is enlightenment. When that actualization is taking place, it is without exception the complete actualization of life and the complete actualization of death. This pivotal working can cause life and cause death. So he talks about this in various ways. And Dogen, characteristically, his wording is tricky. It's not exactly poetic, but he's undoing a lot of the ways we usually think. He has one example in here. Well, it may or may not be helpful, but he says, life is like when one rides in a boat. Though in this boat one works the sail, the rudder, and the pole, the boat carries one, and one is nothing without the boat.

[12:01]

Riding in the boat, one even causes the boat to be a boat. One should meditate on this precise point. So our situation in the world causes the world to be the world. We are not separate from. how the world is. And the conditions of our world are not separate from us in terms of the causes and conditions of greed and anger and confusion. At this very moment, the boat is the world, is the whole universe. Even the sky, the water, and the shore all have become circumstances of the boat. unlike circumstances which are not the boat. For this reason, life is our causing to live. It is life's causing us to be ourselves. When riding in a boat, the mind and body, object and subject, are all workings of the boat.

[13:02]

The whole earth and all of space are both workings of the boat. We that are life, life that is we, are the same way. So, What he's talking about is, well, one aspect of this is non-separation. So stillness and action are intimately connected. We sit in zazen and we sit still, and yet there is action, there is a dynamic quality. Our mind may be very busy, or sometimes it feels very sleepy, but still our body is active. Our metabolism is still going. There are various polarities. And we usually, in terms of non-separation, we think of it, you know, life and death as the great matter. We think of it in binary terms, but it's much more complex than that.

[14:03]

But we could think of it in terms of time and timeless, in terms of our small self and the universal self, in terms of practice and enlightenment, life and death. existence and non-existence. And the point is that they're not separate. So again, going back to just this title, this phrase, Zenki, that in totality there is this functioning, there is this activity. And all of these operations are the functioning of completeness, and they are completely functioning. So Dogen is putting this together in a way. I'll read a little more from the end.

[15:09]

At the moment of manifestation, because it is completely activated by manifestation, one sees and understands there is no manifestation before manifestation. Just as we are expressing ourselves as I lift my hand, that's completely a reflection of everything. Each one of us is a complete manifestation of the whole universe. So Dave is a full expression of everything that is not Dave. Each one of us is like that. This cup is completely complete because of the operations of everything. Of everything. Because it is completely activated by manifestation, one sees and understands that there is no manifestation before manifestation. However, prior to this manifestation is previous manifestation of the whole works.

[16:19]

Although there is previous manifestation of the whole works, it does not block the present manifestation of the whole works. So such a vision and understanding vigorously appears. This is not something that, this is not, you know, when Dogen talks this way, some of his, a lot of Dogen's writings is like this, not all of it, but it's not that we can't exactly figure it out, but we can kind of feel something about how it is that our life is working. That's the point in a way. I'll read a different, the causes version of that same passage. At just such a moment, you may suppose that because realization is manifested in undivided activity, there was no realization prior to this. However, prior to this realization, undivided activity was manifested.

[17:22]

The undivided activity manifested previously does not hinder the present realization of undivided activity. So somebody during the session pointed out that activity is also one of the words or one of the meanings of karma. This character ki is not used for karma, but another character that is used for activity also is used for the process of cause and effect. And I think that's relevant. So how is it that we are, that the whole universe, that everything, everything, the wholeness of reality, both in our own expression of completeness and seeing the fullness of our own lives and our own efforts and our own, in the ways in which we can be grateful for our lives and for those around us and for our situation and for the possibility of community, also

[18:32]

is connected to all the difficulties in the world. How is that part of the process of, process might be another word for key, not exactly, but it's relevant. It's not exactly a translation, but there's this activity and functioning. So I want to leave some time for some discussion of this, but part of what is happening. you know, in all of the difficult problems in the world from climate breakdown related fires to massive hurricanes to the famine and cholera epidemic in Yemen and on and on and on and all of the injustices and so forth that our government is now involved in

[19:36]

You know, we can see our own personal ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, that we acknowledge in the chant. But there's also the collective, the wholeness working. You know, we have various levels of sangha. There's this little ancient dragon zen gate community that includes the people here now, but also the people who were here this weekend and all the people who've been here in this room in the past month or year or whatever. but also then the people in Chicago and the people in Washington D.C. and California and Puerto Rico and so forth. And through time also. And all of the things that are happening are related to centuries of

[20:45]

causes and effects, and the legacy of slavery and racism, and taking the land from Europeans, taking the land from native peoples, and so forth and so on. And not to simplify or romanticize any part of that, but it's complex. So how do we as humans, as individuals and collectively, how are we working this out? How is the karma working? And how do we then, each of us in our own way, and as communities, smaller and larger, help to make the working out of this more constructive? So I think that's the challenge of Zenki. That's the challenge of seeing this possibility of our functioning becoming complete, of the totality realizing itself, realizing its potential, acting.

[22:08]

It's all implied in this phrase and in what Dogen is trying to talk around in this. So I could keep babbling, but I'll try and stop. And offer you all, we have a little bit of time, a chance to comment or offer reflections or questions about any part of any of this. So please feel free. I guess it reminds me of certain people that talk about water and how water on our planet never really bleeds, it just changes.

[23:10]

It's always changing the water. Maybe sometimes it's more drinkable and other times it's not. comforts, probably not the right word, but some stillness and destruction and chaos and suffering. But I guess I'm always struggling with the or to not be actively engaged, but just to sort of watch.

[24:27]

Yeah, good, thank you, thank you for that. Yeah, I think that's a danger of not just a way of, I would say, misunderstanding this, but also something that's out there in our culture, that this feeling of hopelessness or being overwhelmed, and it's certainly available, and probably we all feel that at some time, but I think what, the Bodhisattva practice encourages us to do is to pay attention and to respond. And there's not one right way to respond. And I've talked about being a social activist and going to demonstrations and stuff. But there's not. And there's contacting Congress people and so forth. But there's lots of ways to constructively respond. So I don't. think it's helpful to be self-righteous about one particular tactic.

[25:49]

But when he's talking about completeness and wholeness, it's not like out there. He doesn't do it as much in this essay, but often he makes it sort of personal. There's a way in which what he says is comforting, and you were pointing at that. And there's also, Dogen says regularly, something like, do you understand this? Please study this thoroughly, please. So there's the description of this reality that does have and integrity to it. And there's also, because of that, and because of our relationship to it, and because it's not outside us, there's the need for us to respond to be protective of it.

[26:55]

Do you all know who Rachel Carson was? She was a great marine biologist and described the fullness of the, and the interconnectedness of the ocean and the biosystem of the ocean and how beautiful it was. But then she also talked, she was in some ways the mother of modern environmentalism. She talked about the pollution of the ocean and encouraged people to be active in responding to that. So that's to the two sides of it. Seeing the interconnectedness and the wholeness and then, okay, we have to take care of it. So I think that's, you know, Dogen doesn't go in, doesn't really, you know, he doesn't say that here. We have to, you know, we have to use, you know, we use this tradition and this material to see what is the dharma, what is the practice, what does it mean? I mean, he says other things that imply some of that in other places, but, you know, it's up to us to see how to put this into practice here now.

[28:04]

So thank you for your question. It's right to the point. Other comments? Or questions? Yeah, hi. Right. What is a, how do we define slugger? I consider all the people at Standing Rock part of my sangha, and the people who support that movement to stop those...

[29:33]

I don't consider those people my enemies. I just consider that they are ignorant of the effects of what they're doing, and I hope they can change how they see things. It's not that, so it's not about seeing some people as evil or something like that, but we can talk about the actions. We can talk about actions and their consequences and then represent how we see harmful actions and try and oppose those, or how we see helpful actions and try and support those. So, and then there's a whole... process or practice of how, you know, and some people may be drawn to this practice and some people may not, you know, may have more difficulty with it, but how to try to reach out to people who have different points of views.

[30:48]

And so that kind of dialoguing is an important practice. It's not something that everybody can do. So all of the different kinds of work that needs to be done There's different roles for different people in Sangha. Part of Sangha is that different people have different dharma positions, to put it in a phrase that Dogen uses. places in the mandala, to put it that way, of how we function as a community. And that's, from a Buddhist point of view, that's very much not anthropocentric, as you were referring to. It's also the trees and the, you know, the beings, the animals who are affected by you know, the pipelines as well. There's a story in the Lotus Sutra about bodhisattvas popping out of the earth. So, yeah, it's very much part of... Now we can see Sangha and, you know, we can see it in more specific ways, in terms of particular groups, but also very widely.

[31:58]

So I recommended to you Gary Snyder's practice of the wild, which is about seeing Sangha in a very wide way, including the wilderness of nature, or of what we call nature, which is really just us. So yeah, exploring what Sangha is, is I think one of the important things that we have to work on now. And how do we connect with, and different people can connect with different parts of the Mahasangha. So Sangha is that we each have different skill sets, different capacities, different interests, and we try to share that and work together.

[32:59]

But it's not about everybody being the same. So, if anybody else has, yeah, Michael. Yeah. Yes, yes, ki also, yeah, it means opportunity.

[34:09]

It means, yeah, functioning. So, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, activity. So in the way, the way that activity has to do with karma is that all actions have effects. There's a famous Zen story, the punchline of which is to not ignore or not disregard the story about a fox, but it's to not ignore cause and effect.

[35:10]

So our activity is an opportunity to see that whatever we do has an effect. It's not that we know the outcome necessarily, but our efforts to express wholeness, to put it that way, do have an effect and we don't necessarily see it. going back to your question, you know, we try to respond. And even just being aware of what's happening, I think awareness itself is transformative, but then how do we, and maybe just talking about it. is a kind of response. It gives us a chance to reflect and somebody might, and talking about it with others, we don't know how the ripples of that might work. so yeah so in during the three days this weekend I was focusing more on just our practice of settling in Sashin and of focusing in the specifics of Sashin and and in Satsang itself this idea of

[36:35]

wholeness functioning and operating and are operating, completing. Completing not in terms of finishing, because it's this ongoing process. But we can see it in the context of Sashima's kind of dynamic. But I think it applies in a way that's harder to see, really, in terms of what's happening in the world and how we can function in the world. in which there's this, in a sense, wider wholeness that is much less obvious than just seeing the wholeness of, you know, a day of fishing. So thank you for considering this. So we'll close with the Four Bodhisattva Vows.

[37:23]

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