Allow that to refresh your practice and refresh your life. So I want to continue, as I said, to speak about Gyoji, continuous practice. And as we go on, I want to draw on another lecture by Sojin Roshi speaking on this very topic. Again, Sojin's point of reference and our point of reference is the fascicle, Dogen's fascicle, Gyoji, which is the longest fascicle in the Shobogenzu, the treasury of the true Dharma eye. And if some of you had a chance to look at it last night, you saw that... After some introductory comments, it's a really rich compendium of stories about the ancestors.

[01:14]

It begins with Shakyamuni Buddha, and it talks about many of the Indian and Chinese ancestors and their manifestation. of what we're calling continuous practice. In his own comments on Dogen, Sojin Roshi brings up two words which are found in the first paragraph of this fascicle. And those are Gyoji and Dokkan. Gyoji we're roughly translating as continuous practice, and we'll get into a more nuanced picture of that. And Dokkan as circle of the way, or the way ring, which I mentioned yesterday. And what we understand is that these two words together express the unity

[02:26]

of practice and realization, which of course, we all know as the center point of Dogen's teaching. And really it's the heart of our Soto school that our practice, which is... emerges from Zazen and returns to Zazen is the expression of our enlightened nature. So I want to start with a quotation from the, right at the beginning of Gyoji. And just to say, for those of you who are studying Dogen or who are new to Dogen, As you're studying Dogen, pay very close attention to the first few paragraphs because usually his teaching is contained in a very compressed and succinct way, right there in his first words.

[03:49]

And then the rest of a fascicle is an extended commentary or a way of looking at this core teaching from different angles. Anyway, in this translation, it says, in the great truth of the Buddha ancestors, there is always continuous practice. Now the translation I'm using says, talk about this, there is always pure contact and observance of the precepts above which there is nothing. Meaning, there is nothing deeper or nothing more beyond or nothing more important than this pure contact and observance of the precepts, which is, as I said, another way of explaining continuous practice.

[04:54]

It continues in an unbroken cycle, that's dokkan, so that there is not the slightest interval between the establishment of the mind, training, bodhi, and nirvana. So all these things come up together. Conduct and observance is a continuing cycle. For this reason, It is not doing something that is forced from ourselves. It meaning our practice is not doing something that someone forces us to do. I'm sorry. It's not doing something that we force ourselves to do. And it is not doing something that is forced from the outside. that others might force us to do. It just arises from our sincere heart.

[06:02]

It is conduct in observance that has never been tainted. The virtue of this conduct and observance maintains ourselves and maintains the outside world. In other words, Our practice is what sustains us in our life. And as Sojin said yesterday, another way of saying it is that it is the practice that saves all sentient beings. It maintains the outside world. So... I want to go a little into the character and the meaning of the word gyoji. Gyoji can literally be translated as doing the practice and keeping to it. This is what we're doing in seshin.

[07:08]

We're doing the practice and we're keeping to it and just say we're doing... the hard work of trying to sustain our practice, say in the evening, when we have a sort of formless time. So we have to make a form there to make sure that we're continuing our practice. So one scholar explains Gyoji. Gyoji can also be understood as a truncated form of Shubyo Jikai. which translates as doing one's practice, doing one's training and practice while keeping to the precepts. So what we're doing here is we're folding in an understanding of the precepts as being the heart of our practice.

[08:15]

The scholar goes on further, as Dogen makes clear through the many stories of Indian and Chinese masters that he recounts, practice does not refer to some fixed agenda, but differs in form with each master, and I would say differs in form with each circumstance, and yet is recognizable as that individual's ceaseless practice. For me, this is one of the things that I deeply admire from knowing Sojin Roshi over all these years. And it's what we read of Suzuki Roshi. And I think that the people who had the opportunity to know him got this very clear sense. And we see this in some of our other

[09:19]

ancestors and teachers, that their practice was just continuous. It took whatever form was arising or whatever conditions called for at the moment, but there was something, there was a sense of continuity that you got from them that actually you could rely on. And the teaching there is not that these were extraordinary beings. The teaching there is to look for that inside ourself. To see, where's that quality in me? And to see it, even though one might understandably have doubts about oneself, to look really closely and see how our practice and faith sustain us.

[10:35]

I really like the translations of Gudo Nishijima, who translated the... It's a four-volume translation of the Shobo Menso. That is... His translations are very precise. And as I had mentioned, he translates Gyoji as pure contact and observance of precepts. So he writes... Gyo means deeds, actions, or conduct. And Ji means observance of the precepts. So Gyoji means pure conduct and observance of the precepts. In short, we can say that Buddhism is a religion of action. That's a really important point. Gautama Buddha recognized the importance of action in our life.

[11:45]

and he established an ultimate philosophy dependent upon action. That action is the action of the precepts. So if we look at the precepts, what we see is these are not abstract moral principles. They're actually instructions for how we can be in relationship to each other, and in relationship to ourselves. And, you know, they talk about precepts, talk about our speech, our activity. They speak about our relationship to ourselves in meditation. And our practice is just the unfolding of the precepts. So there's a line Many of you have had lay ordination.

[12:50]

Some of you had priest ordination. In all of our ordination ceremonies, we receive a document, a lineage document. And, you know, I recommend that you take it out sometime carefully. And if you haven't read the text that is written at the foot of the document, I encourage you to do that. So on my document, it says, on the 15th day of September in the year of 1998 of the Common Era, which is the date of my Dharma transmission, The monk Hakuryu Sojin Dayosho in the inner room of Zen Shinji, that's Tassahara, affirmed and revealed to me that the perceptual vein of the Buddha is the one great causal condition of our lineage.

[14:01]

So this perceptual vein, this bloodline, which flows from the Buddha, was passed on through all the ancestors, and through Suzuki Roshi, and Huitzu Roshi, and then Sojin Roshi, to me, and to many of you. Personally passed on Gurdakutta Peak, which is where the Buddha transmitted to Mahakashapa. through Bodhidharma at Shaolin, the sixth ancestor at Baolin, Ehe Dogen at Ehe Monastery, and through Shogaku Shinryu at Rinsou Monastery, thus mutually flowing both ways, eldest to eldest. In other words, it flows in both directions, these precepts.

[15:04]

And now I entrust these precepts to you. You have a text, quite like that in your, at the bottom of your Ketchum Yaku. So we come to the word, we'll come back to Ketchum Yaku, come to the word Dokkan. Dokkan is a lovely word, which means circle of the way or way ring. And that Wei ring includes that empty and receptive space at the center of the ring, which is where our hearts abide. So there are circles and circles. Usually we see our life as a line kind of

[16:12]

a straight or wavy line that leads from birth to death. But when we look closely, we can see all kinds of circles in our experience and activity. Circles that reflect this vast circle of the way. We have an experience and some years later, We find that we've circled back to that same experience, and yet we have a fresh understanding of it. We see both the present and past in a fresh way. Buddhism, of course, has lots of circles. It describes the way of life as circular, from birth to death to birth. And so on, just rolling on through the ages. In early Buddhism, the goal is to leave the wheel, to leave the circle.

[17:24]

Because that circle is defined as suffering. And of course, there is suffering along the way. But in Mahayana Buddhism, our bodhisattva vow is to remain on this circular path until all beings have attained the way, which, of course, is a very long time. So life after life, generation after generation. And each of us, again, coming back to this Ketchimyaku, each of us is part of the circle of Buddhas and ancestors. So in that document, the diagram part of the document, it doesn't immediately look like a circle, but you have a red line that leads from...

[18:37]

Shakyamuni Buddha through all the Indian ancestors and then through the Chinese ancestors and the Japanese ancestors down to our teachers and their teachers to you. And that line continues and back up to the top of the chart and to the head of Shakyamuni Buddha. So perhaps in another way of looking at it, it's a circle. And in fact, in the process of Dharma transmission, one of the documents graphically describes this lineage as a circle. It's a really... It's an amazing and beautiful document that's called Shisho.

[19:42]

And it's clear when you look at Shisho, there's no starting point. It's just a continuous circle and it's our practice, our practice of conduct, our practice of precepts that keeps the circle going. So in this lecture that Sojin Roshi, that I found of Sojin Roshi's, he says, without using this Japanese nomenclature, Gyoji Dokkan was the fundamental practice that Suzuki Roshi introduced to us. In a talk, Suzuki Roshi said, if you lose the spirit of repetition, your practice will become quite difficult. He also said that if you chant the Heart Sutra once, you may feel okay about it, but if you chant it over and over every day, you might lose your original attitude towards it.

[20:57]

You will maintain your beginner's mind for a few years, but after a while, you're liable to lose the limitless meaning of the original mind. In other words, we have the spirit of repetition. We do the same thing every day. And we're really encouraged to keep beginner's mind. Continuous practice demands beginner's mind. So Sojin says, this presents an interesting koan for us. in an unrepeatable universe, how can any act be repeated? The only way is to be fully present in each moment and in each activity as just this, just now, without comparing. That's very important.

[22:04]

And I think we see this see it particularly see it in seshin it's like we have a period of of zazen and we may start that period fresh and by the end of that period uh our legs hurt and we're tired and we're thinking when's that bell going to ring and we get up and we do kin in which is walking around in a circle And then the bell rings to end Kinyin and we sit down. And my experience is that sitting down, everything's fresh again. It's remarkable. Whatever difficulty there was in the previous period, often it's gone away, sometimes not. But it starts fresh every time I sit down.

[23:09]

Every time it's just a new moment. So Sojin says, I remember observing my teacher's behavior. Nothing special. Living each moment with total presence. Not getting ahead, not lagging behind. Suzuki Roshi said Zazen every morning and every evening. He bowed nine times and chanted the Heart Sutra three times. That was our original service. I think that was the service when I first came to Berkeley Zen Center in the summer of 1968. That's what we did. We chanted the Heart Sutra in Japanese three times. I hadn't the slightest idea what we were saying. You know, ah-ha. And it was somewhat crazy making, but I continued. In between, Sojin says, in between, he simply responded to circumstances with the same attitude.

[24:16]

His life was all of a piece. His demeanor was relaxed, soft, flexible, and upright. He was always shining and his presence was nourishing. So that's the example that we can observe in our teachers. And when we observe this in our teachers, we look for it. Where is that in me? I encourage you to think about that. Where is that in you? And little things, interesting things creep into our body. we watch our teachers bow, how they bow at the altar. We meet them, you know, we met Sojin at the door every morning or every evening when he was, when Zazen was over, he would greet us.

[25:26]

And we take that bow of our teachers, the movement of their body, into our own bodies. It's quite remarkable and somehow we make it our own. So Sochan goes on, Dokkan, the ring or circle of the way is the non-repeatable rhythm of daily practice. It is to follow the cosmic order. Every day the sun appears in the sky and at night the moon while the planets circle in their orbit. At night the world sleeps and at dawn we awake. This is the basic cycle. Say this is the cosmic way ring. This is the basic cycle, the formal alternation we call night and day.

[26:27]

It is the turning of the world in harmony with the cosmos. All creatures follow individual and collective patterns and the various formalities and structures that support our unique situations. I think you could say all creatures have their own circle of the way that turns within this vast circle of the way. The life of a Zen student revolves around Zazen, while Zazen opens us to the cosmic order. Do, as in Dokkan, means the path or the way, and Kan means the ring or the circle, the cycle of practice, doing something over and over again.

[27:31]

So, He then says, when sitting, we hold our hands in the cosmic mudra. The form of the hands creates the empty circle that creates the form of the hands. So we hold our hands in this mudra, and from time to time, we actually can have the physical sensation that we are holding the whole universe in that mudra, that it's resting in the palms of our hands. That's why we place an emphasis on that mudra and on that posture. And of course, if you look at it, you're creating a circle, a circle or a half circle with your hands, but also your arms are creating another circle.

[28:43]

Sojun says, although there are many things that are important in our lives, receiving our nourishment from the source has to be primary. When we survey the cosmos, we see an infinite variety of circular forms, which is what I was saying a moment ago. We experience the cycles of the seasons and the cycles within the cycles within the cycles, and we realize that each one of us is in the place where heaven and earth meet. They intersect Heaven and earth intersect in us. I often think about the intersecting circles, it's like, we think about the circles of our ancestors, our biological ancestors, and the circles of our spiritual or Zen ancestors.

[30:02]

and kind of like a venn diagram they intersect and overlap and you are at that intersection how miraculous is that uh you know to be the place where these ancestral this vast timeless ancestral history intersect. And it's also a place of responsibility, which is why we rely on the precepts. We can also see that circles of energy emanate from us and mix and overlap with those of others, with others' energies that Each person we meet is also the possibility of a new intersection where we can come together and we practice this in a very careful way in the zendo.

[31:26]

And this is our training in pure conduct. so that we learn it, we get it in our bodies in a context which is relatively quiet and relatively safe. So that we really, this is why it's called practice. We do it over and over again so that we get it in our bodies and we can go out in the world and apply it in our relationships with whomever we meet. And that's what we see, that's what Sojin was speaking about, speaking of Suzuki Roshi. And all of the stories in Gyoji actually embody this, they embody how the teachers met their circumstance, how teachers and students met with a principle of attention and respect

[32:34]

So it says, what kind of vibe do we want to send into the world? That's maybe the ultimate question. The way we think and act has an effect. So there he's referring to this pure conduct and practice of the precepts. The way we think and act has an effect. To sit upright in the center of the empty circle as a vehicle for light is a Zen student's life. So there's this ring, and as I said, our heart, our essence abides in the middle. But the emptiness manifests as light.

[33:39]

And our light comes shining forth. The cycle of continuous practice of sitting zazen and allowing that selfless freedom to be expressed in daily life is the turning of the wheel and the basis of harmony. That's how Sojin closed this talk. So can we find that? Can we feel that, even for a moment, as we're sitting Sashin? I think all of us have moments like that. Often we may miss them. because our busy minds are very close at hand as well.

[34:42]

But... Again, as I spoke of yesterday, yesterday I was speaking of receptivity as one aspect of our zazen practice. The practice of just... being receptive to whatever comes in through our senses or through our mind. And then the activity that flows from it. That activity is pretty simplified, pretty much simplified in the context of seshin. But seshin is training for how we live. And so we have to figure out how to take those skills into the world and how to meet each being from the ground of the precepts, from the ground of right relationship, from the ground of curiosity.

[36:07]

and openness to who is this in front of me? And also who is it within me? So that may be a good place to end for today. There's much, much more that we could study in Gyoji. I think I'm probably not going to linger there. for the following lectures, but I encourage you, because the stories are so rich. And, you know, it's a very long fascicle, but the stories are just, it's just one story after another, which is a wonderful way of manifesting our practice. And I was thinking also... These are Dogen stories about the people that he sees as ancestral teachers.

[37:11]

I would encourage you to think about what are the stories in your own lives? What are the stories that you've experienced or the people that you've seen who are manifesting pure contact and observance of the precepts. I think it would be really great for each of us to identify those stories in our own life and to find some forum for sharing them. Because this continuous practice is not something that just happened... thousand years ago 2000 2500 years ago it's actually happening now and the forms that it takes are not necessarily strictly uh the traditional or the you know what we would what we would take as uh

[38:31]

as Zen or religious forms. They may take other forms. So thinking about who have we encountered in our life, who have we encountered that manifests this principle of continuous practice and circle of the way? I think that's a really, it'd be a really interesting thing for you to think about and maybe even take some, Take some notes or write something down about it, and maybe we find a way to talk about that as well. So with that, I'm going to thank you for your attention. I'm going to hand it over to Gary as Master of Ceremonies, and happy to take your thoughts or your questions. Okay, it's time for Q&A. Raise your digital hand in the participants box or send me a message in the chat box if you'd like to ask a question.

[39:36]

Thank you. And if you have an example now, if something comes right to mind about an example of continuous practice, feel free to share that too. Thank you. Thank you very much. It took me a while to figure out the fascicle, finding it last night, and I really appreciate the advice to turn away from distractive reading. That was hard and good.

[40:38]

And it was sort of scary reading Dogen's You know, the people he admired, the teachers who didn't lie down on their side, you know, they slept upright. It's like, how do you, you know, what do you think about that, Hozon? What are we to learn from that? Well, some of the stories are really intense. I think... I don't take them as rules or strictures for how we're supposed to practice. I think he's just admiring the practice of these elders. But I will say, there are places where they do that. If you talk to Dagenpo, Alex, during...

[41:44]

some of their sashins at Sogenji, they weren't supposed to lie down. So you had to find a comfortable wall to lean against. Now, you know, to me, well, that was great if you were in your 20s. I'm not sure I'm going to do that. But you still, I think the thing is, It's really, it pushes us to think what we can do, not what we should do or what the, you know, what some rule is. There were other examples, you know, there's other examples among those stories that I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I hold them as stories and I let them work on me. Does that make some sense?

[42:48]

Brian? Hi, Brian. Thank you. Knowing that there actually, from one perspective, is no time, how could there ever be a gap in practice? Say that again. I'm sorry. Knowing that there is no time, how could there be a gap in practice? How could there ever have been a gap in practice? What do you mean there is no time? Time is fundamentally empty. It's an external projection of the mind. A clock does not keep time. It's something external that actually we perceive internally. The gap is within... The gap is within ourselves. The gap is, to me, it's important not to get stuck on ideas of the absolute. For instance, that there's no time. Rather, I would think time is fluid.

[44:11]

Things tend to appear to move in one direction. but they can move in other directions. And I tried to see it as a fluidity, not as something that doesn't exist. It both exists and doesn't exist. And the same thing is true of practice. I know when I'm, if I'm paying attention, I know, when i'm paying attention and when i'm uh tuning out or trying to escape or numbing myself uh you know uh trying to get away from suffering now you could say that's practice too um but sometimes that can be a way of of fooling ourselves

[45:13]

So the standard, I think what this fascicle is saying is that the precepts, this is what I read from Ketchimyaku, that the preceptual vein of the Buddha is the one great causal condition of our lineage gate. In other words, this is... This is what we can return to. You know, what is the way, how am I relating to myself? How am I relating to this moment, even if I can't really identify a moment? How am I relating to someone or people around me? And that's kind of the, that's the place to return to. Thank you.

[46:17]

Yeah, thank you. Joel, unmute. Hi. Thank you. Great talk. My question is about the circle of practice and the precepts being one, you know, so intertwined. And that feels really right. At the same time, we all know the usual question of teachers whose practice is incredibly mature, who violate the precepts, just on a very... non-fancy way.

[47:18]

They just violate precepts. And just how to work with that koan. I think what's important is for you to work with that koan. Problems arise when we expect others to work with that go on. And it's true. The example of teachers violating the precepts can be, it can be discouraging. It depends on the violation. It also can be to some degree an affirmation of their humanity. And You know, as Aiken Roshi said about one Zen teacher who had egregiously broken some precepts, he pointed out that this was karma.

[48:41]

And he suggested, you know, look at other manifestations of that in Zen. that teacher's family. And that's painful. We all have our karma. And, you know, it's played out in the generations before us. And if we don't heed it, we're susceptible to repeating it. And so you can use... you can use those examples as ways of reminding yourself. And I also think that there are places where one may say, I do not want to associate with this person. It's a very difficult, I mean, I can see, I know.

[49:46]

because I talk to people, very difficult for people who understandably love their teachers to make that separation. But sometimes, but that's also not an unreasonable decision to make. It's a painful one. If you can help that teacher, please help them. If you feel that you can't, then please help yourself. Thank you very much. Can we continue? Clay, go ahead. Thanks for your talk, Alan. Good morning. Good morning. The image of the overlapping circles of our life, the people in our life, and I'm in the middle, was sort of brought home to me this week.

[51:01]

Earlier this week, I had a board meeting and my grandparents started a small family foundation. And And then my parents were in charge of that. And now I'm the president of this small foundation. One of the longtime board members who had served really well for a couple of decades was retiring off the board. And I was kind of responsible for the for the farewell, the gratitude and the gift and And so I did that and thanked him, especially for his financial service to the board. But I was also conflicted about it and quite stressed, I realized, because I inherited this relationship from my parents. And there were aspects of it that were quite uncomfortable.

[52:05]

And one of those aspects was that occasionally we had talked politics together. And it was very clear that we came from very different sides of the political spectrum. That can happen. It sure can. And I just was resentful about having to sort of carry out this act kind of on the behalf of my family, even though it was true. As far as. being an act of gratitude and generosity and for his generosity towards my family and towards the foundation and towards the work of the foundation, which is really good work. Anyway, the last couple of days in the retreat, I've just seen how it's my wishing that people were different and my wishing that his politics were different and my thinking that that's a lot of the problem in the world. That was causing a lot of suffering for me and a lot of stinginess, actually.

[53:12]

Even though on one level, I wasn't showing that at all. On the inside, I was pretty twisted around the axle about it. Yeah. Well, I would guess, knowing you, that in time... you will come to find your appreciation for him in a clearer way. A clear appreciation which does not dismiss the fact that you have different views, but to value the work that you've done together, which is the important thing. What you've been able to do together what he was able to do with your parents, that's really meaningful. And then, you know, we do different things in different aspects of our lives, wouldn't, you know.

[54:17]

Yeah, just think, Walt Whitman said, do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. which is true of every one of us. The peculiar quirks that each of us has that I think might be surprising to some people. Yeah, it is a surprise. And I was just a little bit surprised at my realization that it was my own. Having a particular view, what I thought was the right view, that was causing me a lot of pain. Right. Yeah. That was a good awakening moment. You know, continuous practice, one way to look at continuous practice is, as the profound bumper sticker on my car says, don't believe everything you think.

[55:27]

Right. That's continuous practice. Thank you. Thank you. I think we have just one more. It's a chat question. Okay. What is the sweet spot between forcing oneself to practice and falling away from practice or neglecting it? What is the sweet spot? Well, you know, the sweet spot, I think, is just, it's not a sweet spot. It's just to hold a question in your mind. To hold the question of practice in your mind.

[56:29]

I can say from my personal experience, so I came to, I first practiced at Berkeley Center in the summer of 1968. So I was 20. And in the middle of all kinds of life upheaval and political upheaval, it was really overwhelming. And even though I had came away with an intention to practice, you know, and I started studying Japanese, I had bought a Zafu and a Zapatan, but the world was not, that was not what I could do at that moment. But over the next few years, I, with friends of mine who began to practice with Chogyang Trungpa,

[57:31]

who had come to the United States, and I would hear stories about them, and I would hear wild stories about Trungpa's practice, which perplexed me. But I always feel a great gratitude towards those friends and towards Trungpa because the seed that was planted there was So what is Buddhism? What is practice? And it took, you know, about 15 years before that seed was watered. And, you know, I actually really came to practice. So I think that the sweet spot is allowing that seed to be there. And not ignoring it or forgetting it, but just hold it.

[58:35]

And when you are called back to practice, you'll be called back to practice probably because you have to. You have to practice. And pay attention to that moment and don't miss it. So don't do something because you're forcing yourself to do it. That's exactly what... what it says at the beginning of Yogi. Don't do it because you're forcing yourself. Don't do it because somebody else is forcing you. Do it for the sake of the practice. And if you're paying attention, you will know when to take up the practice. And at that point, it may really both sink deep roots and also send up fresh shoots. So that's what I would say.

[59:36]

So thank you very much. I think we'll end there. And I'll see you later in the week. And Laurie will give talk tomorrow. Thank you, Gary, for facilitating there. Okay. And we'll now chant the Bodhisattva vows one time through. Please do not unmute. Meings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Dharma gates are boundless. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[60:28]

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