I didn't know it would all be so formal and so high class and everything. I wasn't expecting that. Actually, what I was expecting was to just come in and ruminate about a few Dogan texts, sort of willy-nilly, and see what happens, whatever comes out of that. That's what I will do anyway, even though it's very kind of a big deal, this class, you know. And I'm going to assume that everybody... I have a little introduction to Dogen speech that I've given many times, and I'm going to assume that that's unnecessary, that everybody here has read Dogen, studied Dogen, knows who Dogen is, and basically his biography and the general shape of his teachings. So if that's not the case and you don't know about that, then I'm sure there are numerous places where you could read about it.

[01:08]

So why should I repeat it? So I won't do that. First of all... Oh, I was supposed to be introduced. Were you going to introduce me? I'm Norman Fisher, as you all know. Otherwise, you sign up for the class, right? That's it. and just finished his last practice period at Tassajar, leading the practice period. He's a husband and father of two children, and he is going to be stepping down as co-advocate of San Francisco Zen Center in just another few days, I believe.

[02:13]

The 12th. and it's always a joy to have you here. Last time you were here was when you did the Avatamsaka Sutra class. Oh, that's a long time ago. That was a great class. I've got to gear up and do that one again. That was really something, yeah. So thank you for coming all this way. Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. It's nice to be back. And of course, so many old friends. It's great. Nice to see everybody. Would you like a lecture? Oh, that's okay. I'm fine. Today's the 3rd, right, and I just want to make sure that we're all in agreement as to when we're going to be meeting. Tonight's the 3rd, and next week's the 10th, and it turns out that I can't come next week as planned because I'm having an operation on the 8th, and on the 10th I'm likely to be.

[03:16]

It's not a serious operation, but It's likely that on the 10th, I won't be able to get out of bed, so I won't come on the 10th. Sorry about that. That was not... I have to have the operation at that time. I'm only hoping that on the 12th, when I have to show up to this ceremony, that I'll not be too bad off. So I regret that I won't be able to come on the 10th. The 17th, we'll meet again. And the 24th is in doubt. In other words, we'll talk on the 17th. I was not planning to have class on the 24th. I think that was announced, if I'm not mistaken, that was announced. But since I'm not going to be able to come on the 10th, I'm thinking that if I can come on the 24th, I would like to because I'm missing the other class, but we'll talk about that on the 17th. It depends on other factors.

[04:17]

And then on March the 2nd and March the 9th, we'll have class. So it may be four classes or five classes, and I regret that it's not more, but that seems to be all I can do this time. plan if we can, if it works out is to, I wanted to start tonight with studying Dogen's, the journal that Dogen wrote in China when he was studying with Ruijing, his teacher. It's a fairly long text but I wanted to study it for a couple of reasons. First of all because It's the one that I translated with Kaas in the book, so I'm most familiar with it and want to go back to it. But also it's very foundational for understanding so many of the themes that were important throughout Dogen's life and therefore are important to us now because we're following Dogen's school, were set during that period of his study with Rujing when he was very young.

[05:26]

And I think there's a lot of really interesting aspects to that text, so I wanted to start with that. And I'm thinking that the idea is to spend two weeks on it. In a way, we could easily spend the whole four meetings on it, and maybe we'll end up doing that. But I'm kind of like a little greedy, and I would like to do more than just that one text. So I was thinking of doing also undivided activity and Dream Within a Dream. All those texts are in this Enlightenment Unfolds book. So I would like to think that we could do all that, but I also don't want to be so focused on my plan that we rush or have an unsatisfactory time of it. So if it turns out that we only do the journal, which could easily be the case, then we'll do that. depends on how the ruminations go and how much discussion there is.

[06:27]

So that's the plan. Those are the times we'll meet and those are the texts that I'm planning to do. Theoretically two weeks on the Dogon's Journal and then one week on Undivided Activity and one week on Dream Within a Dream, both from Shogo Genzo. So, It's a class about an hour and a half long, and you can take a break for a few minutes. Oh, OK. It's about a quarter after 8 or so. OK, just let me know. Or you might hear the cassette tape. Stop and flip it over. OK. Thanks. As far as I know, and I am a little bit, I'm not, completely on top of things in terms of what comes out of what's published, but as far as I know there's only one other published translation in book form of this text, which is called in Japanese Hokkyoki, and that's this book by James Kodera, K-O-D-E-R-A, Dogen's Formative Years in China, which has been out for many years now.

[07:45]

With all due modesty, I think we improved quite a bit on Kodera's translation, mainly because Kodera was not a practitioner, and he was a scholar very concerned with the language, but oftentimes didn't know Dogen's teachings, and so didn't really, in my opinion, appreciate a lot of the times what Dogen was actually talking about. So there are places where I always found Kodera's It's amazing how much difference the translation makes, you know, because I remember reading and studying very closely this text years ago and finding it in many places pretty incomprehensible. But it turns out that it isn't quite as incomprehensible as it seemed, that when you translate it a little better it makes a lot more sense than it does in this version. There's another version I know that was translated by Dai Zen Victoria, who has lately been very famous for his book on Zen at War, which many people are aware of, and that was published some years ago in the Journal of the Minnesota Zen Center, the Udumbara, and I just saw it, I'm moving my, I've been doing non-stop moving for about

[09:10]

So everything, I don't know where anything is, you know, and I've been moving my office and my study and it just floated past that, you know, just floated past and now I have no idea where it is. And it's obscure, you know, nobody can find it. You'd have to have, you know, I don't know how many copies of this Udumbara were printed in 1980 or whenever it was. So maybe I'll find it, you know, before we finish with this text, but for now I'm just using these two translations. Anyway, which is surprising that there are more translations since it is such an important text and so many of the fundamental points are brought up in it. So let's just read it and I'll just read and then when I think of things that seem, comments that seem important, I'll just say them. And if there are questions, bring them up if there's something, you know, clarification or

[10:16]

comment or whatever, please feel free to bring it up. The original text I noticed when I compared is sort of written in the third person, Dogen said and so forth, but Dogen's writing his own, he's writing about himself in the third person. So we decided to make it more personal and use the word I. I said this and I said that. So that's how we did it. Journal of my study in China, which is on page, first one in the book, on page three. I think that's right, yeah. My first text in the book. I wrote to Master Rujing shortly before I met him. and this is what Dogen wrote. When I was young I aroused the aspiration for enlightenment and visited various monasteries in my country.

[11:19]

The bodhicitta, the aspiration, which is technically the beginning of the path, is when you have this sort of impulse that arises in you that doesn't come from anywhere that you know about. that makes you feel that you want to dedicate yourself to practicing the way for the benefit of others, that suddenly dawns on you and then off you go on your career as a Bodhisattva. So he says that happened to him and then I visited various monasteries in my country and I had some understanding of the principle of cause and effect. However, I was not able to clarify the real source of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Dogen's biography, at a very early age he was ordained. He lost his parents. He was born from a very high-bred family at a time of tremendous court intrigue in Japanese history. So, with all of that, at a very early age he recognized the futility of the worldly life and so ordained in the Tendai school, which was the dominant school of Buddhism at the time.

[12:33]

and studied deeply. He had high connections in the Tendai church and so he had the best teachers and the best possible education. So he says, you know, I did have some understanding of Buddhism, but I really didn't, I didn't really understand, you know, the source of the Triple Jewel. I was only seeing the outer forms, Later I entered the chamber of Isai Zen Master Senko and for the first time heard the teaching of a Linji school. So Zen was pretty new in Japan. It was actually at the time not a school in its own right, it was a kind of one of many approaches to Buddhist meditation that was taught in the Tendai school and this monk Esai went to China and had learned this Zen style of meditation in the Linji school and so Dogen heard about it and went to study with him and Esai died soon after that.

[13:51]

It's in dispute whether Dogen actually ever really studied with him or Yosai died soon after, but Dogen then took up study with Myozen, who's mentioned here, and he and Myozen went to China together. So he says, now I have a company, and he actually completed training under Myozen. He was given a certification to be a Zen master in the Linji school, the Rinzai school. Not many people know that the head of the founder of the Soto school in Japan was a Rinzai Zen Master at first, and then later on, and this diary talks about his study with a Soto Master, and then he also received sanction to teach in the Soto line, so actually if you study the document of succession in our lineage, you see that it has both Rinzai and Soto streams. Not many people know that, but it's true.

[14:51]

So now I'm in China, he says, after a voyage of many miles during which I entrusted my phantom body to the billowing waves. I have finally arrived and here I am, you know, coming to your place. This is a fortunate result of my wholesome roots from the past. This is a very traditional way of understanding that one would never have the good fortune to show up in a Dharma hall to study the Buddha Dharma with Dharma teachers, unless one had had in the past performed many beautiful actions, positive, beneficial actions, benefiting others and doing good things and so forth, so that you could be reborn into a situation in which you would encounter the Dharma. So that's true of all of us, presumably. We must have been good boys and girls in the past, serving many Buddhas and doing acts of altruism and kindness and so forth and so on, in order to be lucky enough to have the leisure and the opportunity to study Dharma, which is a rare event, rare thing.

[16:10]

So he says this about his coming to China, great compassionate teacher, even though I am only a humble person from a remote country, I am asking permission to be a room entering student, and so forth, he says. And then Ruijing says, that's fine, you can come. So apparently China of two intelligent monks from Japan was probably an event of some note and Dogen was clearly a very smart fellow and very versed in Buddhadharma so it's not unlikely that Rujing when he got this letter said, oh I've heard about this guy and I would be happy to And so begins Dogen's study with Ruji and he had had a powerful desire to study Dharma, Dogen did.

[17:27]

was unsatisfied in all the different places that he had gone. So, to come to China was really a pretty big thing. And in China he was also suspicious and not satisfied with the different places that he had been. And he actually had gone to the monastery, Mount Tiantong, where Rujing was teaching. And another person was Abbot. who he wasn't entirely satisfied with, but after checking out numerous possibilities he decided, well this is the best I can do, I'll go back there. It had been the place where Yosai and Myosin had studied before, so he went back there and by the time he got back again, the original Abbot, who he thought was all right, died and Rujing became appointed Abbot. His meeting with Ruijin was the event of his life. As soon as he met Ruijin, he felt, this is the person that I have been looking for.

[18:38]

It's possible now that I can really resolve my spiritual perplexities now. So this meeting of rujing and acceptance as a so-called room entering student, meaning you can be intimate, you can come in, because big monastery, you'd never maybe see the abbot. So it was a very special thing to have the permission to become a close personal student. So it was a very big moment for Dogen. He was only 25 years old, and it was a huge thing, something that he had been pointing toward. and passionately looking for, ever since he was a teenager, so it was a big moment for him. Now he gets to ask the questions that had been on his mind for many, many years. Zen is very new to him and he's hearing in China all these startling claims and teachings

[19:40]

from the Zen people. His training previous to this had been in as I said Tendai Buddhism which was a Buddhism that was quite affirmative on all the various kinds of Buddhist doctrines and the Zen people were seemingly overthrowing all these doctrines and having another perspective so Dogen was a little bit confused and he asks about this. So his first question is about on this point. Nowadays in many places they talk about transmission outside the teaching and they call this the essence of Bodhidharma is coming from India. How do you understand it? This is one of the cardinal points of the Zen teaching is that it's an understanding you don't go by the book, in Zen practice as you all know, it's not a matter of learning a whole bunch of teachings, quoting the Bible and so forth, it's not about that, it's about transformative inner experience.

[20:48]

But here Dogen has been studying all his life in a school in which the teachings and doctrines were very much and meditations that were geared toward assimilating and contemplating teachings and doctrines. So now he hears about this teaching outside, this transmission outside the teachings, which he, I think, does believe in. because he heard this from Yosai and Myosin. He does believe in this and does feel its power in his life. He himself had had these transformative experiences under Myosin and Yosai, but it wasn't clear to him how this all worked, how these two things worked out. I think this was his problem, is that he deeply studied and understood Dharma teaching, sutras and doctrines and philosophies and so on, and he felt that they were really important and transformative. And then here on the other hand, he had studied this teaching that said, just sit and turn the mind around, never mind about all that. So how did this all fit together? I don't really understand.

[21:51]

And I've been looking for someone who I could trust enough to ask this question and really get an answer that I could trust. So what do you think? So, Rujing's response is, the great road of Buddha ancestors is not concerned with inside or outside. In other words, outside the teaching. The Zen people were making a big deal out of the fact that this was outside the teaching. And he said, there's no big deal about inside or outside. It's irrelevant whether it's inside the teaching or outside the teaching. The reason they call it transmission outside the teaching is this. Although Kasyapa Matanga and others had transmitted the teaching to China previously, in coming here from India, Bodhidharma brought the teaching to life and showed the craft of the way. This is why they call it transmission outside the teaching. But there aren't two Buddhadharmas. Before Bodhidharma arrived in China, there were practices, but no master to enliven them, to bring them to life.

[22:59]

After Bodhidharma came to China it was as if an aimless people acquired a strong king who brought the land, people and property of the kingdom into order. So this is an interesting point and I don't know if we've succeeded in making it clear. It's even twice as hard to understand the other translation but that Rujing is saying, it's not that Zen is another thing outside the teachings, like there's the teachings of Buddhism and that's fine and good, but then over here there's Zen. It's not like that Zen is something else besides the teachings. It's as if the teachings are all there and it's all in place, but it's laying there like just dead. It's just laying there. It's not coming to life. It's the Zen turning that makes the teachings come to life. So the teachings are very relevant.

[24:01]

It's not that Zen is beyond the teachings, the teachings don't matter. The teachings are relevant and very important. It's not that Zen is outside the teachings, but it's the Zen transformative experience which, he says, has to do with the relationship to the teacher. and the ineffable face-to-face transference that happens between teacher and disciple through the agency of the meditation practice, that enlivens the teachings and makes them come to life. And it gives this example which is hard for us to appreciate because I've been thinking about this for a number of years now, this whole idea of all over the world, you know, they had this institution of royalty everywhere in the world. We don't appreciate it now, it doesn't mean much in the world now, but there was the idea that sovereignty came directly from, in all the countries of the world, you know, came directly somehow from the gods or the spirits into a person who was a very special person by birth.

[25:14]

And then this person turned around and conveyed sovereignty onto the populace, so that the country could come alive. Without the king, you had a bunch of people who were living, but they weren't united, they didn't have an identity, they didn't have a sense of liveliness to what they were doing. So this was something that people would have, an analogy that would have been very easily understood. Sometimes I use the analogy, which often is used also in Dogon and other places, of a seal. Like the emperor writes a letter, official letter, saying such and so should happen, but then he puts a seal on it. Without the seal, the official seal of the emperor, the letter is not empowered. Even though it says exactly the same thing, without that seal on it, it can't be enacted as law or a directive. But once the seal is on it, it becomes official. So Bodhidharma, in effect, is like that seal that wakes up and enlivens.

[26:15]

So yes, we had Buddhism in China, Rujing is saying, for many centuries before Bodhidharma came. And it's not that the Buddhism was wrong. or that those teachings were irrelevant. It's just that until Bodhidharma came and brought this ineffable mind-to-mind transmission, this personal transformative turning of the mind that happens in relationship, not that someone else does it for you, you do it yourself, but it's somehow really enlivened by virtue of this face-to-face relationship. Once Bodhidharma did that, then Buddhism in China woke up. So it's not that we're a teaching outside the scriptures or outside Buddhism, but that this particular teaching of Zen turns the light on within Buddhism. And this is something, this first point is repeated actually in various ways throughout the text as Dogen asks over and over again about this kind of thing.

[27:18]

Oh sure, yeah. He wrote a fasco called face-to-face transmission. Yeah, that's right. Very important fasco. What is the Japanese word? Oh, I'm afraid I don't know. Yeah. Well, As I often say, when it comes to, when we look at a word and we're going to lean heavily on that word, you can't really do that in this case because who knows what word Dogen used and whether he meant what we mean by craft. So given that, we could say something, but you know what I'm saying, I don't know that Dogen actually in his original text had that concept. let's see how does it say yeah no I understand but you're just interested in the word we did use the word right so what did we mean by it yeah right let's see now yeah in coming here from India Bodhidharma brought the teaching to life and showed the craft of the way

[28:47]

intellectual and literary, right? But the craft of the way is the doing of the living that brings the teachings to life. The craft of the way is, you know, like as Rujing will say later on in the text, the craft of the way is the forms of the practice that are the surround for the meditation practice, that are not This is how you hit the bell. This is how you do slow walking meditation. He describes that in here. This is how you bow. This is how you offer incense and so forth. These things and of course all those are the ambience for sitting practice. That's the craft of the way, all of that. That's I think why we use that. Well I think it is, I think it's not only Zazen but all that surrounds Zazen.

[29:57]

I think it is a reference to Zazen but everything that surrounds it as well. Well, here, I mean, I don't know that that's really being raised. Right here, it's just that Bodhidharma is being like, Bodhidharma's coming to China is like being compared to a king coming. So, I don't think it doesn't go further than that in this passage. I'm not sure what you're bringing up. Well, it's a very good analogy. It just made me want to go the next step It's similar, but then it's different in that a king is always superior to the student, whereas a teacher is not necessarily bestowing something upon the student.

[31:04]

Yes, yes. But he's bringing something out from the student. Right, right. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah, throughout in Buddhism, long before Dogen made this analogy, there was always the comparison of the Buddhas to kings in terms of their powers and so forth, but of course there's a huge difference, as you're pointing out, between the worldly power and spiritual power. Huge difference, it's like almost logical opposites. It's a different kind of thing. And then in some of the esoteric fascals where Dogen talks about the process of the intimate relationship between teacher and student, he says just what you said, that the need for flexibility so that teacher and student are capable of exchanging positions

[32:12]

this is the intimacy of that relationship. But here, so far, in this text, it's not brought up in that way. Somebody over here was saying. Yeah, the craft of the way, I was just hoping, I guess, that also meant how to do Buddhist practice in daily life outside of formal practice situations. Would craft imply that also? Well, let's say so. Yeah, why not? Would kingship be the same thing as noble-minded? Noble-minded? What do you mean by noble-minded? Well, I thought one of the achievements, one of the terms I remember, I'm not sure where, was that one achieves a noble mind and nobility or noble mind. Yeah. Well, it may be some echo of that, but I think here he's really, what he's after here is this idea of this special authority and the special power of the Zen school and the Zen turning.

[33:21]

So, it's similar to that I suppose, but I think he's emphasizing that particular angle of it. Okay, let's go on a little bit and see what we find next. Then I asked Rujing, nowadays elders of different monasteries say that only direct experience without discrimination, meaning like this kind of satori experience, hearing the unhearable and seeing the unseeable is the way of Buddha ancestors. So they hold up a fist or a whisk, This kind of teaching doesn't do anything to awaken students. This was current in China and Dogen was witnessing this. In other words, the idea that Zen is inherently illogical and that you have to transcend.

[34:24]

This is the kind of stuff that D.T. Suzuki wrote about in the early days when the first Westerners were reading about Zen. D.T. Suzuki was saying that Zen is irrational and you have to go beyond the rational mind and have to have some kind of a special experience of beyond reason in order to understand Buddhism. And so Dogen is saying, and so they're doing all this and they're shouting and beating people up and I just don't get that. To me this seems ridiculous. Then he says, furthermore, these teachers don't allow students to inquire about the essentials of Buddhist guidance and they discourage practices that aim to bear fruit in a future birth. Are these teachers really teaching the way of Buddha ancestors? So this is similar to the, you know, he's following up on the first question about transmission outside the scriptures. So here are these people that are saying, forget about the sutras, throw them away, you don't need to know anything about Buddhism, don't study, and to this day there are places in, you know, even in Japan where you're not allowed to have a book in the monastery for fear that you should read some sutra book or some Buddhist teaching, you know, it would be like terrible.

[35:35]

You're not supposed to read anything. study anything at all. So that's one point, they discourage people from studying Buddhism, but then not only that, but of course Buddhism is full of helpful little things you can do to improve your life, both in this life in the future time of this life and also in future lives. Buddhism is full of that stuff. Do this and this will help you. But these teachers don't allow anybody to do anything like that. All they're trying to do is get them to go to have this kind of experience that somehow startled them with shouting at them or something like that. Is that Buddhism? Really? He's saying. So all of these passages here are very difficult to translate because it's not real clear.

[36:39]

This text was found after Dogon's death by Ejo, his disciple, and it was sketchy. So already, even apart from the linguistic difficulties that you would have if it were a well-written, thought-through text, there's on top of that the difficulty that was figure out what it's saying, but anyway, here's Rujing's answer to that question. To deny that there are future births is nihilism. Buddha ancestors do not hold to the nihilistic views of those who are outside the way, non-Buddhists, you know, people who don't believe in Buddhism, don't study it. If there is no rebirth, He presents this as the most logical thing in the world. Well in a way, I mean of course it doesn't seem logical at all, but in a way it's logical because what he's saying is if you're alive now then you must have been alive in the past and if you're alive in the present and were alive in the past

[37:57]

then you're going to be alive in the future. There's going to be another moment. Life is always being reborn, right? So, he's saying that life, if there's life, it already implies an ongoing continuity of time. So, we don't have to argue about this. He says, you know, if you're alive, there is future birth. We know this present birth exists. How could it be that the next birth doesn't also exist? We have been followers of the Buddha for a long time. How can we hold views that are outside the way of the Buddha? To teach students the power of the present moment as the only moment, as these guys were teaching shouting and everything like that, that's a skillful teaching of the Buddha ancestors but this doesn't mean that there is no future result from practice. Go ahead. But what's he saying?

[38:58]

Is he saying that there is reincarnation in some sort of Hindu view of it, that I will continue in another birth? No, no, he's not saying that. What he's trying to say, I think, the important point that he's making is that despite that he's just validated and expressed the fundamental importance of the Zen turning, whatever we want to call it, whatever it is that the Zen school offers to Buddhism. He has just said it's not other than Buddhism or different from Buddhism, it enlivens Buddhism, so it's very essential, it's the most important thing. But now he's saying that, however, it doesn't all the teachings of Buddhism that tell you, for example, when you know that developed like a typical thing, this is the kind of thing he's talking about, there's afflictive emotions arising, it would be good for your future

[40:07]

whether you want to say in this life or in another life, that doesn't really matter. But it'd be good for your future to work on that afflictive emotion of the arising of anger by practicing patience and other useful practices so that you can reduce the power of this afflictive emotion in you and you can improve your peaceful mind and stop yelling at people and getting upset and all that. He's saying that that's a good idea. You should practice like that. And that those practices that are taught in Buddhism are not obviated by this special something that the Zen school has. It's the opposite. Those teachings are made more fundamentally valuable and true and real by this enlivening process. and Dogen is saying that these other guys that I saw when I got off the boat in China and they were shouting and shaking their whisk and everything like they were saying forget about all of that and just break through and this doesn't sound right to me and Rujing said yeah well you're right that's right we need to do those practices and the Zen turning

[41:13]

doesn't obviate that. That's the main point. I think the issue about future lives and so forth is really not so important. The idea is that there are results from practice and we should practice in that way for those results. So it's time to take a break and we're definitely going to get through this text in two weeks at this rate. David was just, during the break, we were discussing this passage and David was saying, do you think that he, Rujing here, is denigrating the shouts and the beatings and so forth, or is he just saying that they're insufficient in and of themselves? And my impression, as I said to David, is that I think he is denigrating those techniques although Guruji was a very tough teacher, he did hit the students and so forth, but not in the context of dharma dialogue, more like hitting them to wake them up, you know, because they sat most of the night, every night in the monastery, and so a lot of times they'd fall asleep, so he would go around and hit them to wake them up and spur them on to making strong effort in zazen, so it's clear that

[42:38]

I think he did denigrate these kinds of techniques, but he didn't denigrate very hard discipline. He also seemed to feel that there was some kind of breakthrough or turning that happens in Zen study, but he just doubted that it was something that was outside of Buddhism, that it was something that sort of came about through a kind of assault on rationality or assault on any kind of appreciation of the teachings and the virtues of practicing beneficial action for future benefit. And I think a lot of times, despite this text, which was, you know, Shobo Genzo was read in Soto Shu, but this text is not necessarily studied so much. But there was, it became a doctrine of the Soto Church at some point, at least in some quarters, that one should never, and Suzuki Roshi always talked about no gaining idea.

[43:48]

So it was almost like a doctrine that you shouldn't try to do something in your practice to improve the situation of your life. That any kind of effort like that is contrary to the spirit of the way in Sotoshu. And I've heard that myself, you know, in Zen center circles over the years. But I personally don't believe that. And I don't think Rujing, this is pretty clear to me here, that Rujing is saying the same thing. That in fact, Buddhism is a very helpful way to live and practice. The truth of the matter is that there are many practices and ways of living and being recommended in Buddhist teachings that do make a difference in your life and there's nothing wrong with doing those practices for that reason.

[44:50]

The thing is that if you focus so strongly on results that your diligence and your faith falls off when you don't get the results you think you want because you're so focused on the results, then it becomes counterproductive. Patience and letting go of results paradoxically helps get good results. Furthermore, there is no contradiction between non-dual recognition that all the results one could ever hope to get are present now. There's no contradiction between that and simultaneously making an effort to improve the situation and get results. It would be very dualistic to set up a non-dualistic teaching as something that's exclusive of other things, right? So, anyway, why did I bring all that up? Big problem, yeah. So he says exactly to that point, if you believe, this is Rujing going on, if you believe there is no future result of practice then you won't study with teachers and Buddhas won't emerge in the world.

[46:09]

Buddhas are caused by Actually, this is true. Buddhas are caused by the karma of practitioners, causing Buddhas to appear in the world. So if you didn't want to practice because of needing to practice for your life, to find peace in your life, then there wouldn't be Buddhas in the world. That would be a terrible thing. and just believe it, he says. If we did not have trust in future results and do not practice the way of enlightenment we would be like the people from the world of Uttarakuru which is a place, every world system has four continents and one of them is this continent where you can practice but in the continent of Uttarakuru you can't practice because conditions are too bad So we need to have this faith and results in order to have a place where we can practice. Then Dogen asks further, teachers in the past and present talk about inherent knowledge, you know, Buddha nature.

[47:25]

They liken it to a fish drinking water and immediately knowing whether it's warm or cold. Awakening is this kind of knowledge, they say, and this is itself enlightenment. I don't understand this. If inherent knowledge is correct awakening, then all sentient beings will automatically become completely enlightened Tathagatas, because all sentient beings already do have this kind of knowledge. Some people say this is how it is, that all sentient beings really are beginningless, original, Tathagatas. Others say that sentient beings are not necessarily Tathagatas. They say that only those sentient beings who become aware of their inherent wisdom are Tathagatas. And those who are not aware of it are not Tathagatas, that is. Are any of these theories correct Buddhadharma or not? This is, as those of you who are familiar with Dogen's story, this is the sort of issue that drove him to seek further teachings and teachers, because he really couldn't understand why, if all sentient beings are originally Buddhists and are fundamentally Buddhists, as it says in the sutras, which he passionately believed, he was a very strong

[48:40]

believer in the Buddhist doctrine. And so it says in the sutra that all beings really are Buddhas. That is their fundamental nature. If that's the case, then why is it necessary to go through all this stuff of sitting all the long hours, hurting our legs, studying texts, tolerating the excesses of Buddhist teachers, and so forth and so on? Why would we have to go through all that if we already are Buddhas? And yet he knew that somehow we did, you know, have to go through that. And so how is that? So this is exactly the question that he's asking here. Some people say everybody's already a Buddha, so why bother? And then other people say, no, no, no. Yes, people have that nature of Buddhas, but only when they become aware of their Buddha nature through direct experience will they be really Buddhas. So what do you think? Rujing said, those who say that sentient beings are already Buddhas are really professing a belief in spontaneous enlightenment.

[49:45]

Enlightenment without practice. This view is wrong. Forget it. It's not right. To equate I with Buddha is to mistake unattainment for attainment and unenlightenment for enlightenment. So, the way I understand that is like this. It's true that all sentient beings are Buddhas because all sentient beings are the manifestations of consciousness. We're conscious beings. Consciousness itself is Buddha. So we are all Buddhas. And we don't even have to be aware of it, necessarily. to manifest our Buddha nature. However, when we can't see past I and me, and we're not really giving ourselves or being given by consciousness in its vaster sense, because we're so stuck on I and me, then we have to get over that.

[51:01]

It's really necessary for us to get over that. That's a job that we really do have to do. We can't avoid that job. So yes, we are really Buddhas and we should be treated with that kind of respect and love, but from our own subjectivity we need to realize that as long as we think of our life as me, as long as we think the scope of our lives is ego and self and all of that, all of its appurtenances. We think that that's our life. Then we really are wrong-headed and this is not good. The results of this kind of thinking and the actions that flow from it are not going to be good. You have to get over that and you have to practice in order to do that. You really have to do Buddhism in order to see through that and have a life that's bigger than I

[52:03]

be the life you're living, whether or not you're aware of it. He's not saying that you have to be, so yeah, it's not that you have to have some experience of, ah, look, you know, it actually doesn't matter if you have that experience, I believe he's saying, because he doesn't, Dogon specifically mentions the idea of being aware of this, and he doesn't validate that. So I believe that the implication is, it's not necessary for you to be aware of it. In fact, if you think about it even more, you realize you can't be aware of it. Because as soon as you're aware of it, it's just ego, right? Oh, look, I'm enlightened. Fantastic. I knew I was Buddha. Now I know it for sure. Doesn't sound right, does it? No, because then you're making that into ego. So in a way, you don't know it, but you do enter the stream of it. You do not continue to be fooled and limited by ego.

[53:06]

There's ego, but you know, well, that's not where I'm living. That's not the end all and be all of my living, is the ego. And how do you live with that feeling? Well, through doing the practice. So you do have to do the practice and become enlightened, even though already that's your nature from the beginning. So that's how I understand that passage, yeah. Well, I think that technically anything that you could be aware of as an object is limited.

[54:22]

This is the analysis of consciousness that that which we can be aware of is limited. and our Buddha nature is by definition limitless. So as soon as we became aware of it as an object, but you could be aware of it. Well, this is an interesting point. I've been thinking about this a lot and I'm trying to find a way to express it or talk about it. Yes, I think that Here's what I would say, that maybe religious experience is different from ordinary experience. It's not objective experience, it's a feeling of knowing. this is my latest idea of how to say this, a feeling of knowing, a feeling of knowing who one really is.

[55:31]

But if you would know it the same way you know your social security number and your address, which is an objective fact, I don't think you can know as an objective fact, oh, I have Buddha nature. You can say that, and you can say, I believe in the doctrine that it says in the Sutra about having Buddha nature, but the feeling of knowing. So there is an experience there. There's something to this. It's not just nothing to it. There's something to it that happens. There's a transformation that's very real that occurs. But the transformation doesn't occur on the level of objective experience. And most of our subjective experience, according to Buddhism, is objective experience, in the sense that we have a thought or a feeling or an emotion which we circumscribe, you know, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling good, I'm feeling bad. Those are really the mind cognizing objects, which are emotions. This feeling of knowing a Buddha nature is not that kind of thing. So that's why religious experience or mystical experience is always expressed in very paradoxical and difficult language because it isn't the same as, and then I felt such and so and I had a tingling sensation and then I saw stars and then all of a sudden the sky went red and I knew I was Buddha.

[56:49]

It's not like that. It's an interesting point, it really is, because it's a kind of experience, let's face it, we're in this because we're doing this practice because it actually does change our lives, right? There's a feeling of knowing that our lives are changing and that we are entering a bigger space of fearlessness through the practice. But if we were to reduce that to some kind of experience or insight or something like that and think that that was it, it would always be, I think in the end, egotistical, because we would solidify that into a possession. It's true, my car is modest, but boy, I got great Dharma power. So what's the difference? Get a better car, forget the Dharma power.

[57:52]

But thank you, that's a really good point, important point. Yeah, the I and the all beings are the same being. It seems as a practical matter that we can find stories if not meet actual people. who can verify such experiences. In other words, we can talk about whether it's a subject of experience in an object-to style, or something like that, and it's mysterious, or it's mystical, or something like that.

[59:10]

But putting all that aside, One can encounter people, or at least we can make the proposition we ought to be able to encounter people, including reading about them, perhaps, even if we don't meet them face-to-face, who have had such experiences, whatever qualifiers we want to put on them. Or, we can't. There aren't any such people, and so such experiences are, you know, just a fairy story. So in a certain sense, I don't know whether we have to completely second guess what Yujing meant here, that there's actually, I don't know, somebody like Robert Thurman would say there are hundreds of Buddhas walking around. You can bump into them. Some of them are Zen teachers, some of them aren't. And they can say, yeah, there actually is an experience of this, that it's not quite like having an ego experience, you know, talking about my car.

[60:20]

It's actually quite different, but actually does have something to do with me, this guy you're talking to. And in that sense, it's not particularly mysterious at all. It's just a conversation with somebody, or reading a book, or a poem, or something like that, that is evidence, really. These are the tracks of such people who've had these experiences. We don't have to doubt that, I think is what I'm saying, we don't actually have to doubt that there are such people, or therefore such experiences. The fact that they're around. Yeah, well, I don't know. I was interpreting, you know, taking off from what Rujing was saying here, but in what you said, I just, I feel nervous about the use of the term experience, because it tends, I think for me, in my lingo, you know, in the way I look at it, using the term experience tends to reduce this.

[61:23]

Although, in trying to come up with other terminology, I'm also trying to validate that there's something to it. And it can be recognized and felt, you know. But, anyway, it's a fine point. Important, but fine. Well, this man here wanted to say something. And you have children. Have you ever driven with your children in the car? Of course, yeah. Have you ever had one of your kids in the front seat with you? Sure. And have you ever stopped at a light really fast? Probably, I don't recall, but yeah. You've gone beyond my memory powers.

[62:33]

But I get your point. Yeah. And that's an experience that we all kind of have. We don't really necessarily think about before it happens or even after it happens. But when I hear phrases like, you know, it's like a hand reaching I guess the reason I wanted to bring it up is because when I look around, I see that kind of thing happening all the time. And I just equate I think so. So it's not really something that's removed, it's not really something that's any kind of... I mean, it's special, but it's also something that just happens every day.

[63:43]

Yeah, I think... A coffee cup flies across the dashboard, and because you use it every day, it's kind of a treasured object, it's a part of you. And somehow this connection just happens, and the arm leaps out. held your kid back a bunch of times, and you didn't even think about it. Probably, yeah. That's why I can't remember. Yeah. Mary, you wanted to make a further point? Well, I was just talking about taking the I out of Buddha and listening to David. I've been reading the Nyanamoli's Life of Buddha, which is quotes. He talked about himself a lot as the perfect, I am the perfect one. I am the only one who is completely enlightened and so on.

[64:47]

And it could sound like boasting, but with him, it wasn't I in the ego sense, it seems like to me, that he was just, that was just a fact. He was that way. And people would come and challenge him, and then he would need to say, He wouldn't just spout it, but if somebody would say, well why should I listen to you? He would say. So it seems like maybe there's a place for being able to speak about such things in terms of I. But that depends on where that's coming from. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. But I think the early sutras are in a sort of different universe of discourse from this. It's a whole different setup for speaking of the teachings. Certainly in the context of the early sutras, there's a very distinct, almost a psychophysical progression of events that happen and so forth and transformations that are very clear and all of that.

[65:56]

So it's just a different way, a different model for talking about it. I don't know. Well, they talk a lot about taking the I out. I mean, not exactly that phrase, but taking the I am out. That's the problem. Of course, in those sutras, the discussion has to do with there are arhats, but only one Buddha, you know. So in the Mahayana, now we're kind of crossing the Mahayana thought with Hinayana thought, and there's big differences. I mean, one could sort that out and see that they're not really different, but the discourse is quite different, right? The whole way of looking at the world and understanding what a Buddha is and so forth and so on are quite different. You said a while ago something about, you asked a question about whether you think about things

[67:03]

And you've obtained some kind of other sort of knowledge through intuition or something like that, but that wasn't okay. In other words, according to this doctrine, evidently, you're supposed to stay within the framework of your thinking. No, no, I don't think he was saying that. No, no, no, I don't think he was saying that. No, no, no, I don't think he was saying that. Yeah, no, no, I don't think he was saying that. I think he was just criticizing the Zen masters who were privileging some sort of psychological breakthrough into irrationality as the end-all and be-all of Buddhadharma. I think Rujing would have said, when he talks about single-minded, intense single-minded sitting, he's clearly talking about a kind of a sitting that includes a non-thinking mind, not limited to what we can think and know.

[68:10]

Yeah, so I don't think he's saying that. Well, let's see if we can get a little bit further. The next section I won't read because you can read that, it just tells you what you shouldn't eat and things like that. Then after that he tells you that you shouldn't read the Lankavatara Sutra or if you do, recognize that it's not an official sutra. On page seven, we'll end with this little passage, I ask, can the negative results that come from delusion, external conditions and karma really be the path of the ancestors? And this is referring to Nagarjuna's analysis of emptiness, where Nagarjuna in the middle, his text, the middle stanzas,

[69:15]

basically turns Buddhism inside out and upside down and shows that positive and negative karma are equivalents and there's just as much enlightenment in negative karma as there is in positive karma because both negative and positive karma are empty of any hard and fast reality. you see the similarity here between that kind of teaching and the shouting Zen masters and all of that and the transmission outside the scriptures. What Dogen is over and over again inquiring of Rujing about is how do we put together this sort of non-dual teaching which is beyond the cause and result for the future, and etc., etc., without violating the cause and result for the future in all the dualistic teachings.

[70:26]

This is the burden, really, of all these questions, and here he's applying that to Nāgārjuna's teaching of emptiness. And Rūjī said you should always trust teachings by ancestors like Nāgārjuna. their views are never mistaken. So he's not contradicting Nagarjuna. As far as the negative effect of karma goes, one should practice wholeheartedly and it will certainly be turned around. If you practice wholeheartedly, there is negative effect of karma but it can be mollified by your efforts in practice. So should we always be aware of cause and effect of karma? Is Nagarjuna right? Then when he says that there's no such thing as karma, karma is empty, can we ignore karma or should we on the other hand always be aware of karma? Ruji answered, you should never ignore cause and effect. Yangja said, superficial understanding of emptiness ignores cause and effect and invites calamity.

[71:30]

The teaching that karma is empty Superficially understanding the emptiness of karma, karma is like a dream, you know. Superficially understanding that, you might think that it doesn't matter what you do, and therefore invite calamity. Never think that way, Rajen is saying. Even though the teachings of Nagarjuna is true, even though karma is empty of any reality, even though karma is like a dream, you still have to abide by karma. Those who ignore cause and effect cut off good roots in Buddha Dharma. How can you regard them as descendants of Buddha ancestors? So this comes up again in the text. Dogen himself was a very strong, there's several fascicles that Dogen wrote where he insists, he even quotes a whole bunch of teachings and Zen masters, unlike here where Rujing says, yes, Nagarjuna is right, but don't make a mistake here.

[72:33]

Dogen even goes so far as to quote a number of very good teachings and teachers and say they're wrong when they say that karma is empty. Don't believe it. Dogen is very strong on the need to follow the first three precepts, you know, do good, avoid evil, and benefit others. He thinks that you do that just because you understand that all things are empty. You still especially need to practice in this way and this is a very strong characteristic of Dogen Zen is a strong sense of ethical conduct from Dogen's teaching, which sources here with Rujing. So, I got worn out. I can't think straight. Thank you very much for coming to the class and we won't meet next week, but we'll meet the week after that and we'll

[73:40]

continue with this text and see. I think that the truth is that all that we've been talking about, Dogen's effort, as I just said a minute ago, to find out how it is that the non-dual sudden turning of Zen can be seen to be easily fit with traditional Buddhist teachings. This is the subject that he questioned everything about most, and repeated in various formats throughout the text. So it's worthwhile to have spent a long time going over the essence of it this week. Thank you. Oh, yes. I just thought people might be interested to know that, it's kind of a late notice, but this weekend Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at San Francisco Zen Center, there's going to be a symposium on Dogen, led by a man named Stephen Hine, who has written a book about Dogen's poetry and a book called Dogen and the Koan Tradition.

[74:51]

He's an academic, and I'm sure it's going to be very interesting. And you can go to just one or the other. Yeah, that book, Dogon and the Koan Tradition, is a really good book. I recommend it highly. You have to slog through it, but it's worth it. What time period? Oh, it's like 1 to 5 on Saturday, and then 9 to 12, I think, on Sunday. Thank you.

[75:25]

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