Hi, welcome everyone to the last night of the Genjo Koan class series for the aspects of practice. I have a few announcements as class coordinator before we actually get started. Could you use the mic? Oh, can you hear me? Does that really work? Yes. So, a few class coordinator announcements before we get started. Let's see. Number one is, and most importantly, I really want to thank the people who supported having this class happen. Yogetsu Online is our host. Genzon is our InZendo tech host. Thank you so much. There are a variety of people who are monitors and doans. James Erb, Cecilia, Yoni, Jonathan, Preston. So thank all of you for juggling the positions and filling them. I also want to remind you one last time that please, if you haven't made your payment or your offering for the class to do so, our office manager hopes that you can do that within the next week.

[01:16]

And you can do it either by putting a check through the mail slot, going in with attention to the office manager, or going online to the magic generosity tab and going cooking through to the Sashines. I think it's the Sits classes. Sits in classes and you want to send it to for the class and please send the office manager at office manager at bzcofficemanager at gmail.com address that you are making the donation to the class so she can do the record keeping. Finally, a request to all of you online. Hi, good evening. It's wonderful to have you here again this week. And if you're able to, comfortable to, please turn on your camera so we can see you. We really appreciate being able to have a connection with you, albeit in pixelated form.

[02:17]

So we're gonna start by sitting for a few minutes. So I would also like to welcome everyone who made it into the Zendo and also those of you online.

[06:52]

And thank you for putting your pictures on, both of you who can. I want to just acknowledge the time change. And you may all have adjusted better than I have. It seems quite late. And so coming out seems like it's an extra effort and I extra appreciate it. And we're coming to the end of the Genjo Poan. I sort of have this sense that the first are really about you know, the sort of what Buddhism is, sort of almost defining it in some way. And it's a little bit impersonal.

[07:52]

And that the last sections are actually very personal. They're difficult to understand sometimes, I think. They really speak to our practice and our lives. And so... It seems slightly different. Sometimes people say, or I've heard it said, that the first sections really say it all, and the last ones are less significant in some way, but not to be true. But they elaborate or sort of, they're very intricate and really very interesting. So we're going to work from two translations tonight. of the Muninib you all got. And then a translation by Okamura Roshi. And I actually printed them out. And I wondered if you, yeah, thank you, Tara, if you could pass them out.

[08:55]

And so I just used one piece of paper. There's one on one side and one on the other. Okay, so I'm sorry, the people online should have gotten actually both translations in the announcement that I sent out, if you wanna look at them or if you have them in some other form. Let's see, the things that I, sort of thought when I first read these sections. It's sections 11 and 12 in the Doudrop version, but it's just section 12 in the Okamura version.

[09:59]

But I thought there was sort of a mystical side to this, and I was a little bit interested in what that was. And I mentioned it to Andrea, offered to, what was the word? Mystical? Mystical, yeah. Who offered to think about sort of Dobin's history and sort of the idea of Dobin as a, you know, a mystical thinker in some way. So I'm gonna get her started. Yeah, thank you, Ellen. I think that this crystallized for me, not only for Dogen rather extensively with Okamura Roshi, but also when I read a book that some of you may know called Mystical Realist. So I wanna, and I'm sorry, I wrote this out and I'm a little too tired to wing it. So I'm mainly gonna read this tonight for sake of coherency.

[11:02]

So Dogen can be hard to understand. I think a lot of people approach Dogen, they go, What's this really about? And so that's because he's a poet. So he's pointing at things and working with words to kind of upside down of our usual way of thinking. Part of it's because he wrote in ancient Chinese, ancient Japanese, and what was the current Japanese. So he used language in a very fluid way that had to be interpreted according to And that's part of the reason it's so hard to understand him as well. Another reason I think for some of us that it's difficult to grasp what he's saying is just what Hye Jin Kim said in the title of his really excellent book that he's a physical realist. The realist part of it isn't so hard to understand.

[12:05]

As Ellen was saying, he gives lots of examples that come out of our life. fish and birds and firewood and ash, the boats and shore, just in this passage, the whole, the Tenzo Kyokin, which many of us have read and studied is all very practical about how we live our lives. And so the kind of realist about how we actually experience this in our phenomenal selves is pretty accessible. The mystical part though is harder for people. Mystical could be called what's mysterious, ineffable, or otherworldly. It's also a major part of why his spiritual writing has endured as a classic for more than 900 years. He's able to express the inexpressible about what we can't see immediately lose if we as much as try and conceptualize it. It illuminates our lives.

[13:07]

At least that's my experience about him. So of the sections we're going to review tonight, it's really section 12, that I think gives that. You can see the concluding lines. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. What does that mean? There are many such lines in his copious writings, just a couple of others to remind you. how he works with language and what this mysticism, if you will, is. From Bendola, all buddha tatakadas together have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma and actualizing anya-ta-yaksam bodhi, for which there is possible unfabricated wondrous method. And from the , we vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma, that upon hearing it no doubt will arise in us nor will we lack in faith, and that in doing so that all living beings together will attain the Buddha way.

[14:24]

It's not out of this world, I don't know what is. So we started, I believe, our whole study of Dogen with a little bit of background. about him, I just want to highlight some of that with this point about his rights and his way of expressing as one of that of a mystic. You know, we know that he was born into an aristocratic family that lost all of his good fortunes in the turmoil and upheaval of Kama Courage in hand. His father was born into two. There was corruption and instability, which were very disillusioning for an idealistic child and an idealistic young man and monk. Famously, at the funeral of his mother at age seven, when he saw the incense rise up in front of his coffin, he heard insight or connection with the brevity of this life.

[15:24]

Perhaps, too, it opened him to the question of, what was that life? And where did it go? Spiritual questions. Most importantly, after as a monk with his uncle, he made his way to the first Rinzai temple that was in medieval Japan, guided by Master Neo Aizen. I should say Aizai. It isn't known whether young Dogen actually got to meet him personally, but he did study there for years. What's important to know is that temple, like many Japanese temples at the time, had a mix of practices. In this case, that included seated meditation, Chan, Shingon, and Tendai. Tendai was Dogen's first Buddhist lineage, and he had spiritual teeth on it. The Tendai Sekh was quite important religiously and politically powerful in Dogen's time, so he became somewhat disillusioned with that political intertwining.

[16:32]

But its core text is the Lotus Sutra, which has as its central doctrine that everyone will be Buddha. It's all throughout his writings. It's all throughout this writing. Shingon is also in the Vajraana, Vajjarana. Lint line that stresses that one is able to attain Buddhahood in this very body and that all beings are enlightened. That too is all throughout his writings. Both practices are tantric, using mudras, mantras, mandalas as practice vehicles, so they use this kind of mystical in body practice. And the fabric was a firm foundation that enlightenment is always at hand and Buddhahood is possible in this very life. So his writings are infused with the faith in these truths. It is faith believing in something unseen until you experience it yourself, and Zazen is the wonderful vehicle for that.

[17:39]

I think many of us are challenged to take that as our starting point, to start from the point of enlightenment, to start from the point of faith. And yet that's his teaching to have so much faith in our life, both our small life, our small life, and our big, knowable, immense life. That's what I want to say. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation. So we're going to start with the text. Now, when we divide... almost sentence by sentence because it just seems like every sentence is, you know, very rich to me. At least it became rich after I read it in Numerable Times. We also, I realized we suggested, or I suggested when I sent this out that you . But to do this, I actually typed it.

[18:44]

so that you would have it in this form. And I realized that was a whole other way of relating to it, you know? And it was sort of a surprise to me, but it was actually sort of illuminating just to do that. So we're gonna start with the section in section 11, I mean the first sentence in section 11 in the Mooning the Dewdrop version. And then, so I'll read that and then Andrea will read the Okamura sentence, which is actually section 12 in Okamura. So here we go. Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. Therefore, Fish that would swim or birds that would fly, only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place.

[19:50]

So I think you could look upon this as a way of thinking about practicing the movement. You could think about how much we, and we've talked about this in other classes, how much we think about enlightenment as something kind of out there and us and something that we're sort of working toward or trying to gain. But we can also look upon it as just in our lives, how we kind of sometimes you know, it's a way I think of sort of objectifying, you know, should I do this or should I do that? Or should I make this decision or should I make that decision? So we're sort of looking at our life and, you know, rather than being in it. And I, you know, could give you a number of, I kind of always hate to use dance as the example, but I guess I won't do that again, which is,

[21:07]

that, you know, when you do a dance performance, you make a lot of decisions, actually, and you do a lot of planning for it. And those are things that, you know, all the time. But once you've done those things, you've chosen your venue, you've raised the money, you've, you know, picked your costume and the lighting and so forth, then you know, you have to do the dance. And if you're thinking about the outcome while you're doing the dance, or you're sort of thinking, well, do I look good? Or am I going to get a good review? Or, you know, where is my, this is going to lead me? You know, you cannot perform. So, you know, that's just one example, but my new examples in your life about you know kind of looking at it or you know being part of it and so that's kind of how i read this so yeah a few it's just a little different angle that's very similar to where ellen is coming from from this i think of the the fish or the bird maybe are like us and the

[22:34]

ocean or the sky are really the transverse of our life. You might think of them as our own Buddha nature, our own aspiration and our way, because he's talking as a spiritual writing here. So he's really talking about our path in life. If we try to imagine what that's going to be or how to get to what we think that's going to look like, out on our entire life, right? You can only live your life where it is. And unless you're present for what's happening here, you may miss out on that great connection, that great possibility, being someone that you didn't even imagine or recognizing something about your life that you have a concept about. So you have to live your life right where you are in the middle of whatever it is that's unfolding. I think maybe we should just go on to the next one and then we'll take thoughts if people have them because it's really all one.

[23:39]

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality, genjo koan. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality, genjo koan. And I guess what I would have here is how people are doing with the word actualized. You know, is that something that, I mean, I just wonder, Is that a word that's sort of available or meaningful? Is it working? Does anybody want to?

[24:46]

If I were to say to you, Amy, what is actualized? Some blend of like, the word like concrete comes to mind. lived or experienced or enacted in some way, but maybe without so much agency attached to the word action. I'm sorry, I forgot to say that you would provide people with it. I think that's fine. Let's just ask, can people hear online okay? Can you hear what the questions are? We can hear most of it. At the end, it was a little trailed off. Okay, great. Would anybody else like to say anything about this word, Hannah? I just think make it actual. Make it real. I mean, one of the things for me when I looked at the definition is that it includes the word action, which really interested me.

[25:50]

You know, that you're acting into reality in some way, that there's an action in it, which I just hadn't really thought of when I... Marlee Alexander has a hand up. Hi, Marlee. Hi there. Yeah, just on this point, I feel like every time I run into that word actualize, which can feel so abstract, I literally have to stop myself and say something like, make it real. Or, you know, I almost have to like... make it concrete to myself. I sort of stopped dead in the middle of that reading to be like, no, that's, it's not just this planned thing, but. Yeah. I think I have to sort of do that too, frankly. Anybody else? Oh, Pauline? Oh, go ahead. Oh, Ray? Yeah.

[26:50]

Okay. Can you hear me? So I have interlingual gloss on actualness. Wait, could you just add more? So in German, aktuell means now or current or emergent. So I can't hear actualized now, but I think it's something that's literally this moment right now or emergent right now. That's great. I'm with you, James, on that. To me, it means to come to life, to be lived. Yes, the same in the romance languages, actually. Yeah, the word that was coming to mind for me is actually practical. Practical as opposed to theoretical. Practical as a practice, which I think goes to what you're saying about action. The contrast between the fish or bird trying to come up with a firm theoretical underpinning for the nature of the water or the sky without actually venturing forth into it is I think for some of us venturing forth into the water or sky without having a firm theoretical sense of what that water or sky is can be a frightening thing.

[28:12]

That's a great point. So I think, you know, what I take is kind of, this has just sort of encouragement to do that. That's a great point. Rich Freitas had his hand up, but I don't see it now. Come on, Rich. Hi. So sort of related to this, she seems to be making a distinction between practice and activity in those two lines. He basically says the same thing. There's like some tense differences, but I'm wondering if you think that... It basically says practice is the actualization and activity is the actualization. And I wonder if there's a difference between those two things that we should be ending. No, the way I read that is that he's bringing our attention both in space and time to the place and to the moment is how I read that. Anyone else wants to add something to that?

[29:18]

I just keep thinking it sounds very like, and I don't know much about it, but mindfulness. Yeah, just this, you know, here and now. Here and now with your whole body. Okay, Jane, did you want to? It wasn't until you said, what do you think about this word, actualization? And I thought, actualization? Where was that? And I started looking, and I realized, we make our own. Our practice becomes now. And I completely left out the actualization of reality. So when you said that, it sort of startled me. I was like, where is that? So, yeah, thank you. Sue O has her hand up.

[30:24]

Excuse me, who? Sue O. Hi. Yeah, I'm here. I'm just struggling with where to sit. For some reason, seeing little kids practicing, you know, that total focus on what they're doing, Ellen's background is dance and mine was preschoolers. And so maybe that's natural. But there was one of the kids at the Halloween or at the Sajiki discovered the rubber critters, you know, the snakes and lizards and insects that were in the noisemaker box, which was great. focused during the ceremony outside. She was sitting on the Zendo stairs, and I was totally drawn to this, watch this, laying out in order, some order that was important to her, that was of interest to her, these creatures on the stairs, and talking to them.

[31:39]

And it just, of course, it just fascinated me, and there was no distinction between her and what she was doing. I think that a lot of practice is about physically doing something that we're totally attending to. Yeah, I would say the clients are specifically about that, very specifically. There's no distinction, but they don't mention the part where when you're learning something, or I remember learning positions at Berkeley Zen Center and it was just total terror to learn, to think I could learn it and then actually do it. And like Ellen said, you had to let go of the, you know, if you were worried about performance anxiety, you really can't do it. So that you do what you do.

[32:42]

And that's true for a lot of life, I think. Yeah. I've been sort of interested in sort of being fully present for performance anxiety as well. But that's just sort of another thought. And also for the planning and the, you know, times when I would sit with, say, Sojin and we would be talking about the library and we would be planning, you know, he was just as present as he was any other time. And, you know, so, you know, I kind of make a separation sometimes, but he did, or I don't think he did. Keep in mind that even when you have performance anxiety, you know, that's what's so. That's the thus. That's right. You include everything in it, no matter what it is, whether it's your awkwardness or your performance anxiety. I was going to say about that, so I'll include that too.

[33:46]

That's a good example. Should we move on, or does somebody else want to say something? Laurie? Just one last thing. I really appreciate what you said. I always think of, or I always thought of, our element is delusion. So the bird's element is the sky, the fish's element is the water, and our element is delusion. And that kind of fits with what you're saying. If you try to get to the end of the performance anxiety, or if you try to get to the end of delusion, or you practice, you can't do that. You can't get to the end of it, you know? So, I mean, it's not so different, but it's something that hasn't been brought out. Yeah. And so often when we have our own little sort of moments of mini-awaking, it's because we've woken up to some delusion of our own, you know? I'm just going to add in the idea of the lack of self-consciousness that happens.

[34:50]

that even when you're feeling anxious or even when you've got a lot of emotion going on, if you can not engage with it in a way that's a personal story about it, but just be it, just fully show up with it in an unselfconscious way, I think that's also part of what's being pointed out here. Oh, okay. The fundamental point. Does anybody want to tell me what that is? Khabir has his hand raised. Khabir. No, I can't say anything about that. But what I wanted to say, not present and not paying attention, accidents happen. And the other day, I was trying to cut a bagel. It was Friday, and I was thinking about the class the night before, and I was not with that bagel and that knife, and I ended up in my pinky.

[36:01]

And so not being present and not being at the moment, it can be very dangerous. Well, I think that's true, but I also think accidents happen. I mean, you are present. I mean, you know, you don't get away from it. We don't. I was just blown away by this incredible machine that we possess that is the body. I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't put any stitches on it. I just took care of it, gave it what it needed, and it healed itself. It sort of... That is a learning moment for me. And I think it's also the same with everything in life and also our practice, is that if we just show up and we focus on our breath and our posture and kind of do what our ancestors have been doing in the Buddha, I think that's enough.

[37:04]

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So does anyone want to take a stab at what the point means to you? Do you need a microphone? Yes. Just out of principle, I should use the microphone. We've talked a bunch about , but I feel as if some of the things that we were saying about the actualizing was actually the fundamental point which is that being present and and being in accord with the dharma and practicing that he's trying to make that is the fundamental point of of practice and making that real is what the actualizing part of it is

[38:10]

Anyone else want to put it in his or her own words? A lot of ways to say this. Yeah, I have to say that's one thing I enjoy about it when I think about what the fundamental point is. I kind of come up with a different answer every time. I feel like I have a question about the major premise. So when you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. How does one find one's place where they are? What is that? I don't think we've talked about that yet. I'm not sure I know what it means. Well, I think you could say specifically with these few senses, it's

[39:18]

when you let go of your, what I call, or I think of as sort of objectifying my life, as sort of looking at it, and I'm in it, so that I let go of my thinking about it. And I'll give you another little example. So I was trying to decide if I should go to Seattle and meet my new grandson. I'm a month old, and I haven't met him. And I said to a friend, I'm in a fit of indecision. And I was. And I was like, should I go? Do I have time? Is this a good time? Will it be helpful to that? You know, I was like, you know. And then my friend said, and at that moment, I just dropped all that stuff that was going on in my mind. I packed my suitcase. I already had my ticket. But, you know, it's one of those Southwest ones that you could return. And I got on the plane.

[40:19]

I didn't know what it was. What was really going on in the household. I just went. And occasionally I have a thought of, like, this is too much. You know, I can't do everything. I can't, you know. But, you know, I just let go. So it's like you do it when you sit. And I was there for... chaos, you know, which is really what it was like. You know, does that make sense to you? That does. It wasn't quite landing for me. I do hear what you're saying, but it's not sure. I'm not sure where my resistance is. It's fine. Can I give an example? Yeah.

[41:20]

You know, every, before every semester- I think you'll pull that a little closer. You turn it off, otherwise it makes sense. Before every semester, and I taught for many years, I would always feel some on the first day. and it was the result of a new group of people and not knowing what would the energy be like and how would they like each other, how would they like me, how would I like them. And all that would go through me and I would be well-planned, but the minute I would walk in the room, it all just would fall away. And I think that's something about finding our place, just some ability to, I'm sure you do that when you work. Karen and Nancy have their hand up.

[42:27]

Okay. Let me just respond to Susan for a minute. Susan, did that happen always or did that happen more? No, it always happened. Every semester. Right from the get-go. Because there was this mystery of what it was going to be like. But the minute I would walk in, it would just fall away. Because I really had the confidence to do what I was going to do. All in the imagination. And there was kind of what you were saying with dance, performance anxiety. the minute you stop thinking, at least my experience was the minute I stopped thinking about myself and just put myself in the situation way. Karen or Nancy? Cecilia, did you also still have your hand? Wait, let's do one.

[43:32]

Shall I go ahead? Yes, please. I would be on the reference desk and, you know, the library, the main library at Civic Center where I worked was kind of like a adult daycare center who had no place to go. That's where they lived. And so there are people with a lot of issues. issues, substance abuse and mental health challenges and things like that, poverty. I was supposed to actually be doing other tasks in my downtime when it was slow at the library. So I would be trying to order books, for example, but I kept getting having to take care of little explosions.

[44:39]

that happened and so sometimes i would get this feeling like i'm trying to get something done but somebody's having a fight in the aisle you know in the biography section and um then you know there'd be some drugs and i'd have to deal with that there'd be somebody coming up to me and really Just they'd be asking questions, but they really wanted attention. And sometimes I'd get frustrated thinking, you know, I can't get anything done here because all the non-library things are going on that I have to attend to. But then I realized, well, that. These so-called interruptions were actually what I had. That was what was present in that moment.

[45:41]

So it's like the fundamental point keeps arising and constantly and changing. And it's like being awake to whatever is in front of you. That's what I think. Nicely said. Cecilia? Just to think about the fundamental point, and I keep thinking about that famous phrase, be here now. Rondas. Rondas. There we are, thank you. That's it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I just, Okamura, He quotes a part of Bendoa, and I just think this is such a special way of expressing this.

[46:49]

Even if only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one of all existence and completely permeates all time, performs everlasting Buddha guidance within the inexhaustible Dharma world in the past, present and future. There's the mystical. Who would have guessed? I think we better move on because we've only gotten through two of these sentences and we have six of them. We better move on or we won't get to the mystical, the especially mystical part. So this is the third sentence really. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and is not merely arising now.

[47:57]

This path, this place, is neither big nor small, neither self nor other. It has not existed before this moment, nor has it come into existence now. Therefore, the reality of all things is thus. So that's kind of confusing when I first read it. But I think that kind of, for me, the sort of simple way of thinking about it is that there's just no duality. So, I mean, avoid getting into, what do you mean there's no big or small? There's just, there's no duality. So you don't compare things, basically. And you don't separate them. That's the way I kind of can deal with it, basically.

[49:05]

Another way, I think that's really great, I think another way to say what you just said is to say everything is just right the way it is. Nothing's out of place. It all fits perfectly. I want to point out that in the Okemore translation, I feel like he kind of solves the whole problem by With that thus, it sort of sounds like at the end of that sentence he says, therefore the reality of all things is thus. Like he's sort of saying, I already said it and it's thus, but really I think the reality of all things is thus. That's what I think. It's like thusness or suchness or just this. Or as Sojin used to say, it. So anybody comment? Sabir has his hand.

[50:06]

You took the word out of my mouth. Just this, yes. What this does for me is try not to get hung up on and not to develop anxiety of what's going to happen the next moment. Interesting. And see things... More like see as is or just this. And Karen was saying about when she was in a library and lately I've been extremely busy with two jobs and two teenagers and all that good stuff that juggling quite a few things and things start to pile up. And as soon as I start to think about I'm not taking care of the things, or I haven't replied to those emails, or my inbox is exploding, it gets worse in a way.

[51:10]

But then I go, well, maybe I'm just meant to do this thing that I wasn't supposed to do, or it just fell on my lap. And then the drama kind of falls away. Yeah, that's good. Why don't we move on to Susan? Because otherwise we won't get thrown this to our party. Well, I was just going to say that part is neither large nor small is interesting to me. I think for me that has something to do with finding the meaning of life in limited activity. It doesn't matter how small or great it is. It's right there. There's no need to wait. to be great that it's right there in our limited activity. Yeah. A corollary to that or just an add-on to that is you have everything that you need.

[52:14]

Whatever's happening right now, you have everything you need. Nothing's missing. I'm just going to say quickly, when Susan was talking and actually read this, what I thought of was it's not taking anything along, bringing the past, not pulling in the future. I think somebody brought up at another class that the past is part of the present and the future. I mean, the future is part of the present also, but I mean, that's a little bit to me like the thing about planning that yes, they are, but still, you know, it's moment by moment.

[53:17]

I think with me, I had a conversation and we have this bristle point and I decided, okay, I'm gonna talk about this. And what I did is, I didn't bring the bristle points, I'm aware of them, but they didn't get brought in, nor did I decide, this is the way you are, this is the way I am. So I didn't, that's the way it's gonna be. So I'm talking more, I didn't dismiss any of them, I just didn't make them that moment. That's exactly right. Accordingly, in the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it. Doing one practice is practicing completely. Okay, so this is the other version. In the same way, when a person engages in the Buddha way, as the person realizes one Dharma, the person permeates.

[54:26]

that Dharma. As a person encounters one practice, the person fully practices that practice. So I'm just going to take a moment here to point out these various words. Some are, you know, intriguing. And you guys who are translators can comment if you want on this. So there's mastering. You know, that's a rather active and intense word. There's penetrating. As Sojin pointed out in one of his films, masculine or yang. And then there's permeating. These are all in this. And then there's, and then Sojin pointed out, you know, you could also say embracing. And I just thought, you know, there's many words we could use. You know, you could like immerse yourself or... I don't know, there'd just be a lot of them.

[55:27]

This is good. When we talked about this, I think one of the things we noticed is in the Tanahashi Eiken translation, the words were more about kind of taking charge or taking control of, or whatever the other one is. But in the Okamura translation, it was more about joining with or embodying or manifesting it. at least for my working with this, I feel like it fits with what Dogen is saying, is that the moment is manifested out of everything that's in that moment. It's not me acting on it, but it's me meeting with and being met by all the others that brings the moment to what it is, actualizes or manifests that particular moment.

[56:28]

Manifest is a word I didn't think of. Anybody else want to suggest a word or a translation? I'm just thinking this is what Kabir was talking about in his life. Yeah, it is. It's completely what we're talking about. SUE O HAS HER HAND UP. I DIDN'T SEE THAT. SUE. EITHER YOU'RE MUTED OR YOU HAVEN'T STARTED YET. I AM STRUGGLING WITH THIS. SORRY. was thinking about practice positions that we show up.

[57:34]

It's not personal. And maybe in our work, it's that way. And with our relatives, there's a point, like a resting point where you're not doing it. There's a manifestation happening. And it's pretty great. It's always surprising. Couldn't that be with anything? What? Could that be with anything you do? Yes. Everything you do? It can be. Yeah, I mean, I can be aware of it at times. Not always aware of it, but it can show up anywhere. Justice? Justice? I was just going to say, we notice it more in the places that usually have some friction. or some difficulty for us. We notice it when it's not there. What a relief. Yep, I agree.

[58:39]

Just briefly, I can just speak up if that works. I was thinking about this, how one translation says realizes one dharma, realizing one dharma, and the other translation says meeting one thing. And I was just thinking of these words, realizing versus meeting. And things like realizing is a heavy ask, like I have to understand it. And so I'm just, yeah, for me, I'm sitting with meeting as just kind of showing up as Sue was saying, there's something in that to just show up and meet it. And that's all that's asked of us. Yeah, it's almost like realizing at the very beginning where you're trying to, you know, get to the edges of the ocean. Yeah, but just to mess with that a little bit, the title of Okumura's book is Realizing Ginger Koan. Interesting. So I think he's actually using that in a very similar way to how we've been talking about actualizing. Not out of your mind, but just having a full-on experience.

[59:44]

Making real. Making real. Living reality is what comes up for me. But I think you're right, Amy, that realizing has a very mental equation. What I find kind of interesting about that discussion is when I actually think about the places where I use the word realized in everyday life, it's not like an intellectual cognitive activity. It's not like, oh, I threw out my shoes, or something, like whatever, but it is something that just is something like, oh, and I don't know where it came from. maybe that actually matches something. I think you're right on. I think if we looked that up in a dictionary, we would see that that is a meaning of it. Yeah. I realized what I was looking for were actually in my hand.

[60:44]

And you actualized them right there. Okay, onward. This is Section 12 of Munan of Dutra. Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. The boundary of realizations is not distinct. For the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of Buddha Dharma. Wow. For this, there is a place and a path The boundary of the known is not clear. This is because which appears limited is born and practiced simultaneously with the complete penetration of the Buddha Dharma. Like you can't talk about these things. Yes you can. It feels like it was just really hard to translate this passage. Not the first sentence.

[61:45]

So why is the boundary not known or clear? Like, can we actually really know everything? No. No. And can we actually really distinguish between in the moment of non-self-conscious connection, is there really a me and a you? Is there really a boundary between this and that? So their words don't work. They're helping us right now. Well, they're pushing us. Even if they're not clear, they're really pushing us. When you have that experience, words don't work. That's right. And sort of for the same reason. You know, you can't...

[62:45]

make distinctions and words do that. Marlee Alexander has a hand up. Thank you. Passage really sort of takes me back to the slightly more concrete passage of being on the ocean and you can't really tell whether it's a circle or a square because what's everything? And it just makes me think about, you know, so easy to be like, am I paying attention to all of my body and mind? How could I even know? Because if I'm worrying about that, I certainly am not. So I feel like as abstract as this may be, it really throws. Yeah. What else is there? Yeah. practice with it. Is this also because the boundary is not known because the next moment is a different moment?

[63:57]

I think that is part of it. That's right. As soon as you have this moment and you recognize this moment, you're already on to the next moment. I'm kind of going to repeat it. Loud you, loud. What? Be loud. I will. Just from a textbook perspective of this passage, this is the place, right? It's like an extortation. And yet in the very next sentence, that place explodes. There is no, there is no, how do you define it? There's no. And we see that over and over again here in Dover's writings. or the waves, I guess. I don't know what you do. You know, my experience of his writings actually is that he doesn't leave anything out. So, you know, when he says, you know, that you, you know, this is the play, he also says, you know, that you can't grasp.

[65:04]

So, he just doesn't, he doesn't let you settle, you know. It's almost like he's, the textual form showing us what it's like to sit and experience that. Yes. You arrive somewhere and then, oh, that was, that was, that moment's on. Right, that's good. Not knowing. Just not knowing. All right. Anybody else on this one? You know, Uchiyama Roshi calls that infiltrating reality. That's a great one. These words, I like them all, really. But that's a really good one. Okamura. When Okamura teaches Dogen, he's always using the analogy of Indra's net. This instead reminds me of that. The idea of Indra's net is that everything is completely connected to everything else and you can't separate them out.

[66:10]

Sue, why does he talk about mastering practice? How does one do that? Is that just one of those things where he says it and then he takes it away? In reading the comments, I feel like what this is pointing to is a complete interaction with everything in what you're doing in one thing. So mastering is not leaving anything out, but being completely engaged with whatever it is that you're engaged with in the moment. Do you have an experience of mastering like that? But he's not saying mastering practice. That's not what he says. He says... Meeting one thing is mastering it.

[67:19]

What are you saying with the mastery of Buddha Dharma? Again, but I don't think that's practice. Oh, this is in this one, yeah. But mastery, you know, it's not a word. It's actually probably my least favorite of those words. I mean, that's the one where the other translation is very, very different. Yeah, yeah. And I think maybe active versus passive voice is not so important. The person permeates the dharma, the dharma permeates the person. It's mutual. Yeah, and mastery, I mean, I agree with you, Sue, that is a kind of a... But mastery in the moment... I mean, it's a problem because we think of mastery as getting better at something. I don't think that's what he's saying. Mastery in the moment, you can be completely doing what you're doing. It doesn't mean that you're a master. Or that you're dominating. I mean, to me, it seems... domination mastery is associated but i don't think i really agree with susan i think one simple analogy that comes to mind recently for my experiences so i've been doing some calligraphy and um delicate circumstances very carefully dipping the ink the brush in the ink and shaping the tip of the brush as i'm doing it and i'm very carefully

[68:51]

Laying down the brushes on the silk as I move it across and change, you know, very much of my hand, my finger, the brush, the bristles and the ink as they come together. I'm completely engaged with that in that moment. It's not like it's perfect for anything like that, but there's really a tight working of all of these elements together is that mastery. So I was looking at this like realizes versus meets in the last section and it's interesting that they kind of, the translation is kind of swapped where here in the boundary of realization is not distinct and then that's being translated as or glossed as the known. So now I'm like kind of swirling in this triad of meeting, realizing, and knowing.

[69:53]

And so now like transitive property, what if we substituted meeting into this one and that's kind of illuminating for me a lot of what you guys are saying. It's like this boundary of meeting our circumstances, each other, our actions, what we're engaging with is not distinct, not separate from one another exactly as you were describing of this sort of engagement that is interpenetrating. I don't know how they choose one versus the other. Like, is that the same word in the two stanzas? You know, I don't know either. We're not translators. I will say that one of the ways that the study Dogon with Okamura is that he'll take these lines character by character and he'll give all the different meanings of a particular character And then he'll tell us why he's chosen a particular translation based on, you know, 40 years of stuff.

[71:01]

That was this translation. But I think that's part of where all these differences come from. It's people's interpretation and also their understanding of Dogen. And, you know, my feeling about after reading them both, these two in particular, is I get a real sense. who translated it all. It really makes me really have a different feeling about the two. Just a reminder that Kaz Tanahashi is a poet. So his writings will take on his own poetic understanding. And Okamura is a translator and a very deep practitioner. So he has that flavor. Yeah, but it's even more than that. You know, it's really almost personality. To me. Fair enough. Okay. Tanahashi.

[72:04]

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge or is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is . We should not think that what we have attained is conceived by ourselves and known by our discriminating mind. Although complete enlightenment is immediately actualized, its is such that it does not necessarily form a view. In fact, viewing is not something fixed. Again, I just have to say, he just doesn't leave anything out. I just wanted to say that, you may have seen this, but in the Moon and the Dewdrop version,

[73:12]

little star by inconceivable, and it's in the glossary. He says it literally means close or secret being original self, is what the glossary says for inconceivable. And, you know, Sojan used to talk a lot about intuition. To me, this is really a lot about intuition. It's about knowing, you know, without knowing. Yeah, it really seems to be bringing it back to the beginning and sort of the theoretical investigation that whatever kind of realization you get at the end, it is not the realization that the bird thought it was going to get by mapping out the sky in its mind. ahead of time.

[74:16]

It also reminds me of what you said about not object, don't imagine being an object of knowledge. Like, you know, that's what you were bringing up about things that don't become, I mean, when we're thinking, when we're looking at our life as like the object of our knowing, that's when we're separate, you know? And so that's kind of what he's saying. It won't be that. Right. But I'm finding curious, The way that I'm understanding the last sentence is like, I feel like I've encountered this idea before and understood it in a way of like, maybe you experience something that you can't capture in words. And you can say to somebody on Tuesday morning, something happened, but I can't say it in words. But I'm almost reading the last sentence to be like, you might not even realize that anything. You would just be like, I sat here on Tuesday morning and then I left and went to work and like actually have no awareness that it's Yeah. It's not grasped by your consciousness. Yeah.

[75:16]

But it happened. Yeah, which I find interesting because I actually put that into words. That's pretty nice. That's beautiful. And Kabir has his hand as well. Yeah, one more. Two who haven't spoken yet here. Loud, loud, loud. Is it... I see a connection between the last sentence or so and the concept of Prasham and Arcevia. Just the wisdom beyond wisdom. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's well said. I see that what it's also describing is what happens to us in practice. You know, there's something that we grow in a way that we can't really grasp, right? We sit and we experience the moment, we practice, and something happens, be able to put that into words.

[76:22]

And so over the course of time, just noticing what happens to my experience, how I think, but how I can put that into words is not articulable, right? So that happens. over the course of practice and so shifts but it's, I can't express why that is. But it's noticeable over time. Yes, that's beautiful and I think the more we practice, the more we're aware that it does shift, that it's not a fixed view. Viewing is not something. Something happens and then something else arises and that there's a continual kind of dynamic movement of this that we can appreciate. Or, you know, in a more just day-to-day terms is that, you know, you might see all this one way today and then see it all another. And yeah, so.

[77:23]

Or even in the next moment, that's part of the kind of amazing part of it is that even in the next moment, there can be a fluidity in something that seemed very tight becomes very spacious. I'm sorry. I can't see who that is. Oh, that's not getting caught. So you can always say, don't get caught by anything. Oh, I got it. Oh. Well done. Don't get caught. Probably a good place to end, but I have a little quote from something. One more thing. Y'all had said something about the way it's translated. A little bit about, and I realized sitting here,

[78:24]

And the way each of us talks about it gives us a little bit of information about our own. Yeah, and I think that's a good point. And it also feels to me so intimate, you know, to be willing to talk about this. You know, to try to put into words something about this, you know, it just seems such a great thing. And it, you know, it makes me, in all your, you know, kind of, working with it it's like it's actually very inspired yeah we're actually really sharing deeply with each other our own experience of practice it's pretty cool yeah doesn't that say something about intimacy i was looking for i was looking for where did that word go it's right here um it's in it's in okamora i think um i think you want me yourself completely and Practice the Dharma for the sake of the Dharma.

[79:27]

Don't draw conclusions. It says here, intimacy is such that it does not necessarily form a view. Enlightenment is immediately act through its intimacy as such that it does not necessarily form a view. Okay. I'm going to read this quote. It's just doing the cooking for the sake of eating as the eating, doing each activity for its own sake. Although there is before and after, we are not attached to before and after. We don't have to sacrifice our life now in order to reach some goal in the future. This is the same as not starting from delusion or enlightenment. Thoroughness of practice on each moment is the goal.

[80:30]

That's the mastery. Okay. Leavings are numberless. I doubt to awaken with that. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to rend them. Dharma gaze boundless. I vow to render them. Buddha's ways unsurpassable. I vow to become it. That's it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[81:33]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[81:44]

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