I've been talking about Dogen Zenji's, Zen Master Dogen's Genjo Koan, the koan of our life from moment to moment. And I'm going to continue. I'm going to start, I just want to get into the part I'm going to talk about by going back a little bit and reading that part. Can you hear me okay? He says, when a fish swims in the ocean, there is no limit to the water, no matter how far it swims. When a bird flies in the sky, there is no limit to the sky, no matter how far it flies.

[01:02]

However, no fish or bird has ever left its element since the beginning. When the need is large, it is used largely. When the need is small, it is used in a small way. Thus, no creature ever comes short of its own completeness. Wherever it stands, it does not fail to cover the ground. If a bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If a fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know then that water is life. Know that air is life. Life is the bird and life is the fish. Beyond these, further steps can be taken. In this way, there are practice and enlightenment, limited life and unlimited life. And then we come to the part that I'm going to talk about. Now, if a bird or a fish tries to reach the limit of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place.

[02:13]

If a bird or a fish tries to reach the limit of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. The bird and the fish, of course, are you. You may not look like a bird or a fish, but sometimes people say to me, you look like a mouse. Everyone has their animal characteristic. Some people look like birds. Some people look like fish, yes. Dogen is saying that if we try to understand everything, if we try to understand practice before practicing, we'll never be able to practice. If we try to understand our life before we live it, we'll never live our life.

[03:19]

There are some people who are professional students and they spend their whole life in college learning how to, learning something, learning many things about how to live, but somehow missing life. If we try to understand our practice before we move in it, it will never occur. The one advantage that we have about in Zen practice is that it's actually better to not know anything before you start practicing. The hardest thing is unlearning. Young people have a better opportunity because they don't have to unlearn as much, usually.

[04:26]

But when you get older, you need some security, some professional security. And it's very difficult to let go of all the things you have learned and the position that you have attained in life and be nobody. That's difficult, but people do. It's wonderful. Also, We come to practice after having read something, studied something, studied Buddhism. It's good to have an understanding of Buddhism, very good. And along with practice, it's good to study Buddhism.

[05:33]

But the main thing is not studying Buddhism, but practice. As Dogen says previously, to study the Buddha way is to study the self, not to study the books. Although, you should still study the books. But the important part is to study the self by letting go of the self. by letting go of opinions and partial understanding, half-truths, and depending upon intellectual knowledge. So this way and this place is right here and right now. we shouldn't sacrifice this moment for some other moment.

[06:41]

Everything we need to accomplish is in this moment. Even though we may have some vision of the future, we shouldn't sacrifice this moment for our vision of the future. So you can start to practice any moment at any time. So beginning to practice is like jumping into the water So you jump into the water and you start swimming. You may drown, but it's better to, you know, it's important to start slowly so that you don't drown.

[07:55]

You start slowly and you learn how to wade in the water, and then you learn how to get up to here. And then one day you say, I know I'm supposed to do Seshin, but it feels like the water will go way up here, and it does. But miraculously, everyone survives. People say, how should I prepare for Sashim? And I say, don't think about it. Don't prepare. Go to sleep, get a good night's sleep, and just sit on your cushion in the morning without thinking about it at all.

[08:57]

No need to have any anxiety about it, but you will. Sitting all day long, you will have anxiety about it, but no need, because it doesn't help. Thinking about it doesn't help one bit. It just hinders you. So when you are a seasoned practitioner, you just do sasheen like you would eat breakfast. You don't get nervous about breakfast, You just sit. If you think about when is the end of the period, let's say that's 40 minutes long, maybe they'll sit for an hour. That doesn't help at all. You don't need to know anything. The more you know, the harder it is. So it's just living your life one moment at a time.

[10:02]

this moment, this moment, this moment. That's the only way you can possibly do it successfully. So you're reduced to one moment at a time. So he says, if a bird or a fish tries to reach the limit of its element before moving in it, this bird or its fish will not find its way or its place. And then he says, attaining this place, one's daily life is the realization of ultimate reality, or Kenjo Koan. Attaining this place, meaning just being present on this moment and in this place, one attains ultimate reality. If you go looking

[11:07]

here and there for ultimate reality or trying to find it in your mind, you get lost. Simply being present with nothing, ultimate reality will present itself Attaining this place, one's daily life, is the realization of ultimate reality, or genjokoan. And attaining this way, one's daily life, is the realization of ultimate reality. Nishyari says, the realm of freedom lies with the capacity of each fish or each bird.

[12:10]

or you. We have the capacity to have realization of ultimate reality on each moment, but the hardest place to be is where we are. We're always looking to be somewhere else, or what's next? What's next? There's a wonderful cartoon by Wilson, a New Yorker. The two monks are sitting, Zazen, and the young monk turns to the older one and says, well, is this all there is? Or what's next? What's next? Suzuki Roshi also gave a talk to some children, and one of the children said, and he was giving them Zazen instruction, and they sat for five minutes, and then one of the kids said, well, we've done this, now what?

[13:14]

So it's really easy to miss it, you know. To miss our life is really easy. We're just continually going by, going past it and looking for it. It's like the old saying, selling water by the river or standing in the middle of the river and asking for a drink. or like the country bumpkin who lands, who goes to New York on the plane and gets off the plane and he says, well, where's New York? Then Dogen says, this place and this way are neither large nor small. You can't compare this place or this way with anything.

[14:26]

It's not large and it's not small. It's not self and it's not other. It's neither existing previously nor just arising now. Therefore, they exist thus. Thus means like this. in this way, right? But this thus has a very emphatic feeling. Thus means, it is a kind of Zen term, which means, or Buddhist term, which means just as it is. Nothing extra. Existing thus. We say thusness, meaning as it isness, just as it is.

[15:32]

To see reality just as it is without illusions or delusions. To see illusion as illusion. To see delusion as delusion. Enlightenment is to be able to see through delusion as delusion, and illusion as illusion, and reality as reality. And then he says, thus, very emphatic thus, if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, when one picks up one dharma, one penetrates one dharma, When one encounters one action, one practices one action. To pick up one dharma.

[16:35]

Dharma, of course, has several meanings. Dharma with a small d means things, technically. Dharmas are the psycho-physical elements of a human being. Our feelings, emotions, thoughts are all categorized as dharmas to be analyzed. And Dharma with a capital D means the Buddhist teaching or reality or truth of the dharmas, the truth about the dharmas, the reality of phenomena, but phenomenal pertaining to the human being. Buddhism is not so interested in analyzing phenomena outside of the human condition.

[17:47]

Just what is it that leads to suffering? Why is our life seemingly unsatisfactory? What's the problem? problem lies in our attitudes about dharma and dharmas. So if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, when one picks up one dharma, one penetrates one dharma. Picking up a dharma would be to, if you pick up anger, then you penetrate that anger, what is this anger? What is the meaning of anger? How does anger arise and how does anger leave? How does lust arise and how does lust leave?

[18:52]

How does any feeling, emotion, or thought arise and disappear? When one gains, picks up one dharma, one sees through one dharma. So to be able to see through anger, when anger arises, to not cap it, but to let anger arise. When anger arises, then there is a choice. what to do with this anger. One can direct it, find an object for the anger, or one can see through the anger and use anger. One can be turned around by anger, by letting anger dominate.

[19:57]

Or one can lead anger and as a tool, use it as a tool. Or one can simply let it go. There are many choices. If we know how to practice with anger, then when anger arises, we have some way to deal with it. If we don't practice with it, then when it arises, it's hard to control or hard to deal with, or we become enslaved by it. So to penetrate anger is to see the emptiness of anger, actually. all dharmas in their own being are empty, as it says in the Heart Sutra. How do we know that?

[21:02]

It's not just something that's an intellectual concept. We have to prove to ourselves that anger is an empty dharma. And we prove that through our daily life and through zazen. Investigating the dharmas is a fundamental Buddhist practice. It's one of the seven factors of enlightenment, investigating dharmas. And when we sit in zazen, these dharmas are continually coming up, continuously. One of the biggest complaints of the Zen student is, I only had one minute of real Zazen during 40 minutes of sitting because my mind was so full of dharmas.

[22:11]

My mind was continually filled with dharmas. I had the angry dharma, I had the lustful dharma, I had the hungry dharma, I had the shopping list dharma. But these dharmas are very helpful. We shouldn't discriminate whether they're good or bad. They're simply empty. of their own being. They appear, they have a cause. Every dharma has a cause for its arising. But fundamentally, it's like a bubble. They're just bubbling. And when we sit in zazen, these dharmas just bubble up one after another. And we can make a big bubble out of them. It's wonderful, you have a bubble piping,

[23:16]

You try to get as big a bubble as you can, you know, before it floats off. We do that in Zazen, too. We have a little bubble, and this little bubble becomes a big bubble, and we nurture it. It flies off. It's good to say goodbye to the bubble. That's good. And then we come back to Zazen. Then another bubble comes up, another dharma. we nurture it and then it floats off and then we come back to zazen over and over and over again. But investigating these dharmas is simply observing them. Observing anger without becoming attached to it. Observing lust without becoming attached to the object in our mind. We think that we're attached to the object, but really we're attached to the thought in our mind.

[24:23]

Mind is everything. Imagination is most of our life. So imagination creates illusions and delusions. one after another, and to be able to penetrate, see through, then we can actually enjoy our illusions and delusions. We can enjoy our delusory life and our illusory life if we know how to let things come and go without being caught by them. Otherwise, we live in a kind of isolation and we can't live our life in isolation. We live our life in the realm of delusion and illusion. And we can't escape from that.

[25:29]

That's earthly life. but we can be free within it, have freedom within our delusion and our illusions. We can't escape from suffering, but we can have freedom within our suffering. So he says, thus, if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, when one picks up one dharma, one penetrates one dharma. When one encounters one action, one practices one action. This is a most important aspect of practice, is when one encounters one action, one practices one action.

[26:47]

When our life is practice, every action that we do is practice. not just activity, ordinary activity. Ordinary activity becomes the vehicle for profound practice. To just do one thing at one time, it's not so much the activity or the what we're doing, but how we do it. When our whole body and mind is involved with one action, then there's no division between the subject and the object. When to drink a cup of tea, just drink the cup of tea.

[27:53]

without thinking about something else. To just be wholeheartedly and totally engaged in one action. In a Zen Do, when we drink tea, we always use two hands. You can tell a knowledgeable Zen student by the way they drink a cup of tea in a Zen Do. You can tell someone's ability or attainment or understanding through their actions. On the other hand, we are never doing just one thing at a time. There's no such thing as doing one thing at a time, because every action contains many smaller actions.

[29:03]

So drinking a cup of tea is engagement with the whole body. When a master does calligraphy, the whole body and mind is involved in making one character. So this kind of concentration is very important, but concentration is not everything. There are many factors, concentration, settledness, tranquility, equanimity, breath, position. To always be aware of breath in one action, in every activity to be aware of, where is my breath?

[30:18]

To breathe with the activity. is most important. So this is how one is practicing zazen all the time. Practicing zazen is not just sitting cross-legged on the cushion, but thoroughly being one with each activity. That's why daily life is our practice. So careful practice, being mindful, and being one with our activity, being totally present with the objects that we use.

[31:20]

When we're totally present with the objects that we use, they're no longer objects. Our surroundings are no longer a collection of objects. But picking up the cup, I create the cup, and the cup creates me. So we are never lost in the world. We always know where the place is and we know what the way is. The way and the place are right here in every action, in every moment. So this is called samadhi of one act, or one action.

[32:35]

Samadhi is concentration, but it's more than just concentration. It's concentration, which is non-duality, eliminates the gap between yourself and other. So that's why every problem that we have on each moment becomes a vehicle for practice. Life is a series of problems, one after another. Every moment presents its problem.

[33:38]

And engaging this problem without hesitation is how you stay centered and focused, not avoiding problems. We do avoid problems. Difficult to stay centered all the time. But to stay with your breath, to stay centered, and to totally engage with the problem at hand, Suzuki Roshi said that moment after moment, we're losing our balance and regaining our balance.

[34:43]

Everything is continually falling out of balance against the background of emptiness. and everything is regaining its balance moment after moment on the background of emptiness. It's interesting, you know, like if you have a bug, see a bug and you flick it off your nose and the bug lands someplace, it falls a tremendous distance. And then it looks around and finds its way. There's no place that is the bug's home. Do beetles have homes? Huh?

[35:46]

Some live in little holes, but they're always moving. They're always finding their way. The whole earth is their home. Even though they live in little holes. Marvelous. So every moment is a new encounter. And when we keep our mind open, then when we encounter one dharma, we engage that dharma. And then we know where we are. That's how practice begins. That's the gateway of practice. So there are two.

[37:03]

Engaging dharmas is like swimming in the ocean. It's like going with the waves on top of the ocean. Every moment something new appears. every moment a new event appears and a new engagement appears. And swimming and engaging with playing in the waves, sometimes the waves are high, sometimes they're low. But at the same time, as Dogen says, our feet are on the bottom of the ocean walking. Although we're swimming in the top of the waves, our feet are firmly planted on the bottom of the ocean, walking. So there's no way to get engulfed. We're always anchored.

[38:12]

But how are we anchored? Our breath. our immovable center. Zazen is, to sit in Zazen, to practice as Zazen, is to always be centered in your immovable center. sitting sasheen hour after hour, day after day, there's nothing else to do but find that immovable center. And then in your daily life, moving in the world, you don't lose that immovable center.

[39:18]

So no matter what happens, nothing can crush you. So we find everything within one practice. One very simple practice. You know, the realm of learning is vast and has many facets.

[40:26]

And there are many schools of learning and many things to learn. But the simple practice of Zazen contains everything that you need to know. If you dig deeply enough, if you stay with the practice, if you stay with your difficulty, If you stay with the problem that you have, reality will be revealed to you. You don't need to go here and there to learn many things. This is why perseverance, to penetrate one dharma or one thing is the most important practice that we have. Just staying with the difficulty or the problem that we have and penetrating through, all problems will be seen through.

[41:36]

If we go various places looking for answers, we will never find an answer. We can go from one school to another, from one practice to another, from one teacher to another, looking for the answer. But the answer is within you. You will never find it out there. Everything we need to know is right here. This is why the Desert Fathers went out into the desert with nothing and just stayed there with nothing, just sand and sun and a little water and a little garden. because they realized that everything they needed to know was in here. And they didn't go looking for it someplace else.

[43:05]

This is why simple practice is the most effective. Just day after day, zazen. And zazen becomes the center of your life. This is why one must be sincere in practice. If one is really sincere in practice and doesn't avoid the problems and the difficulties, you will mature. and your wisdom will open up by itself. As Dogen says, your treasure house, storehouse will open up and you will be able to use it freely. It's like water penetrating a rock. Little by little, the rock wears away.

[44:10]

But with that persistence, without that persistence and stubbornness, nothing happens. So Dogen says, when one penetrates one dharma, when one gains one dharma, one penetrates one dharma. When one encounters one action, one practices one action. That's the secret of practice. The most important point. Do you have one question? I have time for one question. Peter. I have a question about the tea drinking.

[45:14]

The tea drinking? Yeah. If one person chooses to drink with one hand. Yeah. It just takes them longer to catch on. It's their problem, not mine.

[45:35]

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