day two of Sushin, and hello to everyone who's joining us online. So as we're continuing to settle into Sushin, this morning, maybe the warmth is helping your muscles to relax. I meant it this morning. We have more to look forward to in the afternoon. So please relax with whatever's arising. So continuing in a general way with, well, continuing with the theme of Genjo Koan, though not exactly on the text of it, I wanted to share something from, again, from Becoming Yourself, the new book out of Sojins.

[01:16]

And this section is called Buddha Nature. I'm sorry, not Sojins, Suzuki Roshi's. The purpose of practice is to directly experience Buddha nature. Whatever you do, it should be the direct experience of Buddha nature. So it is Buddha nature. And what Suzuki Roshi is trying to say is, can we experience it that way? Dogen Zenji said that whether or not there are images in our minds, we should not even try to clear them up. We should not want our mind to be pure. When we want to be pure, we are attached to purity, which is not so good.

[02:24]

Purity is good. Purity is good, but our practice is to be aware of our true nature. which is beyond pure or impure, beyond awakened mind or deluded mind, pure in the sense of emptiness, of complete interconnection, free from delusion, but that's just how we see it. Delusion is included within awakening. Our true nature is beyond pure or impure. So we should not be attached to purity or impurity. If you understand this point, you will just sit without thinking and without being bothered by anything that comes. When an image comes into your mind, you won't try to escape from it.

[03:30]

You will just sit. It will go and you are beyond it. I appreciate the way that Suzuki Roshi brings in time there. Your thought will go. Indeed, every thought you've ever had has come and gone. And recurred and then it went away again. but it so seldom happens on the time scale that we may want it to, that we may think it should, because there's a better something there. He says, in short, do not be attached to your mind when it is pure, and do not try to escape from your mind

[04:32]

when it is not pure. Either one of those are very direct and precise to be attached to your mind when it is pure and to try to escape from your mind when it is not pure. Those are detailed prescriptions for suffering. That's all you need to do to suffer. particularly if you've had pure states of mind and you really want to get that back. If you try to escape from it, you are attached to the purity, and a small ego is still working, trying to push out the evil thought. As long as you are trying to get out of it, You are still occupied by a small self.

[05:35]

I love his use of English because, I mean, it's perfect English, but it brings up for me like a little gremlin inside, you know, that's trying to get us out of it. The small self. We're occupied by it. Then he says, the most important point... is to acknowledge exactly what Buddha nature is. Buddha nature is not small self. It is big self, which is observing what you do and always accepting what you do. Whatever you do, Buddha nature will say, ah, that's good. There's nothing wrong with it. Enlightenment is to be always aware. of that true nature. Now I know that Suzuki Roshi studied Dogen very deeply.

[06:39]

And I think that his very open and granting way, you know, whatever you do, Buddha nature will say, ah, that's good, there's nothing wrong with it. I think a lot of that comes from Dogen. You know, Dogen's very expansive view. Of course, Dogen definitely had another side, too, as did Suzuki Roshi. Sometimes one is needed, and sometimes the other is the appropriate response. Ryokan was a famous Soto Zen priest. He said that the secret of the Soto way was nothing bad. He was very strict about practice, but he wasn't concerned about what anyone said or even with what he himself felt.

[07:49]

Whatever it was, he didn't mind it at all. If he was sick, he didn't mind. If people didn't understand him, He did not mind at all. If someone was not very serious, Ryokan didn't mind at all. Nothing bad. But when Ryokan thought that someone was quite serious or sincere, he minded very much. If a sincere person asked him what the Soto way was, he was very serious. He had a sharp and strict sense of his Buddha nature. Ah, there's the sharp and strict side. He had a sharp and strict sense of his own Buddha nature, not his own, of Buddha nature, with which he participates. Because of that strictness, he could accept whatever life had.

[08:52]

He could accept his poor and humble and unfortunate life. He didn't mind at all because he had a strict sense of Buddha nature. Our sense of Buddha nature also should be very clear and strict." And I have heard that Suzuki Roshi could be very strict with himself about his own practice, but he was very kind with his students. So for me, that's an ongoing question. How do I be strict with myself without being unkind or judgmental, without making it about good or bad or succeeding or failing or right or wrong, and still to be strict, still to keep coming back again and again, to keep letting go again and again?

[09:58]

that razor's edge that is the discernment about where we're deviating from Buddha nature when we're trying to grasp or push away. And much of that is just practice deepening. We start noticing how it manifests in the body as discomfort that maybe we weren't aware of feeling in the past. There's something that tells us a little bit off, a little bit extra, or trying to get out of this. So there is still suffering, but the suffering serves a purpose, which is to wake us up to what we're doing.

[11:21]

We see the dukkha, we see the extra that we're bringing into the moment more and more as our practice deepens, and often more and more as we deepen into sashin. Sometimes we may think, oh, before I knew all of this, life was so easy. I don't think I like being aware of all of this, or I'm not sure. So as we deepen in our practice, as we deepen in our sitting, even from day to day, There's a continual process of integrating what we see, what we feel, what we experience into the whole of our being.

[12:25]

And then there's also letting go of that, not holding onto it. Ah, now I got it. Bingo, okay. A little grasping there, now I got it. I think this is why Zen has so much humor, because what we do is so funny. And when we find the humor in human beings, ourself included, and how we respond to things, it's so freeing. So today I want to talk some about Dogen's fascicle, Fukan Zazengi, actually for the next couple of days, I think, because it's Sashin and because Fukan Zazengi is all about sitting Zazen.

[13:33]

And it had just been coming to mind more and more lately as we've been studying Genjo Koan. The phrases resonate so much. They were written around the same time. The order is not so clear of the early fascicles because Dogen kept rewriting them over time all the way until the end of his life. And there's an earlier version of Fukunza Sengi that is much more concrete and specific and It does seem like the work of a younger person, younger in practice, younger in understanding, or at least expressing understanding. And by the end of his life, you know, there's this beautiful non-dual expression that is so hard to understand sometimes.

[14:46]

Sene, Dogen's Dharma heir, said that every fascicle can be, of Shobo Genso, can be read as an expression of Genjo Koan. Genjo Koan Bodhisutras. Genjo Koan Maka Hanyaharamita. Meaning, you know, actualizing this koan of everyday life in all these different ways. And coming from the other side, Taisan Deshimaru, also in the Soto lineage, of course, chanted the fukan zazengi pretty much every day for years and years and years, I think decades, before and after sitting zazen. This zazen instruction. from Dogen. And he said, on the other side, that he thought that every fascicle of the Shobogenso can be read as an explanation of Fukanzazengi.

[15:56]

And you think about it, it's like, so obviously he memorized Fukanzazengi. It was in him. It lived in him. It turned in him. It was being turned by him continuously. So of course he's going to see that everywhere. Whatever we immerse ourselves in will start appearing all around us. So the title Fukan Zazengi translates as follows. Fu is universal. Kan is recommendation. So you could say universal recommendation or widely encourage. Zazen translates as seated meditation. And the Zen of Zazen comes from dhyana, chan, dhyana in Sanskrit and jhana in Pali.

[17:13]

a state of meditative absorption, which is very much connected with samadhi, which is concentration. So, you know, very shortly, Dogen's going to say, this is not learning, zazen is not learning meditation or doing concentration practice. But it also is. So, the koan, again. But I love the I love knowing the deep and long connection, lineage, from what Shakyamuni Buddha taught through all the ancestors to the present day. It has different forms, different expressions, but it's the same. I mean, it's the same and it's not the same, like everything. The root of samadhi, the root of the word samadhi, which is close to jhana but not quite the same, means to collect or bring together, concentrating or unifying the mind.

[18:46]

And I was reminded of the sushin guidelines we heard again this morning. Say sushin is a time to care for and collect body and mind. And sushin literally means to collect or gather setsu and mind, shin. Often learning the Japanese terms is kind of like learning what the Latin terms for parts of the body are. It's just very clear description of what it is. Not mysterious. And gi is principles, rules, instruction. So universal recommendations.

[19:50]

for Zaza. So it begins, the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? So again, Like Genjo Kawan, here is Dogen's burning question, his total faith in Buddha nature, and his question about why we have to practice so very hard, why it feels so far away, why no one can explain this to me, to him. And he answers his question, and yet, If there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth.

[20:54]

If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. And this is, of course, exactly how and why we come to practice. Because we're confused. And in some way, we recognize that we're confused. When we do way-seeking mind talks, people come to practice in so many different ways. Some people weren't looking for anything and they run into it and it's like, yes, that's it. Others had some inner search that was driving them that they couldn't find a home for or recognize any place to put it. But if we found our place here together today, there was something that brought us, that sparked us.

[22:01]

And one of the most popular ways in is suffering. Highly popular. And looked at that way, suffering is difficult, of course, but it also brings us to another level, to a deeper place. It's a marker. It says there's something going on. It's information. It can be a call. It goes on, you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech.

[23:08]

And learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. So Dogen begins by criticizing the kind of forms of practice that he'd encountered in Japan at that time. and holding up the backward step that turns your light inwardly, the light of awareness to illuminate yourself. And that phrase, turning the light and shine it inward, is from Sekito Kisen in our lineage, Shutu, who wrote Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage. and harmony of difference and sameness. Sekito Kisen says, turn around the light to shine within, then just return.

[24:15]

Again, these things that feel so far apart, just to go there directly. Just bring that together, this moment, this awareness with Buddha nature. Maybe we've known someone who seemed really great, but they didn't think they were so great. And you or some of their friends might have encouraged them. Just get out of your own way. You're great. Which is a remarkably hard thing to do. Because what is this self or what is this way that I'm doing? So this is what we do. We turn the light and shine within and we see what's there. The song of the grass roof hermitage ends.

[25:33]

If you want to know the undying person in the hut, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. Don't look outside. Don't add anything. Just shine the light of awareness inwardly to illuminate the emptiness of the self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away. Can you allow body and mind to drop away of themselves? Can you trust body and mind are dropped away? And we can wake up to that. Again, bringing the mind of a naturalist, of just observing, kind, patient, compassionate.

[26:54]

letting go of extraneous judgments. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. Practice suchness without delay. Immediate means it's right here in the immediate vicinity. It's already right here. Time and space right here. Practice it immediately without delay. Forget if I said this yesterday, but... That image from Wrinkle in Time, where Mrs. What's It or Mrs. Who is showing what a tesseract is and holding a string and there's a little ant crawling on it.

[28:11]

Like this is how we think time and space work. And a tesseract just brings the two endpoints together instantly. And that's kind of what we're doing. We're seeing that it's already together. right here and right now in this exact place and moment, not somewhere else. And then there's this shift in tone. For zazen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thought and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha.

[29:15]

Have no designs. Don't have some idea. Don't design on becoming a Buddha. Zazen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down. And then, of course, he goes immediately on to say, at the site of your regular sitting, spread out thick matting and place a cushion above it. So describing in detail sitting practice. This is so familiar. This is our Zazen instruction. Sit either in the full lotus or half lotus position, how to place your feet, how to place your hands, what to do with your robes and belt, how to hold the mudra. Then sit upright in correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward nor backward.

[30:19]

Be sure your ears are on a plane with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale. Rock your body right and left and settle into a steady and movable sitting position. So in recent years, I've had an increasing appreciation for the accuracy of Dogen's posture instructions. I mean, I'd read them before, but they were not many times, chanted them many times. But in the body that I was in then, they were not particularly accessible to me because of old patterns of muscle and

[31:22]

fascia, nervous system holding, which made that posture very difficult. I struggled with my mudra for many, many years. And over time, with yoga and physical therapy, that is like, yes. And I would ask, I remember asking Greg, so are my ears actually over my shoulders? He said, no, you're like this. And I'm like, no, they are. I know they are. I can feel it. Just like someone's trying to straighten me up. I'm straight. You're off to one side because we get very used to particular patterns. And now that is accessible. So there's a... There's an interaction though. It's not just the physical part and it's not just the mental part. They're working together.

[32:24]

They're in relationship with each other. Sitting up, having the shoulders back and down allows the heart to lift, the chest to open. It allows the neck and the jaw and the face to relax. It allows the spine to balance on the pelvis and to be able to take a lot of effort and energy off of holding ourselves up. As we sit with our bodies, with our minds, as we let go of thoughts, as we become aware of what's in the body, you may also find that the body relaxes and opens, that there's more of a sense of ease.

[33:34]

And that that increased sense of ease in the body supports ease in the mind as well. Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, rock your body right and left and settle into a steady and movable sitting position. Think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of Zaza. So that's where we'll stop for today.

[34:50]

We have time for a couple of questions if you have a question specifically about practice in particular. Ross. Can you wait for the microphone? When you were talking about Buddha nature being something that just accepts everything, no matter what is arising, I was thinking about grandmotherly kindness and how grandmothers are typically seen as, in Dogen's teaching, this accepting presence for a person, for a child. Most of us are raised by parents. So it's a little closer in on the generation line. And there's another word that came up today in your talk, strict or strictures, which has a connotation of tightness and feeling.

[36:00]

Yet there's a form there. So the balance between this all-accepting grandmother and the stricture of parents is kind of maybe what brought us here in one sense of the word or another. So with regard to zazen, what came to mind was that acme bag for bread had breathe on the side. And I've always thought of the breathing as inhalation. We're taking in the grandmother. We're taking in the parent. And then we exhale, we try to let go of either too nice or too much stricture, whatever it happens to be. And someone said they thought that breathe was don't put the bread in a plastic bag where it can't breathe, but let it air. I don't know about the marketing of that label on the bag, but could you say something about this breathing practice and these two forms that inform our life, this grandmotherly side and the stricture or parent side?

[37:17]

The people I've known who have become grandparents are so delighted to be around a baby and a toddler that they are not the parent for, and yet they love with their entire whole being because they're not responsible for being a parent. And when grandparents do have that responsibility, whether mom's away, they're babysitting or whatever, it's hard. Because then you also have to bring up a child into the world. But if you're grandma, you can just be like, oh, isn't that cute? She just smeared mud all over the new white dress you put on her just before you went out. That's hilarious. Isn't she adorable? Mom does not find that amusing. But I think both of those are absolutely necessary. And I love the idea of putting it on the breath. We can put all kinds of things on the breath.

[38:19]

As you're saying that, one of the things that's, in addition to the inhale and the exhale, taking in and letting go, and you could flip it too. I think you could do either for either, is that the breath goes in and out fast enough for us to get, even when we're settled, it's happening often enough that we can see the fluctuation rather than getting stuck. in parent mind or stuck in grandmotherly mind because there are absolutely times when we need to say something or do something, when there's harm being caused. I was just reading, studying for my talk, I think it was Stevenson and I forget which one, British writer. There's a story about him and somebody was abusing his dog or hitting his dog And he rushed over and he said, you can't do that. And he tried to intervene and the man said, that's my dog. And Stevenson said, it's God's dog and I'm here to protect it.

[39:22]

I'm like, yeah, definitely. So I don't think it's an either or. Greg's on. Thank you. Thank you very much for your nice talk. Very encouraging. I, like Ross, was also really touched by what Suzuki Roshi had to say about, and Ryokan, about Buddha nature and the inclusivity of it, I guess I could say. You know, oh, that's good, that's good. Like that grandmotherly mind. As you know, I spent a couple of weeks with my oldest brother, He's been reading the Gospels in ancient Greek, and we had a lot of conversations, and he said, you know, what does Buddhism have to say about forgiveness?

[40:25]

Because that's what really—he's not Christian, but he was like—and it says so much about forgiveness. You're forgiven. You are forgiven. And I couldn't really make the connection, but I think now maybe with a little help I can make the connection— Do you see some? Yeah. How do you feel that does forgiveness play into this? I think forgiveness is holding on to something or feeling that it's held against you. You know, I won't forgive you for that means I'm going to hold on to this against you. But often we feel like we can't forgive ourselves for the things that we do. And either way, it's suffering because we're holding on to this. fixed idea about something very painful that needed forgiveness in one way or another and when we hold on to it you know that that's my take and it was coming out of a you know this transition into the gospels you know which are basically love you know as opposed to judgment and rules you know in the

[41:39]

That is not all that Judaism is, of course, by a long shot. But that can be the tendency, just as... And I imagine that was something of what was coming out at that time, was a whole movement around love. I think the Mahayana was in bloom at that time, and there was some cross-pollination. I think it's a little weird, maybe, to personify Buddha nature and say, Buddha nature forgives us. But I also see some parallels in Pure Land Buddhism, where they just say, a bamboo, foolish sentient being, it's okay. Yeah, I think that is maybe an opening to forgiving ourselves all the many foolish things that we do. And we will. Yes. Right, thank you. Yes. We have a lot of questions. And we need to end very shortly.

[42:40]

Deborah, I think you had your hand up next. Thank you, Linda Roshi, for your wonderful talk this morning. When you ended it, you used these words, as body and mind drops away. My question to you is, are we aware of that, as body and mind drops away? What a great question. Oh, talking about body and mind dropping away. Are we aware of that? Maybe in a subtle sense or maybe like just after. I remember once being on a long retreat and having the awareness when I was deep into it and very, very settled and there was really no thought that I was about to have a thought. which was a very interesting sensation.

[43:42]

It was like this sort of like, hmm? It was kind of a body thing. It's like, hmm? It's like this, oh, like a hand going up. You're about to have a thought now. So I'm not sure if in it, I don't know. It's like, how can we, oh, this is so hard to talk about. Please forgive all the partial and unskillful ways that I have expressed it, groping for words in the moment. Don't follow after my words. Find the true place that you intuit within you. Linda, last one. That Linda. Not this Linda. Buddha nature says, whatever I do, that's good, and there's nothing wrong with it.

[44:45]

Whatever, what I do and other people do, that's not true. You know, it's not good. There are things people do that are not good, and they're definitely wrong. So I was about to just start. practicing thusness, and then you come up with a thing like that. No, it can't. I think that was Suzuki Roshi. It's good with a capital G to differentiate. It's like small self, big self. It's such an escape. Capital G. That won't really solve the problem. No, it won't. Capital G. Buddha nature accepts what is. That's okay. I'm with you. I can go right back to practicing thusness. Here we go. But when you say that Buddha nature says, whatever I do, that's good.

[45:56]

There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just going to drop the mic. It's funny, but you know I'm serious. I know you're absolutely serious. And if out of all of that, you are exquisitely attuned to minimizing suffering and what's right and wrong, and I support you completely in that, and it's really important. But it also can't take over because that's not what is being talked about. In many other ways, holding up both sides was what was being talked about. I think that was Suzuki Roshi's use of the word good. And I think mine? Okay.

[46:57]

I saw somebody shaking their head, so I wasn't sure. Words are tricky. Words are very tricky. but don't get too caught on the words. There's also Stevenson and the dog, and that's God's dog, and I'm here to protect it. It's not good. But if you're talking about the whole universe of things and grandmotherly mind, then it's all included. But that's the first step. But that's not the place from which you respond. The place from which you respond is discernment, appropriate response, what meets this moment. Because we're all interconnected and we're beings with bodies and minds and hearts, we vow not to cause harm, but to alleviate harm in any way we can. But the more clear our mind is of seeing the completely interdependent nature of everything, that can help us be skillful.

[48:08]

in how we act. Too many words, once again. Okay.

[48:16]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.78