Good morning. David asked me to give a talk this morning and as I think probably many people do when they're asked to give a Zen talk you can't really, it's hard to think of what to say that is meaningful because so much of the quality of experience of Zen practice is not the heart of it isn't something which is which is verbal the heart of Zen practice seems to be being fully present.

[01:12]

So, what's there to say? However, there's a library full of books in the community room of how to be fully present. And there are some brilliant books over there, actually. So, sometimes we have to use those books as a kind of a jumping off point, as a way to think about how to articulate something which basically doesn't depend on thought or on speech. We kind of use it as a crutch. So I would like to talk about a little piece from two of Dogen's sort of elementary and fundamental writings, a piece from each one of them which are both related to each other.

[02:21]

And the two writings or essays or fascicles are For those of you who are new or who haven't been around so long here, the Fukanza Zen Gi is like a primer to sitting, a primer for Zen meditation, how you actually can do it. It's like an introduction to Zazen. It's very short, one page long. He wrote it when he was about 28 years old, coming back from China. after coming back from China and it's based on previous introductions to Zazen which had been written by monks earlier in China particularly but he felt a need to improve on what they had done. And then the second work is Bendoa which he wrote about four years oh excuse me Fukan Zazenki means

[03:30]

the translation is a universal promotion of zazen or the universal putting forth of just sitting and then four years later he wrote bendoa which means a wholehearted practice of the way which again is pretty simple not easy but simple And in the Fukanza Zengi he felt was so important that he later revised it when he was in his 40s. Just tweaking it, just changing little things in it to make it less dualistic and more inclusive. So there's two pieces from each of these writings which I'd like to talk about which are both basically the same thing. In Fukanza Zengi there is a line which reads

[04:34]

Stop the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing after talk. Study the backward step of turning the light and shining it back. Body and mind will drop away of themselves and your original face will appear. If you want suchness, immediately exert yourself. at suchness or within suchness. So many of you probably heard these and read these lines over and over again but I'll read it one more time. Stop the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing after talk. Study the backwards step of turning the light and shining it back. Body and mind will drop away of themselves and your original face will appear.

[05:38]

If you want suchness, immediately exert yourself at suchness. So let me come back to that in a minute but now let me go to Bendowa and in Bendowa the first paragraph in Bendowa is a pretty famous paragraph and it says this is a little bit more esoteric but it says, have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma and actualizing anuttara samyak sambodhi which means unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment that we say in the heart sutra every day for which there is an unsurpassable unfabricated wondrous method this wondrous dharma

[07:02]

which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation has as its criterion Jijūyū-zamai. So let me just read it once more. All Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous Dharma and actualizing Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi. for which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated, wondrous method. This wondrous dharma which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation has as its criterion Jijū-yū-samay and Jijū-yū-samay translates into this is like an awkward kind of translation but it works better for me if I just throw words at it. Something like self-receive function or self-accepting use or self the enjoyment of self of the function of the self enjoyment of this function of the self in a concentrated state or the concentration of this state.

[08:21]

So that's all the quotes for today. So, you know, these two paragraphs are gateways for us. He's given us these gateways put into words, gateways that already exist, but he's given us the words to kind of consider these gateways. both of those paragraphs have different emphasis but they're really discussing the same thing. And although Buddhism is just vast in the different levels of consciousness and

[09:25]

structure of Buddhism and all the vast network which can be articulated within Buddhism and sometimes it feels overwhelming especially when we begin as though if that we're missing something that how could we ever learn all that you know all the Tibetan levels and stages and schools and then the Abhidharma and then there's just so much I think that if we understand these two paragraphs we'll be doing pretty well. If we really understood these two paragraphs and could really live these two paragraphs we'd be doing well. And what's also nice about these paragraphs is that you could also take on the Four Noble Truths you could take the Noble Truth suffering is bound or caught up or caused by desire.

[10:42]

That's not so easy to you can't just because you know that just you can't just let go of desire. but then they give you a path later that you can work on. So both these paragraphs give you a path, give us a way to exert ourselves. Also further in the Fukanza Zengi there is a line which says something like it's not a matter of being dull or sharp It doesn't matter whether you're smart or not that this being able to exert ourselves in the way that he's suggesting does not a matter of how smart we are. So that nobody has to feel excluded because we're just not as brilliant as so-and-so who's a great so-and-so.

[11:46]

So this principle or phenomena of turning our light inward or taking a backward step is really a core part of this practice. And you know thinking about other religions I would imagine that most other religions have schools within those religions which all say just turn your attention inward. I'm sure there's strands of Christianity, Judaism that all emphasize that. Just turn your attention inward. They all say that. But, and I'm not good at comparative religion, but I think what's probably unique or close to unique about buddhism is that when we turn our attention inward we're not there's nothing to grab on to there's nothing to it's not that we're turning our attention inward to god or attention our our attention inward to something that's what's that's why it's hard there is no there's not a thing

[13:23]

that we're putting our attention to. In Zazen there's a method of concentration which is generally our posture and our breathing. It could be a koan study or in other forms of meditation it could be a mantra or visualization. So we have a focus in Zazen But he's talking about more than just cross-legged sitting when he talks about Zazen. He's talking about our entire life. So it's one thing to turn our attention inward during Zazen when we have a method of concentration, which is our usually here, our breath. But how do you do that when in your active life, in your life of activity? And when you turn it inward, what are you turning it towards?

[14:26]

And the further complication in the Bendoa, particularly when he talks about the self, the enjoyment of the self, as he says in another place, settling itself on the self, is that the self that we're talking about doesn't have any core to it. The self is empty, it's empty of a core. the self is a composite of elements but no element is like the fundamental elements with orbiting elements each element who is to say is there a central element? I don't think so. So the self that we're turning our attention inward to is not there's no core to that either so we don't have anything we don't have a we're not presented with a thing to zero in on and that's why it's so difficult because we want something to zero in on and that's really the whole point that's why he's making such a big deal about this is to urge us to

[16:01]

to develop an awareness which doesn't have to constantly be zeroing in on something. Another word for that is open mind, an open mind which is just open without an agenda. and our entire culture you know and most cultures around the world are oriented at least society is oriented towards the opposite is oriented towards what you can get what you can accomplish what you can look like and how well you do relative to everybody else. And you know even though we may I would say everybody in this room would intellectually understand that there's a big problem with that attitude. Even so, we're so imbued with that attitude, we're so drenched in it that it's not easy to extricate ourselves from being caught by that attitude.

[17:24]

So you know one place that's it's a little humorous but as a juxtaposition of what I've been talking about but I do a lot of commuting for the last 12 or 13 years I'm commuting down to San Jose for 10 or 11 years and over to San Francisco for several years on the freeway three or four times a week And driving, particularly on the freeway, is a really good way to study taking the backward step, both in yourself and in drivers around you. And it's much more difficult than stop and go traffic because Well generally because you're trying to accomplish you're trying to It's more complicated. So forget stop-and-go traffic. That's hopeless. Just think about driving on the freeway and Generally, you're going and assuming you're not in a gridlock situation, but assuming that you're just on the freeway just driving Basically, you're going in a straight line.

[18:52]

There's nothing to do except sit still and looks more or less straight ahead and go on a straight line. So it's very, actually it's a very concentrated kind of activity. And what I notice as I drive, particularly from here to San Francisco, and particularly I go early in the morning even before the technical rush hour, but As I scan the traffic in front of me, I feel the expression of what are people expressing when they drive? And what am I expressing when I drive? And what I see expressed is basically aggression, just a constant kind of sense of aggression, not something that's mean or that wants to hurt somebody, but an aggression of, I want to get, I want.

[19:55]

I want this. And that's why you see people changing lanes so much. Because they can't, if there's somebody who's going, if there's 100 feet of space in the lane next to them, they'll shift over to that lane at 60 miles an hour, several tons of metal. shifting over to that lane to gain a hundred feet of space, which quickly fills up and then they have to shift back to another lane. And the absurdity of it is obvious. Anybody, you must have seen that, that it's an absurdity. If you were in a helicopter looking down, you'd see that the whole thing is just one mass of cars all going more or less the same speed, like this. And so within that you see people sort of darting in and out, you know, thinking that they're going to gain an advantage, but they're not. So what is it that's making that happen? What emotion or what feelings are creating that?

[21:02]

It's related to what Dogon is talking about. It's just an exaggeration of it, it's an amplification because people are driving it's an amplification of their personality, the car, the speed, everything is like very out there for us to see. But it's like looking for an advantage, trying to manipulate, trying to sort of seeing yourself as the center of the universe and that's all that counts. How can I get the best hundred, how can I get ahead a hundred feet right now? So I try to just stay in the same lane and just stay at the same speed and just stay there. And I also feel anxious if somebody's in front of me starts to go slower, I feel that sort of impatience.

[22:06]

But I try to exert myself in the way that he's talking about, which is So what? So you have this emotion of impatience. Just doesn't matter, just stay there, it's okay. So I constantly sort of work on that feeling of myself And then watch other drivers just sort of like zooming back and forth, changing lanes, speeding up, slowing down. And it's sort of such a perfect symbolic picture of what our life is like. And sometimes I wonder what it would be like if on the Bay Bridge there was nothing but meditation students, nothing but all people who had a lot of experience with meditation.

[23:15]

What would that, what would it be like to drive, you know, surrounded by thousands of cars that were all, had drivers like that? It would probably be very boring. and probably everybody would just be evenly spaced going just a very steady, you know, pace, you know, just be a very boring drive because nothing would be happening. And again, that's also the problem of turning our light taking a backward step is that it's not as enthralling as taking a forward step and aggressively trying to manipulate our life to get what we want. Actually, it is enthralling, but it's not enthralling in the cheap thrills division.

[24:21]

I think that you know if we had been raised you know sometimes I think about the Dalai Lama who was or Buddhist or Tibetan Buddhist tolkus who are raised by monks and they have the best training and best education and they're surrounded by these tutors from the time that they're babies. These wonderful tutors who are practitioners and really devoted and imagine growing up with that kind of training and mentoring. And then I think about how most of us grow up surrounded by a society which encourages, I mean, you know, Western the American sort of the Western frontier spirit, you know, which is go for it.

[25:56]

Just the American dream, land of opportunity, get what you want, work hard and you can accomplish anything. So that we're we're just drenched in that way of thinking and our bodies are drenched in that way of being. And we're not unique in that in this time and place. Obviously, Dogen was writing about this, so this is a problem that's been around for a long time, since the beginning. But our particular culture just seems to so much reward that way of thinking So to go counter to that, to find an inner sense of equilibrium which is not based on that orientation or that focus is really difficult and that's why the support of a Sangha and the support of the Zen Center takes on a particular meaning and importance and center of gravity.

[27:15]

ideally you know this there is support here in a practicing group for turning our light turning our awareness taking a backward step and turning it inward not so much watch not so much being self-conscious or analyzing ourself but turning our light inward as to just being aware without trying to manipulate or And again, although intellectually we know this is a good thing, most of us think that, actually in our bodies, our nervous systems and all of our ancient karma and ancient patterns that go back to childhood, being able to turn that without

[28:27]

without creating kind of an elaborate fabrication or a cult or a kind of God which is the God of awareness which we sort of worship which could also be a big problem. But just having an open mind is the heart of our exertion. So thanks for listening, and if you'd like to say something, please do. Oh, and there's just one thing I forgot. It was kind of that on Monday morning, Luke gave a talk, and he mentioned that his sister was a very, was an extremely gifted violinist. from the time that she was five years old or three years old. And their whole family was involved in her brilliance and expertise as a violinist.

[29:38]

And then as she got older, the problem came to arise, well, how is she going to, what position would she find in the world? Would she be a superstar? Would she really be acknowledged? Would people recognize her as being the best? And all this concern about, and then who's your teacher? And how can you be recognized by society for this great gift, this great talent? And we didn't have time in the question period, but my question would have been, especially as she got older, how did she enjoy playing the violin? My sense was that the enormity of her talent was such that these big problems of how to shape a career start to overwhelm the simple, pure enjoyment of playing the violin. and that actually happens to all of us in less dramatic forms.

[30:40]

I'm sure she enjoys it, but it's interesting that in GGU Samadhi that the word enjoyment is part of the translation, like self-enjoying presence, something like that. you enjoy things as they are. Okay, is there any comments? I have a question about that teaching of turning our light inward. I wonder, what is our light? As a metaphor, it seems like, you know, I think it's like a flashlight or something. What does that mean to turn around? Actually, what kind of light is Dogen talking about? And also, in what sense is it ours? Well, this is too cute of an answer, so excuse me.

[31:45]

Maybe I'll give you a second answer that's not cute. But the cute answer is whatever made you ask that question. But the non-cute answer is harder. Well, I can't give you the deepest answer to that but I would just say that we have a capacity for awareness, consciousness. That's part of the makeup of a human is to be able to be conscious and aware. And that awareness is what I think of as light. And then what was the second part? In what sense is it ours? Well, we have the choice of exerting ourselves or not. That's where I think it's ours. We have a volition, a capability of being volitional.

[32:49]

So that's where it's ours, where we can exert volition. The we that's exerting the volition is the thing, is that that's not what we usually think it is. But if you don't worry about that, it's just you have a choice of how much effort you want to put out but it's a very subtle effort. It's not kind of where you practice piano every day necessarily. Yes. Thank you for your talk. I was intrigued by your drawing the parallel between the two passages, and I'm listening to the sort of familiar concept that there's no core there, and we look in when we watch this interplay of stuff, but there's nothing to hang on to. And so I'm hearing the echo of the words in the first passage, which I have often thought about, about the original face.

[33:54]

And I'm wondering how you would, can you relate the original face to anything in the second passage? I mean, and that the things you've been talking about, that you turn your light inward and you don't see, I mean, or you see. What is the original face? It's an interesting thinking about that imagery. It is actually kind of interesting. Sometimes when I'm preparing a talk, I have a cup of coffee and then start really going off on various weird tangents. And one of them was, what if your original face was Alfred E. Newman? I imagine only... Yeah. You know, sort of a toothless grin, sort of freckles. But, you know, the original face You know that, I don't think, that's an interesting kind of imagery and I've just been wondering about that because what that does in terms of imagery is you get this vision of you're looking at a face.

[34:57]

Your original face will be manifest. That's, at least I suppose you could see it in other ways, but the first thought that strikes me when I hear that is, oh there's some face there that I could see. Yeah, yeah, but I think you have to back off from that imagery. Well, I think what they mean is original faces is what we are before we start fabricating and concocting ideas of who we are. But it's not something that looks like something. I'm not worried about looking like something, I'm just thinking about how do I understand that idea when we're saying there's nothing there. Well, we're not saying there's nothing there, we're just saying that there's not a core there.

[36:01]

So, original face... It's like suchness, I mean, the being, the beingness. Yeah. I'm not speaking from experience. I have not seen my original face. no thing that excludes anything else, and there'd be this sort of enormous... And a unified commute.

[37:02]

Yeah. And this is the next American fascicle to be written. The unified commute. Well, I definitely understand their aggression because I'm that way too. But it's their aggression. But the only reason that's really interesting to me is because it's my aggression as well. If I had no problem with that state of mind myself, I could care less.

[38:09]

Well, I don't think, I think I would care, but I would want to maybe more help them somehow. You would enjoy it. Yeah, I would probably enjoy it. Actually, I do enjoy it because I feel superior. Is your response to your aggression, that's what you're really saying? Well, I don't, I just sort of, as I, I'm embarrassed to say, but I, that is my response. I sort of like to feel superior, to sort of smug and superior, you know, just, oh, ha ha, you guys just don't understand. I don't get angry usually at it. I just think it's silly. But, keep going. What are you getting at? Well, putting aside all of the complexity of individuals, going back to what we're seeing,

[39:12]

depending on how it is that I'm reacting to being cut off. The guy who almost, did I not finally realize that honking the horn was still for me this morning would have wiped me out with his SUV on the way over here. And my initial response was to get angry and I think involved in all sorts of class discussions about the vehicle he was driving. It was my response. was driving as being a Zen student, then my response to them would be very Just one more question.

[41:06]

I read a quote from the Dalai Lama this week, and it said, kindness is my religion. And when you were talking about turning the light in, in Buddhism, you don't turn it to God or some thing. I was just thinking that maybe that's what he would turn his life into? Kindness, which is not a thing, but... Well, number one is he's in a certain position where when he said he's in a... the Dalai Lama is in a very particular position where that what he says has a certain impact on the world and So he's picking, I think, he picks out and emphasizes what he needs to emphasize given his position in the world, which is a very powerful position and has a tremendous responsibility.

[42:12]

What Dogen is talking about would include, it doesn't exclude what you're saying, it's just that if you take it the kindness comes out of the awareness that Dogen is talking about. So it's not untrue or erroneous to say that you could focus on kindness as a practice, but Dogen is taking it to the max, as far as he can take it. And the Dalai Lama doesn't want to speak that, I'm just speculating, but the Dalai Lama doesn't want to speak in that way because it's not going to be so helpful to the world. If he says, you know, folks, there's really nothing there and it's all empty, he's not going to get a lot of support.

[43:17]

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