The next couple of hours, Liz just called and they have signed his release papers. Now all they have to do is get his medicines from down at the pharmacy. You have to remember that even the bad news is good news. I'd like to talk about

[01:16]

Even though our vows are not exactly identical, we're all in here churning away at the vows together, whatever our individual one is. So my own vow, thinking about it, goes back to the proposition that Dogen raised in Guidelines for Studying the Way. back in the way distant, dimly remembered past. The way that fascicle begins is very moving to me. He says earlier on, Ancestor Nagarjuna said, the mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment.

[03:18]

The mind that fully sees Indeed, when you understand discontinuity, the notion of self does not come into being. Ideas of name and gain do not arise. Fearing the swift passage of the sunlight, practice the way as though saving your head from fire. Reflecting on this ephemeral life, make endeavor in the manner of the Buddha mind which sees into impermanence.

[04:23]

So there he's expanding it from just the notion of birth and death to a whole vaster realm, or maybe just refining the language, the realm of impermanence. Just forget yourself now and practice inwardly. And that's what we're doing these seven days. We're forgetting ourselves, trying to forget ourselves, and practicing inwardly together. So just forget yourself now and practice inwardly. This is one with the thought of enlightenment. So when a notion of self arises, sit quietly and contemplate. Is there a real basis inside or outside your body now?

[05:29]

Your body and hair and skin is just inherited from your father and mother. From beginning to end, a drop of blood or lymph is empty. So none of these are the self. What about mind, thought, awareness and knowledge? or the breath going in and out, which ties a lifetime together. What is it, after all? None of these are the self, either. How can you be attached to any of them? Deluded people are attached to them. Enlightened people are free of them. Does this seem relevant for where you're So I feel we're always sitting with new impermanence, and that's the task at hand of seeing it through.

[06:49]

But I also think that I'd like to acknowledge that we've been sitting with part of our minds and our concern on male, and if for myself, partly on him and partly on me, on the problem of Brexit and debt for me. And we've been sitting here in this very familiar space with an absence And it's kind of a conundrum, because I feel like his not being here, the lack of him being here, is a very strong presence. Very powerful.

[07:54]

And it seems to me that Sashin is very quiet and powerful and emotionally deep. At the hospital, when he came out, they had this packet of photographs of his coronary arteries. They had these before and after pictures. It's like a makeover from the inside out. It was very interesting. I've had this experience because I've had this procedure done myself. And I didn't find it, frankly, so interesting.

[08:56]

I don't want to look at these pictures. Mel was very interested in these pictures. And he explained them to Liz and to me. But it's quite astonishing. My own mind of impermanence sees a couple of things. It sees the fragility of these vessels. You know, and you can see the places where they were narrowed and where they had been expanded.

[10:00]

You know, this is very deeply to technology. It's part of technology that I love. And also that these vessels are simultaneously very tough and durable. And the heart is very tough and durable. And that also, I think it's, to me, that's a kind of embodiment of what we discover in practice, particularly in Sechin. We see how fragile, I see how fragile I am, I see how something Now the heart does this, the pulmonary arteries do this, there's no judgment involved, they just do what they have to do.

[11:18]

And they have this interesting picture because you have these vessels that surround the heart that provide the blood supply which keeps the and then pumps the blood back out to all the farthest reaches of our body to keep what we call ourselves healthy and vital. And it pumps it back around to these arteries. So there's a gift that's being circulated is supporting the sauna, which supports it.

[12:42]

I really like thinking about it that way. It's pretty moving to me. It's a poem that I pretty much remembered and always liked, which I can't say of all the things I've written. But I'd like to read it to you. It's called To My World. I wrote this in New York in 1969. Mine is like broken bottlenecks. The truth is, we are about as tough as windows. Fragile, but yearning.

[13:45]

Tough enough on both We know each other. We know each other's struggles. And I think at the time...

[15:06]

You could say that it's because of this small cluster of sinewy tissue that's carried around by somebody that we call Nell, or Soju. Very small amount of matter, a couple of ounces. And because of what has been offered to me and to many of us, My life doesn't feel like broken bottles and it feels like I have some looking at my own intention and vow to explore the nature of impermanence and present death, but that we're doing it together.

[16:56]

And we have this sort of unexpected opportunity to practice and understand that actually is tremendously satisfying and puts his own mind at ease. And I also feel, I wanted to acknowledge, I feel like what we've been doing is we've been pulling together do this harmoniously even in the midst of our concerns for him and our own personal struggles.

[18:24]

This is something that we do and it's incredibly rare. There are not many people us who have this opportunity to express and explore our vow together. It really is a rare opportunity and I feel incredibly lucky because without it, I might still be living in this place where I can see it plainly, which I...

[19:31]

from Al, from Hon'itsu, from Suzuki Roshi, and all the teachers before, you know, I don't know. I don't know many of their names. I don't remember many of their names. Actually, we chanted a lot of their names, Tatsuhara. But they're not different personalities to me, in the same way that my own My own blood ancestors, once I go back a few generations, are not vivid personalities to me, but they, as Tobin points out, they gave me, they increased me, my hair, my body, and there's a debt of gratitude to them. I think I read part of this in a talk a few months ago. But while Meili and I were at Tassajara doing the transmission with Mel, after service, after the regular service every morning, we went into our cabin and did a small service of gratitude.

[21:16]

And in that service, we recited of Dogen's written vows of practice. Evidently, I've been trying to find out about this. This particular piece was translated by, I think, Kagari Roshi in red. But there's a whole, it's like a genre that 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, that upon meeting it, we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha-Dharma.

[22:41]

share with us their compassion which fills the boundless universe with the virtue of their enlightenment and teachings. and without limit, we are able to attain Buddhahood and let go of the attainment. Therefore, the Chan Master Lungyat said, Those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this life, save the body, which is the fruit of many lives. Before Buddhas were enlightened, quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions, as this practice is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha.

[24:24]

Repenting in this way, one never fails to receive profound help from all Buddhas and ancestors. By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha, we melt away the root of transgressions by the power of our repentance. This is the pure and simple color of true practice, of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. I like that he acknowledges the problem of our own lack of here, and this is pretty unusual actually, I can't recall other places where he says something like this, but, by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before Buddha, we melt away the mood of transgression by the power of our repentance.

[25:50]

And that that is the essence of practice, that acknowledging So just acknowledging this difficulty, repenting, not for sin, where it is a load, I think, for us, but just repenting, I think, means acknowledgement. continue to practice failing, returning, failing, returning.

[27:11]

My faith is fragile and my effort is enduring. It's a bunch of fragile, tough people sitting around the room here. A lot of us, actually. Like, 40 people every day. Which is going up to some astronomical number. Which only Karen knows for sure, and which fulfills who come together with that intention to take this chance to expose ourselves to ourselves and to accept ourselves.

[28:15]

our future together, each of us individually and collectively at once. And so I just would like to renew my vow to do this days, 70 days, days when the electric sander goes off to make a door, all of that. And I don't have much more to say. Are there any comments or questions? Yeah, in Zen, in the Zen world, this is the week that leads up to the Buddha's enlightenment in the calendar we use.

[29:55]

In the calendar that the Theravada Buddhists use, they've got it all. It's Suzuki Roshi's death. Oh, that's right. Somebody died. So, traditionally, there's a seven or eight day stiching that culminates in, right, culminates in this way. And this is happening in lots of Zen temples. fully into the nature of impermanence, rather than just saying the mind has ceased into the nature of impermanence.

[31:41]

I'm curious why he uses that word fully. I don't know. I would like to know. pretty often distinguishing between Buddhist insight and a conventional way of seeing, or a conventional way of describing Buddhism. We had a translating seminar with Kaz.

[32:55]

Some of you did it. I don't think we got to very many sentences. seeing birth and death as not separate and as happening from moment to moment. And also as happening, you know, they're small moments and they're big moments. The big moment of our life.

[33:57]

One moment. The concept in a practice about self-remembrance that we know and the concept of self-remembering that we know something, we all know the same thing and we're all trying to do it here in the past for us to all are buddha nature and that we have in traditional buddhism you have these defilements, hindrances that keep you from understanding your true nature. So part of our practice is just uncovering that reality, uncovering the things that are And that those things themselves are also Buddha nature, the hindrances themselves.

[35:16]

But we have to see through them. I think that speaks to that problem. Not having been raised with a very sturdy Christian upbringing, and found the idea of transgression and redemption very difficult or oppressive at all. It actually seemed like a very liberating idea to me. And I think that's the first time that I've heard those words even closely used in this context, and I wondered if you could say a little bit more about it, about what it means within our tradition. But we do have transgressions. We're creating karmic results.

[36:23]

We're acting in a karmic world all the time. It creates certain effects and we are also trying to practice in a way that keeps us unusual. What's unusual, in a way, is to hear Dogen talking about it, because we're used to him talking about the absolute in places where there is no good or bad.

[37:35]

And so I think I need to think about this. That's why there's something about the language of this that strikes me as he says that before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we, or when he says ancestors of old were as we, we in the future shall be Buddha's ancestors. And then he talks about lack of faith and practice. Well, that's You know, because he's not setting himself aside, he's putting himself right in the center of it.

[38:38]

Does that make some sense? Not like in the Bodhisattva ritual that we did, there's rain and that thing. It seems to imply that. They were exactly as weak. Well, I think that's why we do it together.

[39:56]

At any given moment, if we surveyed the room, there would be people who are having a lot of pain, and a lot of doubt, and a lot of problems. And there'd be other people who are just cruising. This helped me with doubting it. I'm just going to say that Haakon talked about the three components of practice being faith, doubt, and energy.

[41:08]

So that if you have so much faith that no doubt comes up, you're done, there's no such thing. So that one needs to continue to put forth that effort and that energy and the doubt requires it. I think that's I think that's the three pillars of Zen that Kastelvush wrote about. Those same principles, faith, doubt, and belief. I could be wrong. I think it's practice in learning and teaching, not just three pillars. You're not correct. You're correct. One more. So regarding acknowledgment and Bodhisattva ceremony, acknowledging our ancient twists of karma, I think that's essential. And how do we learn to do that with each other? Because you're a Buddha, I'm a Buddha, we're all Buddhas.

[42:14]

How do we acknowledge to each other our karma, our mistakes? Well, one way, I think, One way I'd like to start, actually, I think about it is not to create that our karmas, our activities, are all wound up and very involved with each other. And Twisted has a certain linguistic charge, which is not... I don't want to completely undercut the fact that we do thoughtless and harmful things to each other. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it's neutral, and all these things are entwined with each other.

[43:28]

And so I think when there's hurt, if there's a way that we can sit down and share that hurt in a safe situation that simultaneously acknowledges the connection. get to the heart of that paint and maybe dissolve it or come to a place where it can be set aside so that we can work on the connection. So when you construe it, I think just as twisted,

[44:16]

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