One of the interesting facts about the front door is that if one person closes the door after them, everyone closes the door after them. If one person doesn't close the door after them, nobody closes the door after themselves. Would somebody please close the door? We've been talking about Dogen's Genjo Koan, for those of you who weren't here the last two days.

[01:18]

And I skipped a part, actually. So I have to go back over that part before proceeding. I won't, of course, finish during Sashin, but I'll keep talking about it until over July. I'll read up to the point where I skipped to refresh your memory and your continuity

[02:31]

So Dogen says, when all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, buddhas and creatures. When the 10,000 dharmas are without self, there are no delusion, no enlightenment, no buddhas, no creatures, no life and no death. The Buddha way is leaping clear of the many and the one, or transcends being and non-being. Therefore, there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures and Buddhas. But nevertheless, flowers fall with our attaching and weeds spring up with our aversion. To carry the self forward and realize the 10,000 dharmas is delusion. That the 10,000 dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment. It is Buddhas who enlighten delusion.

[03:35]

It is creatures who are deluded in enlightenment. Further, there are those who attain enlightenment above enlightenment, and there are those who are deluded within delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, one need not be aware of being Buddha. However, one is the realized Buddha and further advances in realizing Buddha. Then he says, this is the part that I left out, seeing forms with the whole body and mind, hearing sounds with the whole body and mind, one understands them intimately, or one intuits them intimately. Yet it is not like a mirror with reflections, nor like water under the moon. When one side is realized, the other side is dark. Seeing forms with the whole body and mind and hearing sounds with the whole body and mind, one intuits them intimately.

[04:45]

Whole body and mind is the important aspect here. This point, the whole Shobogenzo, the whole understanding of non-duality revolves around this point of thoroughness, not separating body and mind. not only seeing things intellectually. It's very important actually for a Zen student to drop intellectual thinking mind.

[05:56]

We really hold on to this. We really try to grasp things with our intellect, no matter how much we realize that it doesn't work, how limited the intellect is. We try to explain things, and we try to understand things intellectually, and we do to a certain extent. Intellect is very important. intellectual understanding is very important, but it only works when it's given up. It only works when we don't depend on it. We have all these traditions of philosophy and intellectual endeavor, but they don't advance us.

[07:06]

They don't help. They don't help in the realm of birth and death. Philosophy is only helpful in certain areas of our life, but it's not thorough. Thoroughness is knowing what is birth and knowing what is death, experiencing what is birth and what is death. And Dogen is always reiterating his main point is to drop body and mind. Dogen's enlightenment, his experience of realization is dropping body and mind.

[08:18]

Dropping body and mind means dropping the division between body and mind. dropping the border between self and other. So, Dogen's practice and practice of our practice is to totally do one thing thoroughly. To totally enter into activity, one activity, thoroughly and totally. And the one activity includes everything. This is why Zazen is what it is. The most confined, simple activity of doing one thing thoroughly.

[09:24]

We live in the information age, and we have invented brains that collect our information for us. Brain adjuncts that collect information so that we can have as much information as possible, and we're creating machines that collect even more information. Zazen is the practice of letting go of information and just completely being one. At one point, it's like taking a grain of sand out of the Ganges River and realizing that everything is contained within that one grain of sand by intuition. which means directly knowing. Information is okay.

[10:39]

We need information. The world gets smaller, and so we have to know more, we think. But it doesn't help us very much. When you see all the suffering in the world, maybe the information makes for more suffering. So seeing forms with the whole body and mind means to engage totally. Specifically he's talking about zazen, but he's also talking about all activity. To just do one thing thoroughly. Suzuki Roshi said, You people have a saying, to kill two birds with one stone.

[11:47]

But our practice is to just kill one bird with one stone. And then he says, it is not like a mirror with reflections, nor like water under the moon. When one side is realized, the other side is dark. Here he's actually talking about birth and death. A mirror reflects something. So the mirror and its reflection are two things. So he said it's not like two things. It's like when there's at birth or in life there's just life and death is is concealed and at the time of death there's just death and life is concealed but they're not two things they're two things and yet

[13:03]

From one point of view, they're two things. And from another point of view, they're not two things. One does not turn into the other. When one side, it's like the moon. He uses the moon a lot. When we see the light of the moon, we don't see the dark side. But if you're in a spacecraft and you go around and you see the dark side, you don't see the light side. But the light side is there and the dark side is there. It's not like a reflection. It's not like the moon reflected in the water. He uses that analogy later to make a different point. He says it is like the moon reflected in the water. But that's not a contradiction. It's a different simile. So he elaborates on this point more as he goes along, and what follows is to study the Buddha way is to study

[14:39]

I also talked about when one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself far from its environs. When one has already correctly transmitted the truth to oneself, one is one's original self at that moment. When riding in a boat, If one watches the shore, one may assume that the shore is moving, but watching the boat directly, one knows that it is the boat that moves. If one examines the 10,000 dharmas with a deluded body and mind, one might suppose that one's mind and nature are permanent or fixed. But if one practices intimately and returns to the true self, it will be clear that the 10,000 dharmas are without a self, are without a fixed self. And then, this is probably the most difficult to understand part of this fascicle. He talks about firewood and ash.

[15:47]

He says, firewood turns into ash and does not turn into firewood again. But do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood is before. We must realize that firewood is in the state of being firewood and has its before and after. Yet, having this before and after, it is independent of them. Ash is in the state of being ash and has its before and after. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one's death, one does not return to life again. Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma. For this reason, life is called the non-born. That death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma. Therefore, death is called the non-extinguished. Life is a period of itself. Death is a period of itself.

[16:52]

For example, they are like winter and spring. We do not think that winter becomes spring, nor do we say that spring becomes summer. Well, he uses these two terms, firewood and ash, to talk about birth and death. And Suzuki Roshi says, you can explain it, but your explanation cannot be perfect. So with that in mind, firewood turns into ash. It does not turn into firewood again. We think of one thing as becoming something else. And we think of a progression from birth, childhood, youth,

[18:00]

maturity, middle age, old age, and death as a progression. And there is that quality of progression. And we think in terms of being born and dying. And then what? So what is birth and what is death? This is the question. Dogen is not denying the progression of birth and death. Dogen's main point is not to be attached to the fact of birth and death, not to be attached to birth, or life and not to be attached to the concept of death. When we have this attachment to these concepts, then we have clutching to life and fearing of death.

[19:19]

Because we see them as opposing each other. So, Dogen is emphasizing the immovable position of each moment's existence.

[20:31]

Usually, we think in terms of discontinuous time, something is happening now and then something happened in the past and something will happen in the future. We think in that way and that is a valid way of thinking, but it's only one view of how things occur. He says we must realize that firewood is in the state of being firewood and has its before and after. Yet having this before and after, it is independent of them. Ash is in the state of being ash and has its before and after. So firewood is firewood, ash is ash.

[21:36]

This moment has its before and after. The next moment has its before and after, and each one is independent. We tend to think of life as flowing, but each moment has countless micro-moments or frames. It's like when you watch a movie, Each frame is different. When you stop the frame, you can see, well, each one of those frames is independent and has its history and its future. But that particular frame will always be that frame.

[22:37]

It didn't change into the next frame. So in discontinuous time, we have one o'clock and two o'clock and three o'clock. We divide up time into various moments. But time itself is just now, as I've said many times. So we tend to think that Time is moving. Time is moving along. But actually, time doesn't go anywhere, even though one way of looking at time is that it's going.

[23:38]

It's going, now it's 10 to 11, almost. and then it will be 11.30 pretty soon and then we have to do something else. But there's just this moment always. Just there's only now. Things, it doesn't come or go. But we think of it as coming and going. But even though it doesn't come and go, it's not permanent. It's a very difficult part to deal with. So he's saying that life is life when there's life to just be totally life.

[25:07]

And within the totality of life is death. And when death comes, just be totally dead. And within death, being totally dead is life. It's not that before and after are two different states. I mean, before and after are two different states, not two states of the same thing. So, Birth and death appear on each moment. Are we dead or alive?

[26:11]

From one point of view, you can say, yes, I'm just alive and I am not dead. But from another point of view, you cannot say whether this is life or death. When Dao Wu knocked on the coffin, teacher, is this corpse dead or alive? His teacher said, I won't say. I won't say. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one's death, one does not return to life again. Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the Buddha Dharma. For this reason, life is called the non-born.

[27:19]

that death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the Buddha Dharma. Therefore, death is called the non-extinguished. Sounds backwards, but that which is not born cannot die. And that which, because we feel I am somebody, permanently, we have this problem. There is birth and death, but there is no one who is born and dies. there's only the transformations of Buddha nature continually popping up on each moment.

[28:32]

If there were a permanent self, you can say something about it. But because time is intrinsically discontinuous, continuous, time is intrinsically continuous, each moment's existence has this continuous quality. So he's saying, that death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the Buddha Dharma.

[29:39]

Therefore, death is called the non-extinguished. Life is a period of itself. Death is a period of itself. For example, they are like winter and spring. We do not think that winter becomes spring, nor do we say that spring becomes summer. When summer comes, Just enjoy summer. When spring is here, just enjoy the flowers. In winter, just put on your coat, light the fire. So understanding of impermanence leads to liberation. So what we want actually is liberation from impermanence.

[30:50]

That's what we kind of like to have, is liberation from impermanence. But actually, Liberation is to totally go with impermanence. Otherwise, it wouldn't be liberation. Liberation from the idea of permanence is liberation. liberation from trying to preserve something which cannot be preserved is called freedom. And being attached to something which is not permanent is called suffering. So, in Zazen,

[31:59]

there is no special state of mind to wish for. When a delusive state of mind appears, to just be deluded. When an enlightened state of mind appears, just be enlightened. To hang on to a deluded state of mind is suffering. To hang on to an enlightened state of mind is suffering. To hang on to existence is suffering. And to hang on to nonexistence is suffering. You know, they're the two extremes of annihilation and eternalism. It's not that those two are not valid.

[33:08]

It's just that being attached to either one is delusion and suffering. Duality in itself is not bad. It's just that we prefer one pole to the other. And we get polarized. Stuck. In zazen, don't get stuck. Just let everything come and go. When pain arises, just be painful Buddha. When pleasure arises, just be pleasant Buddha. There's no special state of mind to hang on to.

[34:15]

Otherwise, we cause suffering. This is called liberation from suffering. But at the same time, you know, To make effort is important, and to let go of effort is important. To let go of striving is important, but to make effort and strive is also important. But we shouldn't be attached to either side. There's a little quote here that says, when you live, just live.

[35:34]

When you die, just die. I know that you're dying right now. This is a very simplistic way to talk about this particular section and it takes a lot of study to intuit this part.

[36:19]

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