I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagati's word. Good morning. We're going to continue talking about Dogen's fascicle Bodhisattva Shishobo today. in something of a cough medicine-induced haze yesterday. And there was something in the background that I wanted to tell you and I forgot, which It's interesting. I don't know quite what it means, but I forgot to say that I mentioned that Dogen had practiced for about 10 years in Kyoto, mostly at Kosho-ji. And some of you, I think, maybe have been there. Is there anybody? I'm not sure if there's anyone here who went on the Dogen tour of Japan. I think Doug did, and I'm not sure who else.

[01:02]

But anyway. He stayed there until 1243, and the summer practice period of 1243 was when he wrote this fascicle. And he wrote it sometime in July, and the following month, he very precipitously, he left. Kyoto after 10 years, left a temple where he had established a full Sodo, you know, formal practice place, and the practice had been very strong. He left and very quickly decamped for Echizen province, which was kind of the wild, is the Wild West. And that's where ultimately he created Eheji, but there was no Eheji there. There were hills and trees and a couple of small temples, but he left very, it seems very precipitously, and the scholars don't quite know why, except that they suspect there was some,

[02:12]

either organizational or actually real world threat to him and to his community from other, probably from other sects of Buddhism. At that point, Kyoto was a really central place for a number of the sects and probably conflict with the Tendai sect on Mount Hiei But we don't know the nature of that threat, but at any rate, it's pretty clear that if he packed up and left in this two-month period, that this must have been going on while he was writing this fascicle. And so one thing that occurs to me is that this was possibly his advice to himself, how he wanted to handle what had to be a very painful conflict.

[03:20]

And again, we don't know the ramifications of it, but that sort of, it fits, it feels right, and it is an encouraging, it's just an encouraging way to think of how he worked on this conflict. I mean, he was, I don't think that, Dogen was, probably had his rough edges in terms of getting along with people, but this is what he was working with. So that's a good segue to talk about the next two sections of this fascicle, Loving Speech and Beneficial Action. We could go on talking for the rest of the year about Dana or offering, but actually loving speech and beneficial action are offering.

[04:23]

All of these four are offering. And you could say that offering is a beneficial action. and identity action, and so on. And at the end of this fascicle, there's this, the line Dogen writes is, because these four embracing actions include the four embracing actions, there are 16 embracing actions. So they all really interpenetrate each other. So we'll start with loving speech. We think of speech as, sort of what I'm doing right now, what you do when you talk to someone. But I remember from a lecture long ago in the 80s, Reb Anderson talking about speech as just the expression of energy.

[05:30]

You know, when a flower turns in a tropism towards the sun, That's speech. And really, the speech, for example, now, when I'm speaking, I'm just creating vibrations. I'm moving muscles, getting resonance from my body, and it's going through this electrical apparatus. And even though I'm speaking really softly, it sounds quite audible. So speech is just energy. and it's energy directed towards another, another being, whether they're sentient or insentient. There's famous Zen story about whether stones and rubble and wall tiles speak,

[06:33]

And the conclusion is that they're always speaking the Dharma, that all things are speaking. And this is our practice. I may have used this before, but there are two books that were published posthumously under Kategiri Roshi's name. The first one is called Returning to Silence, which is what we do every time we sit down to Zazen. It's what we do every time we behold the world and its mysteries. And then the second book is called You Have to Say Something. These were not, I don't think those were random choices for titles, but from that silence, We have to speak.

[07:36]

And speaking can be ordinary speech, just very simple communication. From the place of silence, we can take action in changing the world. We can take action in changing ourselves. We can change our relationships. So what Dogen writes, and I thought I'd try to go through this line by line, he writes, loving speech means when meeting with living beings, first of all, to arouse compassionate mind towards them and to offer caring and loving words. So this is not a special kind of speech. But what he's talking about here, he says, arouse compassionate mind. He's talking about compassion, again, which points beyond any conscious or unconscious notion of advantage or self-centeredness or greed.

[08:49]

Compassion. implies this relationship, this embrace to feel with compassion. And it's a, he describes this as a, it's a universal principle. It's not simply a human principle. So loving speech means when leading with living beings, first of all, to arouse compassionate mind toward them and to offer caring and loving words In general, we should not use any violent or harmful words. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening, I think it was in January, I was listening to an interview on the radio on Terry Gross' program, Fresh Air, with a woman named Temple Grandin. Have you heard of her? Yeah, she has, She grew up as an autistic person, very high functioning, you know, very, really, really brilliant.

[09:59]

And she's had to really explore the nature of her own limitations in a remarkable way. And she works both with people who are handling livestock, And we could probably have an argument about whether this is compassionate action or not, but to put them at ease as they're going to their death. But she also works with professionals and with parents and children to help all parties understand how, in the context of the limitations that she experiences and that autistic people experience, how to help them, how to allow them to be free from getting caught in the misunderstandings of ordinary life and ordinary speech.

[11:01]

So Terry Gross asked her, is there ever a time when negative programming or harsh words are useful in relationship to changing behaviors that are not positive. And what Temple Grandin said was, in her experience, That kind of, I've lost the word, but negative... Reinforcement, thank you. This is like really a function of aging. Words are going. Negative reinforcement is never useful in any circumstance, in any fear-based circumstance.

[12:03]

So in any place where the person that you're dealing with is afraid, negative reinforcement will have a negative response. Now this may not be entirely true, but it seemed to me a very powerful principle. It really helped me think about how I want to be when I interact with people, especially when they're needs to be an instruction or a correction, I think. I may not always be right. So, I think this is in line with what Dogen says. In general, we should not use any violent or harmful words. That doesn't rule them out entirely. Sometimes hard words may be called for. Sometimes hard words can be speaking truth to power. Sometimes hard words can be kind speech. Sometimes hard words say when you're dealing with a child or you're dealing with somebody who really needs to be yanked back from in front of the speeding bus, a strong reaction, strong words are called for.

[13:19]

But in general, we should not use any harmful words. In society, Dogen says, there is a tradition of asking others if they are well. I remember when I went to Japan on a practice period with Paul Disko, when we got to Rinzō-en, he sat us down and he said, what I want you to do when we go to town, there's this little town at the foot of the hill where the temple is, he said, watch the old ladies. you know, and they meet on the street corner and they just, they, they bow to each other. They're kind of nodding and bowing and, and asking about the weather and asking if how each other feels. And then he says is this is not about the information that is contained in the words. This is about just connecting. Uh, So this is what, you know, asking others if they're well means actually creating a circumstance in that moment where we are all well.

[14:32]

We're well together. And for that moment, when we're bowing to each other, when these ladies are bowing to each other, there's harmony. When we bow to each other, there's this moment of harmony. I really, I love this practice that We do at Tassajara and I think at Zen Center in general, not so much here. But this is very typical, this Japanese practice, when you pass each other, you stop and you bow. And you really stop, you don't like kind of move through. You stop for a moment and bow. And it gives you a chance to harmonize yourself and watch your energy. You watch your impatience or you can watch your appreciation And this is just, in that moment, making sure that everything is well, and then proceeding. In the Buddha way, we have the words, take care of yourself.

[15:39]

And there's the disciples' filial duty to ask, how are you, to their teachers. We do this a lot. On the one hand, you can see it as a form, and perhaps if the spirit is not correct, it doesn't mean anything. But if the spirit is correct, it's an opportunity to connect. I think here where our practice both has a vertical and horizontal dimension, we ask each other, how are you? In the same spirit, because in this setting, in this practice, we're, all of us, teachers for each other.

[16:42]

To speak of holding the mind, this is a complicated quotation in Dogen, to speak holding the mind of compassionately caring for living beings as if they were our own babies is loving speech. That's his quote of the Metta Sutta. To take care of each being as if they were our own child. In the Tibetan, way of looking at the universe. Each of us has been mother, father, sister, brother of each other in countless lives. We've all been in that relationship to each other. And it's because of that deep unfathomable karmic connection that we're sitting in the room together right now, which is, you know, that's like a miracle.

[17:56]

Really, really rare. Dogen writes, we should praise those with virtue and we should pity, we should feel pity for those without virtue. Now here I feel like he's bringing back into the loop, and he does this a couple times, this notion from the beginning where he writes that not to crave means in worldly expression not to flatter. So we have to understand the distinction between praise, and flattery. Usually, in our culture, when we think of praising, there may be several aspects to it.

[19:00]

One is placing someone above you. One may be praising someone as a way, as a subtle way of getting something for yourself, of getting praise or appreciation back. So we see, we have this terrible economic paradigm that runs our modern lives. Everything is, everything has an exchange value. What he's talking about in this context is praise without expecting anything back. Praise, just seeing something that's happening and acknowledging it because you feel good, because you see this was someone's helpful spirit, and not doing anything

[20:08]

to gain position or advantage from this. And I think this is a really interesting point that we have to investigate in ourselves. Somebody asked me, I forget quite what the question was, but we were talking about motivation yesterday. And the question came up, well, what if it's mixed? And I think that in our life and mind that falls short of being of anuttara, samyak, sambodhi, complete enlightenment, our motivations are often mixed. They have really positive, selfless aspects, and they have subtle, self-clinging aspects.

[21:22]

So this should not prevent us from acting. If we wait until things are pure, we'll wait forever. This is, I think, the essence, the meaning to me of what Katagiri Roshi is saying, is expressing when he says, you have to say something. You have to say something without, on the one hand, without worrying about purity, without waiting for purity, and on the other hand, really investigating closely and constantly refining, constantly refining our life, refining our motivations. So here, for example, sometimes people don't want to, they're hesitant to have lay ordination because they look at these precepts and they say, well, I can't keep these, I'm not ready.

[22:30]

And in fact, they're impossible to keep. And one is never ready. The point is that we have a vow. We take them as vows, which means if we fall short, we renew them. If we praise someone, there is the really positive opening aspect of that, which people appreciate. And if I do that, I still should reflect on my motivation. I should think about that, but not let it silence me. From the moment we begin to take delight in loving speech, loving speech is nurtured little by little. When we practice loving speech, which is usually not known or seen, when we practice in this way, loving speech, which is usually not known or seen, will manifest.

[23:40]

Present bodily life exists. We should be willing to practice loving speech without fail and continue it through many ages and lives. whether for the sake of subduing a deadly foe or making peace among people, loving speech is fundamental. The Buddha, in various sutras, set some standards for speech, and that applies to loving speech. He presumed that our speech, he was talking about selfless speech, but nonetheless he suggested that when we speak to someone we should consider what we're saying. Is it true? Is it useful? And is it timely?

[24:45]

And sometimes there's some other elements in there, but he's this is sort of what it boils down to. Is it true? We hope that what we say is true. But we could say something true to someone and it can be deeply hurtful. It cannot be useful. Or we can say something true that might ultimately be useful and it's the wrong time. So the Buddha is suggesting we really use our discernment and our judgment to find, clarify our motivation and find the moment to speak. And I think this is, these are the standards for kindly speech. And these are standards that we use particularly, we use them in situations that are in which we can see that there are possibilities of conflict, where the conflict is already there, or we feel that the conflict is very close to the surface, or something you say may bring it about.

[26:05]

Again, we have to look at our motivations. Is it really are we really coming from a place of compassion, which means perceiving the other person as ourself. As best we can understand this, we can never absolutely understand this. But when we see the other person as ourself, then we have better tools for thinking, for considering, whether we would like to hear this that we sometimes feel quite compelled to share. But that compulsion, again, is the energy. The compulsion is that self-centered energy. So this is very difficult, particularly when subduing a deadly foe or making peace among people. It's very hard to do that without self-interest.

[27:14]

We rarely see that. We certainly rarely see that in the political realm, but we have to try to build it. The only way, this is my belief, the only way it's going to manifest in that realm is if we can actually manifest it in all of our other circumstances. If we can manifest it in our families, we can manifest it in our places of work, in our practice places. If we can do that, then it gives us confidence to see that this can be done in a wider realm. But it's hard enough just in the close realms of our lives. When a person facing us hears loving speech, that person's face becomes happy and the person's mind becomes joyful. When a person hears of someone else's loving speech, that person inscribes it in their heart and soul.

[28:18]

We should know that loving speech arises from a loving mind and that the seed of a loving mind is compassionate heart. We should study the way that loving speech has the power to transform the world. And I think this is, again and again, Dogen, quite surprisingly in this fascicle, goes back to a worldly and social dimension that's pretty unusual for him. And I can't help but think that when he says we should study the way that loving speech has the power to transform the world, that he's referring to the struggle that he's in. in the present situation, which called for him leaving. And I wish I knew more about that. I haven't. I've talked to a number of scholars and nobody seems to know. I talked with William Botterford, who would maybe know better than anybody else, but maybe some point we'll learn something about that.

[29:26]

When he says, loving speech is the power to transform the world, It's really painful that, because today, much of the public language we hear is so debased. Sometimes our leaders and politicians are, you can hear them trying to be careful with their words, but their care is about self-protection or national chauvinism. They're not about connection. They're about treading lightly and carefully through the minefield so they don't get blown up. You know, when is the last time we've heard a national leader apologize

[30:30]

for some kind of injustice or violence imposed on our own citizens or citizens of other parts of the world? When do you hear them apologizing for the kind of invective and untruth that they use to speak about their opponents? Dogen's talking about words that can move the world towards peace when there are words of honesty and repentance and generosity. And yet it's also true that loving speech is all around us. We hear it in the words of mothers, in the speech of mothers and children, fathers and children, poets and writers, people of every walk of life.

[31:33]

But sometimes these days we have to listen to it, listen carefully, within the din of so much unkind speech. And he closes by saying, it is not merely praising someone's capability. So we should study the way that loving speech has the power to transform the world. It is not merely praising someone's capability. So again, he's going back to this question of not flattering. So from there, he moves to beneficial action. And you might, it's possible beneficial action, it fits with loving speech in an interesting way because often the most beneficial thing that one can do is to listen. So listening is a really fundamental beneficial action. Just listening without acting, without necessarily trying to fix someone's situation.

[32:38]

This really goes hand in hand. So Dogen writes, beneficial action means to create skillful means to benefit living beings, whether noble or humble. So beneficial action is just the work of harmonizing ourselves and the whole world together. It's the action of bodhisattvas. It would be nice actually to have a small Quan Yin, a thousand armed hand Quan Yin for one of our altars. And each hand has an eye in the middle of it and each hand is also holding a tool for liberation. So he's got all the tools covered. he's prepared, she's prepared to perform beneficial action of whatever nature it's called for.

[33:39]

But it's also true that beneficial action means to create skillful means to benefit living beings. This is what we are engaged in here today, here this weekend. This is the nature of Sashin, and it's the nature of the forms that we have It's incredibly harmonious and incredibly rare. Sometimes, lately I feel like, maybe because of deep habits of self-centeredness or blind spots, I don't see it as clearly, but I'm really feeling it this weekend of just, this is something that, doing sashin like this, this is a very complicated thing.

[34:41]

It's also very simple. That's like zazen. It's very simple. Everybody knows what to do, but we're all co-creating this. We're creating this field of beneficial action. And everybody knows if you have a job, you know what you're supposed to do. And we each know this very well. This is really unusual in the world. And it means that often that anybody who's say, in charge of an area of responsibility, whether it be sashin leading or work leader or dish washing, et cetera, cooking, sometimes they have to do very little. All they just have to do is kind of delineate the tasks and then we all just do them. This is,

[35:44]

This is an ideal for society. This is kind of what's come out of the monastic model that's really positive. We can't control our circumstances so easily outside this room. or outside this space, but the more that we learn to do this, the more that we see, oh, there is a possibility for living in this way. Even when one's feeling bad, even when one might be upset with others, there's still, there's this deep ground of harmony in Seshin. And part of it is also the spirit of all the forms that we have. The spirit of these forms are beneficial action and offering or generosity. And the really important part of this is not are you doing a form with the utmost precision, but really what's your energy?

[37:03]

Are you doing it with with this strong, positive, generous energy. And even when we make mistakes, it's done with this generous energy. So this is the essence of beneficial action. And this is the spirit of these forms. I was reading in Suzuki Roshi, in Not Always So, He talks about the forms in a number of places. I like this paragraph. He says, this is why we follow forms. It's a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting however you please. This is not expressing yourself. When you have many possible ways of expressing yourself, you're not sure what to do, so you will behave superficially.

[38:06]

If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, you can express yourself fully. That is why we follow forms. You may think that you cannot express yourself within a particular form, but when we are all practicing together, Strong people will express themselves in a strong way and kind people will express themselves kindly. When we pass the sutra cards along the row during service, you each do it your own way. The differences among you are easy to see because the form is the same. And because we repeat the same thing over and over again, we can understand our friend's ways eventually. So even if your eyes are shut, you know, oh, that was so-and-so. That is the advantage of having rules and rituals. And that is really, I think, at the center of Dogen's way and at the center of Soto Zen,

[39:17]

You know, everything that we do is a form. Zazen is a form. Zazen is a ritual. It's also a natural expression of our awakening, but it's a ritual, and what that means is when we sit down, we're harmonizing the world. We're taking a certain form, and we're giving that out, and it has a, it creates a field of energy that reaches beyond where we can ever understand it. And all of the forms that we do function that same way. So, in the context of Soto Zen, that is beneficial action. That's what we try to extend out from the Zendo into the wider world that we inhabit. And in that world, we encounter communication and non-communication.

[40:22]

Nonetheless, we try to comport ourselves in a way that's helpful. For example, we care for the near and distant future of others and carry out skillful means to benefit them. We should take pity on a cornered tortoise and take care of a sick sparrow." These are stories from Chinese literature, and I think I won't go into them at the moment, but if you ask them about it, I can tell you about them. And it's interesting, these practices, taking care of a cornered tortoise or these stories, taking care of a sick sparrow, were done just out of the full spirit of beneficial action of offering. It's interesting, too, because in some Buddhist countries, there's a practice of releasing fish and birds.

[41:24]

You go to a temple and they're, it's a weird thing. You go to a temple and they're like, guys selling birds so that you can release them. It's a little funny, I think. But it's rooted in this notion of beneficial action. So ignorant persons may think that if we put priority on benefit of others, our own benefit will be excluded. That is not the case. But that's what we worry about, right? Beneficial action is the whole of the dharma. It extensively benefits self and others. Therefore, we should equally benefit friends and foes. We should benefit self and others alike. If we attain such a mind because beneficial action never regresses, we can perform beneficial action even for grass, trees, wind, and water.

[42:36]

This is a kind of, you could see it as a kind of statement in favor of environmental action, and that's probably included, but I think he was more talking about the mindful taking care of these things, mindful, not wasting of any resources. This is very deeply embedded in Japanese culture. When we were at Rinsowin, I was cooking and one time, Chitose, Suzuki Oka-san came in while we were cleaning up and she just started yelling at us. She was yelling, I think what she said was, mo tai nai, which basically meant don't waste. There were some grains of rice, and on the rice cooker there was a kind of film, you know how sometimes you get a film of kind of rice gluten on the outside?

[43:42]

We were throwing this out, and she was really angry. snatched it out of the trash and took it out to the fish pond and fed the fish with it. This is the spirit of beneficial action. I'll tell you, it was a very strong lesson. We never wasted anything like that again. But it also tuned me into a kind of lazy self-centeredness that doesn't want to take care of everything, that wants to cut those corners. And even though I'm really far from perfect in this respect, I would encourage you to pay attention, pay attention to the things around you, pay attention to the environment, pay attention to what we waste.

[44:45]

And that's the way when Dogen finishes this part saying, we should solely strive to help the ignorant beings, that includes, as the Sixth Patriarch said, it includes the ignorant beings of one's own mind. It includes oneself. So we work very locally and globally. I'm going to stop there, leave a few minutes for questions, and pick up tomorrow with my favorite of these identity actions. So questions or comments? Welcome. If somebody praises me, even if I feel it's totally sincere and that person's not trying to get something, and this can happen sometimes, I'm actually not always sure that it helps me.

[46:14]

you should look at your resistance to accepting it. You should look at what's in the way. And you should look at if you resist it, what barrier does that put up between you and the other person? I say this from very, I say this from my own experience that I used to be very uncomfortable with praise. And somebody had to finally tell me, just accept it. Because my discomfort, you know, instead of waving them off or whatever, said, no, no, it's nothing. It's like, the way I was doing it was making that, not allowing that person to feel heard in the sincerity of what they were offering. So, You have to work with your internal formations to figure out how to just accept that.

[47:47]

Figure out, is it helping you? Is it not helping you? And because it's just, regardless of what the other person's motivation is, it's energy that's coming your way and you just have to receive it. That's what I think. Sue? I am noticing a lot coming up about your comments about reciprocity. I think it's important. I think reciprocal, maybe it's just being able to give and receive in a relationship. There has to be a balance, a cycle, a circle of it. And if I, I guess if I'm giving something, And there are times when I feel I want to have a balance in that relationship.

[48:49]

I think it's something to look at. What is that about? I think that's actually legitimate. Well, I wouldn't say it's illegitimate. I would say from the standpoint of practice, it just creates a barrier for you. In our social relations, we do hope that they will be reciprocal. But in a real, from a spiritual perspective, you give without any sense of reciprocity. You just give. I understand that. I hear what you're saying. I'm thinking that maybe that discomfort is something about my motives about giving and whether it's an appropriate That may be. I mean, I think that's where we have to investigate ourselves. Obviously, all of us are working on this.

[49:52]

And I'm not saying that it's simple, but it's what Jesus was saying when he said, love your neighbors, love your enemies, excuse me, love your enemies. in the Gospel of Matthew and it goes on and he explains it and it's, this is very difficult practice. Mark. Sometimes there's a difficulty in a strange relationship between loving speech and spontaneous speech. Yeah. And at times being comfortable with someone saying things sometimes that were not thought about so delicately. Well, a couple things come to mind.

[50:54]

Maybe this should be the last question, but first of all, what you say spontaneously is a function of how well trained you are. And I don't mean trained and zannered. I mean, it's just like our spontaneity comes from our conditioning. You know, if you're conditioned in a wholesome way, you will spontaneously speak in a wholesome way. There's a lot of unwholesomeness in all of us, a lot of injury. I'd say, I don't know, unwholesome. There's a lot of injury and hurt. the more we're cultivating, the more our spontaneity will really flow and flower.

[51:58]

If you think about it as a musician, if you were spontaneous without knowing your instrument, you'd produce a lot of noise. But once you've really trained a lot and you really know your instrument and know your hands, then your spontaneity can be really fluid. The other thing I would say, and I want to be careful, I just wanted to flag this in relation to kind speech, is that sometimes, particularly in the Buddhist world, there's a, in American Buddhist world, there's an overemphasis on this kind of nice speak. which I think is a cultural value. Now this is really, this is something that is fairly much embedded in Soto tradition, but actually when you really practice, even when you practice in Japan, there's a lot of, there's gruff characters, there's rough characters, people speak directly, and there are people who are very refined, and even Suzuki Roshi had a somewhat famous temper.

[53:10]

But it burned through cleanly. So we had this, at BPF, we would have these, when we'd have board meetings, we had communication agreements. And we had a woman who grew up in Cuba, and she pointed out at one point, that everybody doesn't talk the same nice speak, that in different cultural settings, being loud or being argumentative or liking the give and take, this is also loving speech. It means actually accepting somebody as an equal so they're really willing to mix it up with them. So that's also an expression. You've got to be careful with it. I have to be careful with it, particularly, and other people, particularly the New Yorkers do.

[54:13]

Right. Okay, one more, Kate, and then we have to end. Yeah, that can be discriminating wisdom, you know, cutting, Manjushri's sword cutting through. Okay, I think we have to end. Thank you very much.

[54:39]

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