I vow to face the truth of the Tathāgatas' words. Good morning. Today I want to talk about faith and devotion in Zen practice. Actually, I want to talk about faith, devotion, and practice in Zen practice, because all three are necessary. And you might say these are the three legs of Zen practice. Well, actually, faith, practice is devotion and enlightenment. faith, practice and enlightenment. Probably the most important factor in Zen is faith.

[01:21]

Even though when people talk about faith, they usually talk about enlightenment as the main feature of Zen practice. But actually, faith is the foundation for all Zen practice. And in any aspect of Buddhism, faith is the underlying basis. And Zen is just Buddhism. Sometimes people think that Zen is something a little to the side of Buddhism. But actually Zen is just Buddhist practice. It's not even Buddhism. It's just Buddhist practice. And when you practice, you are Buddha. So it's your practice. But It's your practice, but it's Buddha's practice. When you are completely engaged in practice, it's Buddha's practice.

[02:29]

When you sit Zazen, you are not sitting Zazen. Buddha is sitting Zazen. But even though you may not perceive that, you may feel, I'm sitting Zazen. I have pain in my legs. yet it's Buddha's practice. But Buddhas and ordinary human beings are not different. They're not two things. So often, people will make a division. They'll say, I'm a sentient being, I'm just a human being, and then there is Buddha. So we make a division between myself and Buddha.

[03:32]

In Dogen's time, in the early part of the 13th century in Japan, there were three teachers, three well-known teachers whose teachings are still very vital in Japan. There was Nichiren, and Shinran, and Dogen. And Nichiren, his practice was to chant the name of the Lotus Sutra. So he depended on the Sutra, on some written word, as the focus of practice. And he said, all you have to do is chant the name of the Lotus Sutra in order to find your salvation. And Shinran was completely disillusioned with Buddhist practice.

[04:35]

And he felt that there was no way that one could find any salvation through the usual Buddhist practices, meditation and so forth. And he said, we should just rely on Amida's vow, 48 vows, to have complete faith in Amida's 48 vows, to be born in the pure land and not do anything. You don't have to do anything, just have faith. So, those two schools are very big in Japan. There's a kind of an attempt to simplify, you know, Buddhism became very complex at some point, and so there's this movement to simplify and make very simple practices for people to cut through all the complications.

[05:41]

and the intellectual overlay and the scholarly overlay on Buddhism. And Dogen was the Zen master, and he said, well, I just want to say, go back a little bit. There's this well-known prediction you know, in Buddhism, that there were the three stages, the three eras. The prediction was that during the first 500 years, people could practice Buddhism because it was close to Buddha's time. In the next 500 years, they kind of pretended they were playing, practicing, or it was a kind of counterfeit And in the third 500 years, it was the degeneracy of Buddhism. So they saw it as a kind of degenerating thing from Buddha, from Shakyamuni.

[06:46]

And the third era was called the era of Mappo, when he couldn't practice Buddhism. So Shinran thought, since it's not possible, and it certainly wasn't for him, that we just, due to Amida Buddha's vows, if we just believed in that and chanted the name of Buddha as a simple practice, that's all you needed for salvation. So Shinran and Nichiren were very simple practices, but they both let go of all the Buddha's practices. and kind of made it available for the masses, made Buddhism available for mass consumption. But Dogen said, whether it's mapo or not mapo, it doesn't make any difference.

[07:53]

Just practice. It doesn't mean that you can't practice. It doesn't mean that you should give up practicing. And so he introduced strong Zen practice into Japan. And of course, Zen practice is not popular. It's not popular Buddhism. It's done by people who have an inclination to devote their lives to Buddhist practice. And so sometimes Zen is called self-power and Amida or Shinran's Buddhism is called other power because you're relying on a Buddha over there.

[08:55]

You're relying on the power of Amida Buddha rather than relying on your own efforts. So sometimes Zen is called self-power and Shinshu is called other power. But those are simplistic, dualistic terms, actually, and they don't really hit the mark. But Dogen was not at all comfortable with self-power and other power. So it looks like Shinshu is the practice of faith.

[10:01]

And it looks like Zen is the practice of practice. But these two practices at the center actually have a lot in common. And D.T. Suzuki talked a lot about Shinshu practice, which was just chanting the name of Buddha. In a way, it's just like letting go of everything and completely trusting. So that's a wonderful aspect of faith, is that you let go of whatever you're clinging to as self and just completely rely on Buddha. This is also true for Zen practice. In Zen practice,

[11:05]

At some point, you completely let go of everything and just rely on Buddha. But the way we look at Buddha in Zen practice is different. The pure land is not someplace off in the sky. This is the pure land. This land can be either pure or impure, but it's all right here. depending on what our practice is or how we conduct ourselves. So this right here is heaven and hell and all the various lands in between. You don't have to go 84,000 yojanas to the West to find it. So most important aspect for practice is to have faith.

[12:11]

Faith, practice, and enlightenment. So it looks like if you have faith and practice, then you have enlightenment. But actually, enlightenment comes first. But then faith also comes first. All three aspects are the same thing. Faith is enlightenment. Within faith is enlightenment. And what brings us to practice is enlightenment. So enlightenment actually comes first. It's not some experience you have at the end of practice. Although you may have some wonderful opening experience, enlightening experiences in your life. We should have that. We should have an enlightenment experience on each moment, actually. And there's no reason why you can't. Why don't you? It's a good question. So it's like making a loaf of bread.

[13:18]

You know, when you make a loaf of bread, you have all the ingredients and you put them into a bowl. You have to put in the flour and the water and the yeast and a little salt or whatever you want to put in there. But it's not bread. It only starts to become bread when you start mixing it up. And this is the practice. As soon as you start mixing it up, then you have practice. And it's what you actually do that makes it work. Even if you have great faith, it's not the same as when you do something. It doesn't come alive until you do something. And when it becomes alive, then it's enlightenment. So you stir the bread, you stir the ingredients, and stir the ingredients, and then you knead them.

[14:23]

You take the ingredients out after punching it down a couple of times, and then you knead all these little loaves, you know. And it's just like practice. You knead. It's like kneading. Practice is like kneading bread. and you make it more and more refined, and make it more, and the more you do it, the nicer the loaves come out. Then you put them in the oven, and bake them. Then they come out, and they're beautiful, and you eat them. And then after you eat them, you get hungry again. Then you have to make another batch of bread. even though you may feel I got enlightened, you have to start all over again at the beginning, putting the ingredients into the pot, and then stirring it up, and over and over again, endlessly, because every time after we eat, we're hungry.

[15:32]

So, we keep doing the same process over and over again. That's our life. It's a life of faith, enlightenment in practice. So pure faith is not faith for Zen, not faith in something outside of ourself. Buddha is not something outside of ourself. When we talk about Buddha, We talk about what it means is Buddha nature, not some specific Buddha. Although we have great respect for all the Buddhas in the Buddha's pantheon, when we speak about what we mean by Buddha is Buddha nature, which pervades everything.

[16:37]

Buddha nature is the all-pervasive nature That's common to everything. And each one of us is an expression of that nature. So sentient beings and Buddha are not different. You are Buddha. The teacher, one day Echu asked his teacher, what is Buddha? The teacher said, you are Echu. But if you say, well, I'm Buddha, but what about, you know, I'm just me, right? Just this little person. How can I be Buddha? Well, one has to realize who this little person is. So,

[17:43]

Originally, we're Buddha, but it's hard to realize that we're Buddha. So we have practice, and through practice we have realization. Practice is realization, and realization is practice. Through practice, we don't get to Buddha. We don't get enlightenment. Enlightenment creates practice. Enlightenment creates realization, stirs up the pot. And faith is at the basis. Faith doesn't mean to believe in something. but rather to have confidence in our life.

[18:57]

What will happen to me? Where will I go? Is there life after death? All these questions were actually irrelevant to Buddha. Our religious security does not depend on what happens after death. It only depends on what's happening right now. Because it's difficult for people to realize themselves right now, we invent a kind of what will happen hereafter as the important thing. The important thing is not hereafter. The important thing is right now. Here we are on this stage.

[20:08]

I was thinking about this this morning. The present population of the world is acting out the life of this world on the stage at the present moment. The reason I thought about this, I thought about Rinzōen, which is Suzuki Roshi's temple in Japan, is surrounded with cemeteries. On either side, huge cemeteries. And the people from the village and the town have their family plots in these cemeteries. And the temple is right in the center. And these are cities of the dead. And right in the center is this life in the world. And so I realized that the life that's going on in the world right now is surrounded by uncountable ancestors.

[21:13]

And the little drama of the world is going on with the people that are in it right now. And that keeps changing all the time. All the time it's changing. And this little drama, world drama is going on in the midst of an enormous cemetery. of spirits looking at it. Hmm, what are they doing now? What are we doing now? What do we rely on? So Zen practice, we don't rely on some scripture, some special scripture, or some special Buddha for salvation.

[22:46]

But we rely on our own effort. But we don't expect our effort to be perfect in some idealistic way. This is a kind of problem. People think, well, the Zen, when you come to Zen Center, You think, well, all these Zen students must have some perfect practice. And then after a while you see that their practice is not perfect, that they make all the same mistakes as other people. And then you might think, well, where are all the enlightened people that are supposed to be practicing Zen at the Zen center? as if enlightenment, as if when you have enlightenment, then you don't have any problems, you don't make any mistakes, and you're completely transformed. But the thing about practice is with faith, practice, and enlightenment, you can live your life just as yourself with all of your shortcomings and faults and wonderful attributes.

[24:27]

You can accept yourself completely and your life goes on. And you know how to take care of yourself. And you know how to relate to others. And you know how to help people. And you know that within the imperfection is the perfection. and you have great faith in your life. And whether things are going well or not going well, no matter what happens to you, it doesn't shake your faith, and it doesn't dim your enlightenment, and it doesn't stop your practice.

[25:43]

This is self-power. This is the power of practice. But it's not self-power. It's Buddhist power. Self-power is kind of egotistical sounding. So when you drop ego, then you have Buddha's power, Buddha's strength, which is just your true nature. And the more you rely on Buddha's power, which is your true nature, the more faith, your faith gets much stronger and enlightenment becomes more brilliant.

[27:04]

So sometimes people say, well, there's devotional practice and then there's Zen practice. Zen practice is nothing more than devotion, complete devotion. When you sit in Zazen, you become an offering. You're completely open and offering yourself to Buddha nature without any self-protection, without holding back anything. just completely wide open. And so, to practice day after day is total devotion.

[28:18]

And when we have devotion to practice, this devotion to Buddha. So, it's not devotional practice in the way people have devotional practice for a deity which is separate, outside. Since Buddha is to be found right here in the midst of our activity, we devote ourselves completely to our activity and to our integrity and to our honesty. So maybe if you have any questions, I'd like to discuss it with you.

[29:31]

Well, in the Christian term, God's will be the same as Buddha nature? Would God's will be the same as Buddha nature? Well, it depends on what you mean by that. By what you mean by God's will. What do you mean by God's will? Well, it's not an unimportant thing. There is, you know, in a loose way, you can say, yeah, in a general way, you know, things go the way they go, right?

[30:47]

And that everything has a cause, according to Buddhadharma. And everything has more than one cause. So if you say God's will, that That means that something is happening from one cause, a single cause. It means that there's a causer who is causing something to happen without any other causes coming in to determine what happens. So in Buddhism, there always has to be more than one cause for something. There's a primary cause. It's like the bread. You have all the ingredients, but until you stir it up, nothing happens. It doesn't become bread until you start to stir it up. So stirring it up is the next cause, is the cooperating cause which creates something.

[31:51]

So in Buddhism, you have to have more than one cause. So if you say God's will, it's an interventionist. cause. So in that sense I would say it's not the same. But if you say it in a loose way, you know, like, it's like destiny, you know, God's will, if you think of that as a complex of causes, then I would say okay. How about God's will in the sense of dropping ego and then having faith that what comes up, which almost inevitably is not your own will, is God's will, and is the same as devotion, Buddhist practice. Right. You say it's Buddha, right?

[32:55]

But letting go doesn't mean that you don't do anything. It means that this person cooperates with Buddha. So there's a person, and the person is person, and the person is also Buddha. So there's this kind of dual aspect of our nature, which is not really dual, but for purposes of thinking about it, you can say there's the person, and the person is also Buddha. So person is like the ego person, ego-centered person. Then there's the Buddha-centered person. And when we become Buddha-centered, then ego becomes absorbed into Buddha. But that means that we cooperate with the voice of Buddha within us rather than

[34:00]

just our egotistical, self-centered voice. And so, yes, in some way it's the same. It just depends on what you mean by the word, the terms, you know. So, yes. There are certain aspects of ourselves that just go along, and we have nothing really to do with it, except that by the way we live our life, we modify it. So, breathing happens without our intervention. The blood flows through the veins without our intervention. Thinking comes up with and without our intervention. The way we live our life in cooperation with this process is our life.

[35:17]

So it's a cooperation between our mind and body, how we conduct ourselves with all of these forces that are independent of our actions. Although we do create new life, by our actions we're continually creating new life. The whole process of being born, aging and dying is out of our control. We just get older, we die, it's just beyond our control. But in the process we modify it so that it's weaving and interconnection between our will and Buddha. Instead of self-power, prajna power?

[36:22]

Well, you could say power of prajna. Prajna is intuitive wisdom. And that, of course, is what we do have faith in, in the power of prajna. So we learn to rely on intuition. And when we rely on intuition, intuition meaning directly knowing. And this is where prajna comes. Prajna is the wisdom of directly knowing, not without an intermediary thinking about it first. And the more we rely on this intuition, the closer we are to the touchstone of reality.

[37:30]

But, you know, intuition comes first, thinking comes second, even in science. The great ideas come from the source and then we think about them and work them out. And I. Well, a cumulative effect of practice of being able to let go.

[39:12]

But there isn't an idea that one can use that's as strong as the idea of God. And so it's more subtle and difficult in a way. And I realize that that's kind of what I miss. ideas that there's no self to be proud of. It's something. So when this comes up, you can say, who's proud of this? So you treat everything as a koan. That's your koan.

[40:16]

That's what you... Who is it that's feeling this way? So, when you practice Zazen, you learn to let go of everything that hinders your freedom. So, when this comes up, when you have practiced, you know, this is hindering my freedom. When I feel proud of myself or puffed up, this is actually bondage. So when you have some seasoning, you realize, let go of that, because it's actually binding you. So any kind of pride or inflated feeling should be a warning to you.

[41:21]

And so you always come back down to earth, come back down to simplicity. So in Buddhism, the practice is to continually let go. And if you're continually letting go, then you have a practice. And when something like that comes up, we let go of it. What's samadhi? Samadhi? And what does that do in your life? Samadhi is to be totally present without self-centeredness from moment to moment with what's happening. So it's continually arising to this moment's occasion, moment after moment, without self-centeredness and attention.

[42:40]

So the important ingredient is without self-centeredness. So sometimes it's described as attentiveness, focused attention. That is one meaning, but it has deeper meaning than that. So when you sit in zazen, you let go of self-centeredness, and you just allow the body and mind to harmonize with the universe without interfering. And then that's samadhi, which, of course, we can have at any time. One can be in samadhi all the time, which simply means to let go of self and relate to everything moment to moment without self-centeredness.

[44:04]

That's a simple explanation. Precious.

[44:41]

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