Good morning and welcome everyone. For some of us, this is the third day of a three-day session. And I've been speaking based on a short writing by Eihei Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in the 1200s in Japan. This is from one of his essays, one of the shorter essays from his large workshop, again, so called Zenki. in Japanese, and I've been talking about this from the perspective of Zazen and Sashin. Mostly I've been talking about just the title, which there are two translations that you have, which you can refer to if you want or not. But I'll read a little bit from them.

[01:02]

But Thomas Cleary translates Zenki as The Whole Works, and it does. or you can have the whole works, but Kaz Tanahashi translates it as undivided activity. So I'll come back to the title, but I'll just read a little bit of what Dogen says first. The great way of the Buddhas in its consummation is passage to freedom, is actualization. That passage to freedom in one sense is that life passes through life to freedom, and death too passes through death to freedom. Therefore, there is leaving life and death, there is entering life and death, both are the great way of consummation. There is abandoning life and death, there is crossing over life and death. Actualization is life. Life is actualization. When that actualization is taking place, it is without exception the complete actualization of life or the complete actualization of death.

[02:08]

The pivotal working can cause life and cause death. So he talks later on about Life being 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. Riding in the boat, one even causes the boat to be a boat. One should meditate on this precise point. So in terms of zazen and seshing, we could say seshing, which means to gather the mind. to gather the heart together. Riding in the Sashin, one causes the Sashin to be a Sashin. Riding in Zazen, sitting in Zazen, one causes Zazen to be Zazen. At this very moment, he says, the boat is the world, even the sky, the water, and the shore, all become circumstances of the boat, unlike circumstances which are not the boat.

[03:17]

A strange thing to say. 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. The whole earth and all of space are both workings of the boat. We that are life, life that is we, we are the same way. So he's talking about life and death. He's talking about our relationship to, or how our practice, we could say, our experience creates the whole universe. and how that works. So going back to the title, Zen Ki. This Zen is not the same as Zazen or Zen Buddhism.

[04:21]

It's a different character. It means, well, together, both of these characters have a lot of meaning. Zen means completeness, or completing, or totality, or wholeness. everything, the whole universe. Ki is one of the more mysterious characters. It means functioning or activity or potential or operating or operations, or it could be in modern context it means a mechanism or a machine even. It also refers to a loom, like a loom where one weaves. It refers to opportunity. It can be used to refer to a practitioner.

[05:22]

So this phrase together, Zenki, has a lot of context. It also happens to be the name of my teacher, Tenjin Zenki, is Reb Anderson's Dharma name. The whole works is a provocative translation of this by Tom Cleary, who's good at provocative translations. You know, completeness, completion, wholeness is working. Or we function, we operate, we activate completion. This is about our relationship to totality. This is about our relationship, each one of us, So he says that when one rides in a boat, we cause the boat to be a boat.

[06:29]

When we sit in this zendo, we cause this to be a zendo, each one of us from our particular seat. This is about, amongst other things, how we create the world. It's also about how we create life and how we create death and vice versa. So there's this functioning of completeness or wholeness or totality that has to do with each one of us. So in some ways he's providing a description of reality, but it's also not kind of an objective description. It's more experiential or existential, which is why this weekend I've been talking about this in terms of Sashin, in terms of Zazen, how we appreciate as we sit,

[07:44]

this functioning of wholeness in this body-mind, in this life. How does completeness complete us in our functioning? The bell rings, we bow to the wall, we turn, we stand up, we bow to each other. Each movement is the functioning of wholeness. Wholeness works and operates through us. How is it that we practice, that we weave ourselves together, that we operate in the advent of this completeness in each breath?

[09:09]

Each moment of riding in the boat is new and fresh. So Dogen is tricky and provocative as usual. Towards the end he says, at the moment of manifestation, at the moment at which we express ourselves, not necessarily through anything dramatic, so there's stillness and activity, but at the moment we manifest, because it is completely activated by manifestation, one sees and understands that there is no manifestation before manifestation. It's all up to you.

[10:12]

However, prior to this manifestation or expression is previous manifestation of the whole works. It's all working. It's all functioning. The whole works, it does. Wholeness is working. Although there is previous manifestation of the whole works, it does not block the present manifestation of the whole works. Everything is right now here. For this reason, he says, such a vision and understanding vigorously appears. So how do we appreciate our life, even in the midst of the stillness of 40 minutes or whatever of zazen, just sitting still, present? How is wholeness working with the inhale?

[11:19]

and the exhale with our awareness. Whether we feel sleepy or groggy or whether our mind is very clear or whether there are many thoughts, what is this completeness that is working on our seat? How do we appreciate this? So Kastanahasi translates this as undivided activity. And I've thought of it as total dynamic activity. There's a dynamic energetic quality to this, but this undivided is interesting. So I'll say a little bit about that. Cos was here and talked about this a little bit last spring.

[12:28]

He talks about non-separation as the heart of our practice. So we can see various ways in which we imagine separation, stillness, or action and non-action, or stillness and action. It looks like when we are sitting facing the wall that it is stillness or non-action. Although in the Jewel Mara Samadhi we chant, we've been chanting in midday, it says outside still and inside trembling. So sometimes, as you all know, we're sitting still and yet there's lots going on inside. What is this relationship? What is the non-separation of action and non-action, stillness and action? And of course, in the essay itself, Dogen is talking about life and death and their non-separation.

[13:32]

And time and the timeless, and self and the universal self. So, where he's talking about self here, I mean, he's not specifically talking so much about self in this essay, but we can read self into this. Self is implied in places. There's also this totality, which is this, you know, so in Sesshin, there's the self of each one of us, creating Sesshin. Each one of us has our job or role or place in the sesshin. And yet there's also this body of sesshin that is all of us. Whether we're here for one day or three days or just here for Sunday talk, all of us are part of this. And of course, there's practice and enlightenment.

[14:41]

realization and practice which are not at all separate. So this undivided activity. We imagine all kinds of divisions. We imagine, so we talked about this the first day, we imagine we're not fully giving ourselves to Zazen. We can imagine that one period of zazen was, well, this is a great period of zazen. We can imagine another period of zazen as a crummy period of zazen. We can give out grades and all that, but, you know, it's just the whole working, apart from our opinions and judgments about it. How is it that the whole works? How is it that our functioning completes itself? How is it that our potential totals the whole room?

[15:50]

So these are questions that Dogen offers us here. He says, life doesn't obstruct death, death doesn't obstruct life. The whole earth and all space are in life and in death too. It is not fulfilling the potential of one whole earth and one whole space in life and fulfilling their potential in death too. Though they are not one, they are not different. Though they are not different, they are not identical. Though they are not identical, they are not multiple. So we talk about the harmony of difference and sameness. Though they're not one, I'm sorry, Though they are not different, they are not identical.

[17:05]

Though they are not identical, they are not multiple. So in life there are myriad phenomena of the appearance of the whole works. Also in death there are myriad phenomena of the appearance of the whole works. Wholeness is working. Totality functions, and it has many different appearances. Totality functioning can look like this. It can look like this. It might look like this. It might look like this. How do we see totality functioning? How do we see our function completing itself in each moment? Well, maybe we don't see it.

[18:09]

Is it still there if we don't see it? Does it see us? He says, there's also the manifestation of the whole works in that which is neither life nor death. What's that? So, you know, this isn't exactly something to kind of figure out or think about. Although, you know, if you want something to do in your zazen, I guess you could do that. But how does For each of us, how does our wholeness work? How does our wholeness operate? How does our wholeness express itself as each one of us? How does our wholeness function and operate and express itself as the whole room?

[19:13]

So he says, the undivided activity of birth and death, or of life and death, is like a person bending and stretching. Or it is like someone asleep at night, reaching back for their pillow. This is realization in vast, wondrous light. So, again, it's not like this isn't something to figure out or think about or reach some explanation of, but how do we use this, how do we operate this, the wholeness of this image of Zenki, this expression of Zenki, of fullness, operating or working in us, in each of us, in all of us, in the air conditioning just clicking on, in the soreness in my legs, in the arising of inhale, in the end of the exhale,

[20:54]

So, he says that this is manifesting before the present manifestation of the whole working. But what is it like for you right now as fullness functions on your seat? How do you Appreciate that. How do you give yourself to that? This is a way of activating zazen, which is not separate from the whole works or undivided activity. So someone brought up the question yesterday afternoon about, well, is even in the terrible things happening in the world, is that just total dynamic activity?

[22:43]

And yeah, that's a real question. The whole works in mysterious ways, we might say. The whole works also in our response to things happening in the world. But I thought of this essay as something to talk about specifically in the context of Arzazan and Sashin. And in that context, it's pretty clear, even though maybe it's not so clear and it's so serious. But how do we think of the world as... Well, he's talking about the world, he's talking about the universe functioning. and the functioning of the universe as wholeness, and how do we see this greater wholeness from the context of bodhisattva values?

[23:50]

So that's the whole other question. But maybe I'll just... Well, for those of us who were here for the whole day, we'll have some time for discussion this afternoon, but as it's Sunday morning, I'll just, I'll stop there and see if anyone has any comments or questions or reflections about the functioning of totality, the mechanism of wholeness. So please feel free. Yes, Nicholas. I'm just thinking a lot about so much has to die and so much has to be born, but it's not that. It's a lot. Yes. What did you call it, a secret universe?

[25:12]

Can you hear him back there, Jane? Louder, please. Yeah, we're just carrying on this ancient tradition. So, Nicholas said so much has to die and so much has to live to make this possible. Yes. And he called this a secret universe? Secret universe of the society. secret society. Okay, yes and no. It's like anybody can come, you know. Well, I guess, you know, for people to sit all day, you know, we want people to come and have an introduction on a Sunday morning so they know what Zazen is. But, you know, it's open, nobody, it's not, there are signs in the front window, it's not secret.

[26:46]

Zazen is- Everyone just showed up. Right, okay. Showing up. Showing up. Showing up is really important. Showing up. How do we show up for totality functioning? How do we show up for... Yeah, so we talked about showing up the first day too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to show up is the functioning of totality. What's that? Showing up is birth, yeah. Here we are. We're all... We all just got born. Happy birthday. And then, of course, she not busy being born is busy dying. And that's another kind of birth. So I don't know what you said about people have to die to be born. I forget how you said it. But the way Doggett is saying it is they just go together.

[27:50]

I'm just saying that what I have So it's like the dying of identities and the birth of present moment. Yeah, the dying of the past moment to allow the present moment maybe, or the dying of one thought to allow the next. But yeah, there's the letting go. of something, maybe it's sad to let go. I talk about letting go as the art of Zazen, but maybe there's some sadness, maybe that's the First Noble Truth, that we have to let go of something to be alive. Yes, Nyozen.

[28:53]

It's also proved that this ancient tradition is somehow a part of it. It's carrying us forward. There's always a strange thing. I made the decision in some sense to come here yesterday, and I made a decision to Yes, Michael.

[30:28]

The sky, the water, and the shore are all the boat's world, which is not the same as a world that is not the boat's world. Yeah, that's like the world that Nicholas was talking about that doesn't know about

[32:01]

this event here. I mean, kind of feel like almost everybody in the whole world knows what's happening here right now. But somewhere there's somebody who doesn't. And that's the world that's not the boats. Of course, probably there's lots of people who don't know what this is. But yeah, so that's, and Douglas was wondering about that too. Maybe that's, I don't know. the people who don't show up. But then there were people who showed up yesterday who aren't here today, and so they know. So it's, I don't know, it's, I don't know. It's like it's got many layers, right? The boat has little landing crafts or other little boats that are off somewhere and may come back.

[33:10]

I don't know. Yeah. But just to connect our activity or functioning or operating with wholeness, just that connection in this one word, Zenki, of the universe, the whole universe, with our functioning or I don't know if it's going to be our, just someone, something, the functioning of whatever this is, this operation, this mechanism, this weaving together, and the whole universe. Something's happening and we don't know what it is, but the whole universe is in it.

[34:13]

Somehow that's inspiring for me. It's not just what we, it's not limited to what we think it is. It's sort of hopeful. Amid our discouragement. But what's hopeful to me is that it's connected to everything. It's that something's happening. And that's the boat, right?

[35:28]

But that connection to, what do you want to call it? Totality, everything, completeness, the universe, wholeness. And then that's connected to my lifting my arm. And that's how things work, because that's the mechanism. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, there's a mechanism, and that mechanism is connected to everything. And we're part of that. Or we can be. Maybe we are, whether we realize it or not, but we can actually sort of take it on, we can show up. Okay, yeah. That's good. This is an image for metabolism. I like that.

[36:30]

Digestion. So what's for lunch? Well, thank you all. We'll have time to discuss this more later and we'll keep functioning somehow in connection with it all.

[37:06]

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