There's a term that Master Dogen uses which epitomizes the essence of practice. The word is gu jin, which means something like thoroughness. Thoroughness. And the thoroughness that he's talking about refers more to the no gap between existence and ultimate reality than the oneness of our ordinary activity and ultimate reality.

[01:07]

The non-duality of ordinary activity and realization, or the oneness of practice and realization. And this always occurs to me when we have sashin. Today we have one day sitting. And when I notice our activity, this aspect of practice always comes up for me. And I see how we need to really understand this in order to know what it is that we're doing. our ultimate reality and our ordinary activity are not two different things, is the purpose of practice.

[02:24]

Which means that to actualize this, We should be very careful how we do things. How to be concentrated on one activity at a time. Usually, we want to accomplish something. So all of our activities are directed toward accomplishing something. So we don't pay so much attention to each moment's activity because we're concentrated on accomplishing something. So we easily miss the fundamental aspect of our nature because we run over it.

[03:40]

We're constantly running over it. And sometimes in looking for it, we're running over it. It's like a big crowd going to a celebration and getting out of hand and trampling everybody. So what I notice is how we move, how we handle things, how we relate, how we are in the moment, how we are present in each moment, with each activity, with each thing that we're dealing with.

[04:53]

Usually, we're moving from one activity to another. Before this activity is finished, we're already engaged in the next activity. How does it feel to just open a door and walk through? We don't think anything of it. We just open the door and walk through all the time. on our merry way. But what about putting the hand on the door handle? What is that? That's your whole life at this moment. That's your whole entire life right there. Turning the handle is your whole entire life right there. Opening the door is your entire life. right there, on this moment, before you even step through.

[05:59]

So this is an aspect of thoroughness. And when I see how we serve each other during sashing, I see that sometimes we're thorough, and sometimes we're just trying to get something done. The purpose of eating is to eat, right? But that's only one of the purposes in our practice. The main purpose of eating in our practice is to be able to practice. We eat as practice. When we eat in the zendo, We eat as practice. When we eat outside the zendo, it's a little more egotistical.

[07:04]

We eat what we want, the way we want to. But in the zendo, we eat as practice. Very formal. Very formal. And just putting our bowls in front of us is an enormous act. and just opening the bowls, opening the claws and laying out the bowl. Yes. It's very ordinary, but it's not the usual ordinariness. Serving each other, it's just ordinary, but it's not the usual ordinariness. We bow to each other. And we don't bow at each other. We bow with each other. But sometimes we don't understand this.

[08:09]

You know, in the old days, women would curtsy. Men would bow, and women would curtsy. Curtsy, I think, must mean courtesy. You do something out of courtesy. But when we bow, it's not a courtesy. It's not out of courtesy. It's out of merging. Bowing is merging. It's taking everything in as yourself and offering yourself to everything or to what's in front of you. This is thoroughness. It doesn't take very long. It doesn't take any longer to be thorough than it does to be sloppy. Same amount of time. But if we're in a hurry, if we feel that we're in a hurry, we can't settle into what we're doing.

[09:22]

You know, if you play music, If you're settled, no matter how fast the music is going, you feel settled. You don't feel like you're in a hurry. But if you're not settled, no matter how slow the music is going, you feel that you can never catch up. Because you're not in sync with your life. So in Dogen's Genjo Koan, he alludes to this. In this part, he says, now if a fish or a bird tries to find the limit of its element before moving in it, this bird or fish will not find its way or its place.

[10:27]

If the fish or the bird tries to find the limit of its element, the element of the fish is the water and the element of the bird is the sky, the air. It's not the air, but the sky. If the fish feels that it has to know everything about its environment, Before it can settle, it can never settle. If the bird has to fly all over the world before it knows where it is, it will never find its place. It's possible to find your place wherever you are. This is Buddhist training. The purpose of Buddhist training is to help you to find your place wherever you are. You don't have to fly all over the world.

[11:32]

You don't have to know everything. You don't have to be a repository of information. You can find your place right where you are, if you know how to practice. What is your place? What is your place? What is our place? And how do we settle on our place? How do we stop being restless? You know, if you sit down, if you're not used to practicing Zazen, or even if you are, when you sit down, you feel restless. The biggest problem with Zazen is that you feel restless. If you don't feel restless, it's not a problem.

[12:35]

That's why not so many people sit Zazen one day. And then he says, attaining this place, when you attain this place, one's daily life is the realization of ultimate reality. Buddha nature. Attaining this way, one's daily life, is the realization of ultimate reality. Attaining this place and attaining this way is one's daily life, meaning every moment of our life is the realization of ultimate reality. This is called enlightened behavior. So sometimes people wonder why our practice in the zendo is so formal.

[13:44]

And so sometimes we say, well, that's just the Japanese way to be formal. But it's much deeper than that. Formality allows us to let go of self-centeredness. and just concentrate on each moment's activity in thoroughness. Since there's nothing hindering us, since there's nothing pulling us, since there's no desire, nothing to desire in the middle of the zendo, one is free to act freely. total freedom. So formality allows us to have this total freedom. We often think that if we didn't have any formality, we would be totally free, which is called running in the wrong direction.

[14:57]

It looks good, really looks right, but it's the wrong direction. What gives us our freedom is our restriction. We can only find our freedom within our restriction. And Zazen, being the total restriction, the most seemingly restricted way, we find the most total freedom. So, we should not be bound. What binds us, actually, are our emotions, our thoughts, our distemper, our greed, our delusions.

[16:05]

These are the things that bind us. Even our riches bind us. They call it the golden chains. So our freedom comes through our simplicity and through our letting go and through our thoroughness and paying attention to the moment by moment details of our life. So then Dogen says, since this place and this way are neither large nor small, doesn't matter, neither self nor other, neither existing previously nor just arising now, they therefore exist thus. Thus is a technical term in Buddhism.

[17:09]

Thus means ultimate reality, actually. Thusness means ultimate reality. Each thing exists as ultimate reality, and we can experience ultimate reality through each thing, through each dharma. Every dharma is a way of entering ultimate reality. People often think that phenomena or the dharmas block our understanding or experience of ultimate reality. If we escape from life, we will experience ultimate reality, which is actually running the other way. ultimate reality is experienced through the most ordinary activity when we thoroughly merge with our ordinary activity without self-centeredness.

[18:37]

To merge with ordinary reality means to let go of self-centeredness and to center on Buddha. So, as I often say, we become Buddha-centric instead of self-centric or eccentric. Right in the middle of life, right in the center of life itself, without a gap. So, through one any one act or dharma, we have the opportunity to be enlightened. There's nothing special that will enlighten us. We always use these examples of someone who was enlightened when he saw a peach tree in

[19:44]

Someone was enlightened when sweeping and a little stone hit a piece of bamboo. Those are just examples of ordinary activity, nothing special. Someone was enlightened by stumbling. Someone was enlightened when they sat down and looked in the mirror and saw how old they were. So Dogen says, thus, therefore, if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, when one picks up one dharma, picks up a dharma means engage with anything. When one picks up one Dharma, one penetrates one Dharma.

[20:54]

When one encounters one action, one practices one action. Suzuki Roshi used to say, in America, you have the expression, to kill two birds with one stone. But in our practice, we just kill one bird. Sometimes, when I want to... I'll make a trip, a special trip, just to get one fitting of the store. And my wife will say, you went to the store and I had this big list. Dude, this was cut. Which is good, you know, I should have paid attention, but... I like just going to one place to get one thing.

[22:01]

Not having to worry about getting other things, you know, or doing a lot of other things on the way, or... Being efficient. Being efficient, that's right. Being efficient. It's very inefficient. Practicing reality is very inefficient. So, the basis of this is that all aspects of all the dharmas, all things, are aspects of ultimate reality. Essentially, everything belongs to everything else.

[23:06]

And, you know, maybe you could say that this is the Big Bang. You know, our lives, everything around us is a result of the Big Bang. When one thing became many things. But the many things still belong to the one thing. And each one of those little things are aspects of the one thing. So whatever we encounter is an aspect of the one thing. So whatever we meet is an aspect of ultimate reality. So in some sense this is the basis of our continually bowing We bow to the bulls, we bow to each other, we bow up to our seat.

[24:15]

In the Zen door, we're all continually bowing. And if you're in the monastery, whenever you meet someone, you bow to them. So there's this continual meeting, continually meeting with ourself. And we do this over and over. And it's not a curtsy. thoroughly meeting, even though it's just for a moment. Sometimes people have trouble with this, you know, they don't like to bow, or it's foreign, you know, something foreign to us. But we have to realize that mostly our mind is not oriented toward merging. We're oriented toward gaining, toward going out, toward individuality.

[25:20]

More and more, we want to individuate. And our whole society is set up to individuate, to become strong individuals. That's okay. But for strong individuals, it's necessary to also realize who we are so that we don't get out of hand and just keep racing into outer space. So, you know, there's an old saying, to settle the self on the self.

[26:25]

It's a kind of way of talking about Zazen, to settle the self on the self. And we can do that in Zazen, it's pretty obvious. But to be able to do that, to be able to settle in each moment's activity, that's the trick. And there's no technique. There's nothing that you can learn. You just have to orient yourself to doing this and realizing it's not a matter of slowing down. It's just a matter of being present in each moment's activity. You don't go any faster or slower. It's just that you get into sync with life. You get into the rhythm of the life that is you and that's going on around you.

[27:29]

Suzuki Roshi used to talk about being one with your surroundings. Enlightenment is the ability to be one with your surroundings. Sounds easy, but if you think about it, How do you do that? You can only do that if you let go of self-centeredness. Because in our self-centered view, everything is going on around us, and we're in the middle. Yesterday, my wife went to a house around the corner and she looked out the window and she saw our house and she was astonished. She said, these people are looking at our house all the time in this view, you know, which I've never seen.

[28:42]

The view of our house that I've never seen. These people see it all the time. And it was just a big shock to her that this was possible. And if you think about it, our backs, we never see our backs. Everybody's looking at our backs, except us. Everybody sees the way we do things, except us. Our view is so small. and so narrow and so full of views about who we are. And the way we see ourself is not the way other people see us. So we only see a tiny portion of ourself unless our mind, unless we let go. If we let go of our views, then we can see more.

[29:47]

We can even see our backside. To be one with our surroundings is to just be moment by moment. Live our life moment by moment. with what's in front of us. Hard. Hard to do. We're very ambitious. And we want something from life. And we want to accomplish things. Which is okay. But we lose our way. We lose our stability in the process.

[30:50]

So we should be careful what it is that we call up and what we want, what we feel that we want. we may not need as much as we think we need. One of the things about... I remember in my thirties, early thirties, I ate some morning glory seeds. And that was a tremendous experience. I couldn't get across the room. It took me all day to get across the room. I'm not recommending this. But it took me all day to get across the room.

[32:06]

And just experiencing getting across the room all day was a tremendous experience. We don't need to have that kind of experience. That's a kind of exaggerated experience. But just to give ourselves the opportunity to be where we are, and to experience what we're doing, moment after moment, one thing at a time, beginning one thing, seeing it through, and ending it. And then the next experience, the next moment's activity, This is meditation practice. And in its deepest sense, merging with ultimate reality, allowing ultimate reality to be expressed through our activity.

[33:09]

So mainly, it's getting out of the way. Being as thorough in our activity as possible and getting out of the way. As we are created with what we create, what we do does us. If we don't do anything, Nothing happens. There's a saying, the bead rolls across the tray and the tray rolls across the bead. That means you do something and at the same time something that you do does you. We're self-created, self-creating beings.

[34:20]

As we create, as we move, we are also moved. So this is the dance or the merging of ourself with our surroundings and with ultimate reality and allowing ultimate reality to be expressed through us. So today, we're sitting sashim, and we're also serving each other, and we're walking, and we're not doing much talking except me. And we should keep this in mind, to be thoroughly thorough about our activity. When we meet something, to really meet something, not just perfunctorily moving along. There are two things that go on at the same time.

[35:25]

One is, we want to get something done. It should get done. And the other is, in each moment's activity of the process, that's our life. So we should be settled on each moment's activity within the rhythm of getting something done. And if we don't pay attention to that, it's not a matter of going fast or slow. If we don't pay attention to that, then we lose it. And we're just moving around. Just messing around. So, I guess you might call it mindfulness. To always keep coming back to this Do you have a question?

[36:33]

I AM NERVOUS!

[37:37]

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