This is the end of the class. More feedback, both encouraging and positive, and also discouraging and negative. That is actually positive and encouraging, ultimately. Just saying that reminds me of something y'all said some time ago where it's different. He often doesn't say anything to people because it won't be discouraging to them because people often take criticism as some kind of negative thing. But he's said over and over again that when he critiques people, it's not It's not that he doesn't like the person, or it's this negative thing, it's just that he has something close to him to work on. So please, in that spirit, I really would like to ask you to do whatever you can say to help. Just like...

[01:01]

I'm not going to go over it because we're going to be doing something different tonight, but one of the most important things on the chart is how it all comes together at the bottom in Dogen, that actually Dogen Zenji, who is traditionally seen as our Soto Zen ancestor, has transmission in both Soto and Rinzai lineages. So the five houses converge on him, and then he passed the tradition on to us. though, he's a blend of that sort of soft, poetic, gentle style of pseudo-practice, as well as that sort of fiery spirit. I'm going to get your face out of here. Real life flavor. So I'll be talking about Japan this evening, and this will be a little carrier from China, because Japan in its early days, as far as our class is concerned in religion, Buddhism in the 6th century, the Common Era, was still strongly influenced by China.

[02:22]

China was seen as another mode of of culture and civilization. So Japan pretty much copied the Chinese style for centuries, and then eventually developed its own way. The tea ceremony as we have it now with the Japanese, because that originally was Chinese, the Chinese-style tea ceremony, very informal, very loose, versus the Japanese, very tight. The indigenous religion in Japan was the Shinto religion, which was associated with lots of different clans in one country. And the Prince Regent Shotoku, who ruled from 593 to 622, incorporated Buddha's teaching into his social-political practice. there, and though we didn't actually see it as sort of the, it didn't actually manifest as the national religion, it did have a strong influence on the country.

[03:29]

And while some people say that in Japan, we don't really see a lot of people practicing Buddhism, there's sometimes a permeated culture there that is very distant. So, Shotoku was actually around the time of the atomic bomb, I assume? Yeah, yeah. So, he had already went to Japan before he came to Japan? Right, yeah. The earliest report is that in Japan, actually, is when a monk from 628 to 670, he had been in China when he came to Japan. Girls? I don't know that yet. Japanese women who were ordained as Buddhists. Would that be nice information to have? I didn't find that. Thanks.

[04:29]

If you have something, let me know. Yeah, please. So there was a lot of travel between Japan and China back in those days. And the monks, when they would go to China, they actually weren't doing Zen. The primary religions that they were practicing were Tendan Buddhism and the esoteric Shingon Buddhism. So it was a blend of two Buddhists. The Tendan was sort of a syncretic practice that involved the Lotus Sutra and study of precepts, Zazen, and esoteric rituals, which actually a lot of that comprises of our tradition, but the emphasis of Zen, of course, is Zazen. The mudra that we have here, there's esoteric meaning to that, the images of the Buddha, the various teaching we just have esoteric meanings, the Dharmanis that we chant for people's well-being. We have memorial services.

[05:32]

That's sort of the esoteric side of our practice. Yes, esoteric. Esoteric is sort of the mysterious ball of life and practice. So, for instance, the Durrani that we chant, the Shosakos, doesn't have a translation, but the tradition that we follow, implies a faith in the chanting of that dharani to remove hindrances. So it's not a literal thing where if you... like a surgical operation is not esoteric like this.

[06:33]

If you remove an obstruction in someone's body, that's not esoteric, that's a very literal material practice, that their neighbor will be esoteric elements to it if you attempt to let it fall to that practice. Versus esoteric tradition, which is just a little bit of a way to make it healthier. So the Buddhism that was in Japan was, the main Buddhism that was in Japan was Tendai Buddhism that was imported from China by a gentleman named Seicho whose years are basically the 8th century. So Tendai Buddhism was a synthetic practice of Buddhism, and the center for that was on Mount Hiei near Kyoto.

[07:40]

And that's where Dogen went originally to learn about Buddhism. The other Buddhism that was prominent in Japan was the Shinkan Buddhism, and that was founded by Hideo Tokai. These mystical incantations were very simple to recite, and actually people found a fair amount of comfort in that tradition. So it was very common with sort of the common country folk in Japan to follow this Shingon practice, even though there was a priest practice that involved in special rituals. What happened after Pukai's death is that there were warring factions between the Tendai and the Shingon monks and the extra armed monks and there was a lot of fighting and burning down of temples.

[08:50]

What's going on then was actually the age of the Mahaprabhu, which the Buddha predicted there would be these three times of teaching. There was the authentic original teaching for people who were living in Buddha's time, and then after that there was this period of imitation of Buddhism where things were revealed. It was further laid by the Laozi group from the Buddha, and things were being made up. And then there was the age of Ma Po, which was a decline of Buddhism, and it was impossible to find authentic teaching and to find salvation in practice. So we were in the age of Ma Po. And a military government finally sort of prevailed in this rebellion of warring monks in the Commonwealth period in the 12th century. So at this time when Dogon was coming of age, there were three primary teachers in Japan for Buddhism.

[09:56]

And they were the Pure Land School that was founded by Shinran and his student Hunen, and then Nishiren Buddhism, and then Zen with Dogen. And in the Pure Land, Pure Land School, the feeling was that if you recited the name of the Amitabha Buddha, you would be reborn in the Pure Land in the West. And so it was a very simple practice and there were lots of people, a huge amount of people that followed the Pure Land practice and the Pure Land temples to this day in this country. The Nichiren sect was founded by the monk Nichiren and he emphasized the recitation and study of the Lotus Sutra and felt that was sort of the essence of Buddha's teaching. And simply just reciting the name of the Lotus Sutra would enable the student to gain liberation.

[11:01]

And so the Gakkai group, which is sort of a spiritual alchemy shrine group, is a group that you may have heard about, where they do a non-verbal reiki or, so to speak, a convergence. And it's a really powerful practice. I visited a friend of mine from college days who lives in Paris. he and his wife do this practice and I joined them in front of their altar and was joined in with the chanting and there's something, it's like a mantra quality that you physically kind of get into a particular vibration or mode similar to when we would be chanting the Zen Do from time to time and you can actually feel that energy. And it's a very empowering and kind of liberating feeling. I don't know about their daily practice, how they work with mindfulness or things of the sorts that we do at a Zen school, but that's the emphasis that they have there. And of course, the third school is a Zen school that Dogen brought to Japan, so does Tom.

[12:05]

So Doge was born into a aristocratic family in the year 1200. And both his father and mother died when he was two and seven, I believe. And so the legend goes that when he was at his mother's funeral, he raised the thought of enlightenment by seeing the wisps and insects floating around the ceremony. It's a legend, but it has a nice feeling to it. And at age 13, he ran away from home, because even though he was entitled to join the aristocratic sort of court in Kyoto, he felt a need to delve into Buddhism. And of course, he did. So he went to Namgye, which was a Tendai center, and he asked the the question of the teacher there who ordained him.

[13:10]

If, as the sutras say, all human beings are endowed with the Buddha nature, why is it that one must train oneself so strenuously to realize that Buddha nature to attain enlightenment? Well, the abbot wasn't quite sure what the answer was to that question, and Dogen went to another teacher up on the mountain, who encouraged him to study with his own teacher, Nisai, down the hill, which is what Dogen did. And I heard the story, it reminded me of Tozan's question, which I mentioned a few weeks ago. And when he was studying the heart sutra, he went to his teacher and said, well, I do have an eye. If I didn't have ears, and a nose, and a mouth, so why are you saying no eyes, no ears, no nose? And then the teacher said, well, no, the teacher didn't give us the precepts to study. So Dogen has a similar question. So he visited Esai and he was there for about a year. Esai passed away and it's not clear whether he actually met Esai or not.

[14:16]

Some stories say he did. While the late Abbot Esai was living at Keninji, a poor man from the neighborhood came and said, My home is so poor that my wife and I and our three children have had nothing to eat for several days. Have pity and help us out. This was at a time when the monastery was completely without food, clothing, and money. Isai racked his brain, thinking of no solution. It didn't occur to him that just at the same time a statue of Rakuishi was being built at the temple, that there was a bit of copper that had been hammered out to make the halo.

[15:19]

Isai broke it up with his own hands, made it into a ball, and gave it to the poor man. Exchange this for food and save your families from starvation, said the poor man, laughing overjoyed. His disciples were critical. You've given the halo of a Buddha statue to a layman? Is it a crime to make personal use of what belongs to the Buddha? You are right, the abbot replied. But think of the will of the Buddha. He cut off his own flesh and limb for the sake of all sentient beings. Certainly, he would have sacrificed an entire body to save starving people. Even though I should fall into the evil realms for this crime, I will still have saved people from starvation. Students today should do well to reflect on the excellence of Isai's attitude. Do not forget this." So that's the story attributed to Isai, Dogen's first teacher. So Dogen studied with Myosin, who was Isai's primary disciple, who was a few years older than him.

[16:29]

He actually succeeded Nyozen because he was his dharma successor. And this is a Rinzai tradition. This is a Rinzai tradition that had blends of this Tendai tradition, also. So it wasn't purely just Lao Tzu and monks that we think of as Rinzai tradition today. And both Myosin and Dogen wanted to go to China to learn where the action was. It was southern China. It was sort of the tail end of the Kowloon period that Laurie was talking about last week. And Japan was still kind of a, not really like a barbaric state, but it did have the sophistication and the history that China did. And so there's a wonderful account of Dogen and Beozen's travels to China. Dogen was about 25 when he went there with Beozen. And it wasn't just like an easy trip. It was actually a pretty dangerous crossing the ocean there.

[17:32]

When I was a child, I aroused the wish for enlightenment, pursued the way with various masters in our country, and learned a little about the meaning of cause and effect. However, I did not understand the true source of name and form. Later, I entered Zen Master Hisai's room and for the first time heard Rinzai teaching. Then I accompanied Priest Myosin and went to prosperous Song, China. Through a voyage of countless miles and trusting my transient body to the gilded blade, I finally reached Rinzai. According to that passage, he did meet Hisai. So I'm not sure why there's still a question whether he did or not. in the case of events in China. And he began his... his teaching in earnest in Zen tradition. And he had the auspicious opportunity to meet some people who showed him the way.

[18:39]

And the stories that you probably already know, we count time and again, are meetings with Tenzos, or monks from monasteries. So Doge is about 25. He's been sitting a little bit, studying the Tendai tradition and such. And then he meets this old monk, who's And the monk is coming to Dogen's boat to purchase some mushrooms. He brought some food from Japan, and the Japanese were going to go find the shiitake mushrooms and what have you from Japan. Dogen's traveling partner, Ryosei, was actually on land and traveling around visiting monasteries. And I can't remember how he was able to do that. But there was some reason that Byozo was able to go, and Dogen had to stay behind on the boat. There's some kind of papers, or he needed to travel, or that Dogen didn't have. But in any case, he was able to remain on the boat, even though he wasn't able to sleep.

[19:45]

So Dogen says, I said to him, when did you leave Ayuwanchan Monastery? He says, after lunch. How far is it from here? About 14 miles. When are you going back? As soon as I've purchased some ice cream," said Master Tenzo. I am very glad to have this unexpected chance to meet and chat with you for a while here up on board ship. Please allow me to serve you," said Master Tenzo. I'm sorry, but without my supervision, tomorrow's meals will not go well. And Durden says, such a large monastery is all you want, Sean. There must be enough oven-cooking ones to prepare the meals. They can surely get along without a single Tenzo one. Sean says, old as I am, I hold the office of Tenzo. This is my training during my old age. He's like 68 years old. How can I leave this duty to others? Moreover, I did not get permission to stay out overnight when I left. Venerable sir, why don't you do Zazen or study the Koan of ancient masters?

[20:47]

What is the use of working so hard as a Tenzo master? Hearing my remarks, he broke into laughter and said, Good foreigner, you seem to be ignorant of the true training and meaning of Buddhism. In a moment, ashamed and surprised at his remarks, I said to him, What are they? If you understand the true meaning of your question, you will have already realized the true meaning of Buddhism. At that time, however, I was unable to understand what he meant. We often hear saying that the answer is in the question mark, but it kind of goes back to this exchange. And as Dogen matured, he realized that the truth and understanding manifested through everyday expression and ordinary acts like cooking, going to the bathroom, walking, or even just using a toothpick. So he was learning that, while it was important to study, that actually the realization that in practice was just to be ordinary, forsaic activities. And his major contribution to our tradition is

[21:52]

the idea or concept of practice and enlightenment being one thing, that traditionally people thought that you had to practice and purify yourself in order to be ready to wake up and to become enlightened. But those two so-called sides together as one thing. And that's the words of Layman Thomas, which we talked about the other week, in response to his understanding. He said, my supernatural power and marvelous activity is to disseminate caring, order, and enchantment by religion. So when Dōgen was eventually able to leave the ship, he traveled to Tien-tung Monastery and practiced under the abbot there, Wu Chi. And he experienced discrimination as a foreign monk. They had a very strict hierarchy. And the Chinese, of course, were given promises.

[22:54]

Physicians would then know and what have you. And anyone from a foreign country was not given that same sense of physician visibility. And so he protested for quite a while. And apparently, He was able to win the favor of the Abbot and could have been accepted and treated similarly as the Chinese monk. He was going amongst the Refugee Ordination Day versus the National Margin. And that's actually something that We don't talk about it so much here, but I think in the event center system in general, people have their birth date as their mission date. We talk about it a lot in our practice, at least in old China. I think in these days, to establish a picnic is a little bit like a wizarding, and that's a sort of really hard act. Yeah, I guess when you get older, it's going to be a lot tougher.

[24:07]

So when he was at Tien Ton, he came across the old Tenzo monk again, with a bamboo stick in hand, drying some mushrooms in front of the Buddha hall. And the sun was beating down on him. It was very hot. And again, he was quite old. And Doug approached and asked, he was about his age, he said he was 68. He said, why don't you make the other monks under your supervision do it? It's so hot out here. And he said, they are not me. And he said, you are really one with Buddhism, but I wonder why you work so hard in the morning sun. He said, well, what else can I do with it now? Harker's back to Pai Cheng's, or Harker Jo's, teaching that a day of no work is a day of no eating, so that sense of self-sufficiency really pervades the teaching. And while we can ask many people to help us out and to do things, when Doe gets teaching as early as many stories, you can really get a sense of self-sufficiency and take care of things by yourself.

[25:12]

The history of Dogen and these stories are, they exist in China for just a few years. But there's numerous stories that are very compelling, evocative. And when we look at our teaching and the practice around here, we can see that much of it is borrowed from Dogen's experiences. When we do the rope chant, which is putting the rock of Sumeru on top of our head, that was something that wasn't done in Japan. So Dogen writes, 17 years after his visit to China in Japan, he says, at that time I was filled with the deepest emotion and joy that I had ever experienced. Unknowingly, I shed so many tears of gratitude that my collar became wet. Why? Although I had opened the Agama Sutras, which are the old Theravada teachings of the Buddha, before and read the verse concerning the place and the case on one's head, I did not know the details of the manner in which it was to be done. Seeing it at that time before my eyes filled me with great joy.

[26:27]

I said to myself, alas, when I was in Japan, no teacher told me about this, nor were there any kind friends to recommend this practice to me. How much time, sorry to say, I uselessly idled away. How fortunate it is, owing to my good deeds in the past, I have not been able to see this. If I had remained in Japan, how could I have ever seen the monk next to me wearing the guru's okisa? Filled with the experience of happiness and sorrow, I cried, hopelessly. Then I vowed to myself, with compassion for my fellow country people, I will, unworthy though I am, become a heir to Buddhism, a right receiver of the true way, and teach them the law that was perfectly transmitted by the Buddhas. We get a taste of Dogon's commitment to humility and conscientiousness throughout this story of just seeing and then looking at his own case on top of his head. And years ago, we used to do the rope chant after morning zazen. So basically, you sit without your rope. put your robe on, then we'd have a service of 10 minutes, and then we'd put your robe away and go off to work or whatever.

[27:35]

And there was a resident here at the time, Bob Janczak, who strongly felt that it's so rare that we have the opportunity to wear the robe, why don't we do it during Zazen? So we had a meeting in the practice committee and talked to a surgeon, of course, and we switched it around. The robe chant starts at the beginning of Zazen, I think. then we can do our work during the closet, except on Saturdays. And so she would have a lunch break. That's sort of the fluidity and sort of making practice our own and making changes. Taking care of people as someone who's not working. So Dogen traveled around and he came back to Tien Tong Monastery, and the original abbot that he had met had died, and the new abbot there was named Wu Jing. And this was going to be Dogen's final teacher.

[28:39]

And we chant his name in Zen-do, Ten-do, Yo-jo. And Dogen writes about Wu Jing. My late master, Mu Jing, was from Yue. At the age of 19, he quit scholastic Buddhism to train himself in the way. Even in the 60s, he continued to practice strenuously. Though given a purple robe, and the title was then mastered by the emperor, he would not accept them, and sent a letter of refusal. This excellent deed of his was respected by monks everywhere, and admired by Taoist and men from far and near. in Rujing's own words, not only did I practice Zazen at the appointed times in the meditation hall, but wherever and whenever it was possible to practice it. I did so in the upper stories of the temple buildings, beneath cliffs, or in other solitary places, always carrying a cushion concealed in my sleeve from my robe. It was my intention to sit so hard as to make this cushion fall into tatters.

[29:43]

This was my only wish. As a result, my buttocks became inflamed, causing hemorrhoids. But I liked Zazen so much the better. So you can see the sort of sincerity and earnestness of his teacher and Dogen's imperative in writing about zazen being the most important thing. It really was quite a shift from these practices of esoteric teaching to this sort of fundamental teaching of the Buddha, which is just zazen. So he was with Wu Xing for a couple of years. And one morning, while Wu Xing was making his usual round of inspection, like a surgeon or one of the other priests here does in the morning, there's bells, and they walk around. Basically, they're greeting bells, but it's sort of an inspection. It's in there just to check out and see if everything is sitting right and things are OK. He discovered that one of the monks was dozing, so Ruzsik admonished the monk, saying, the practice of lausanne is a dropping away of body and mind.

[30:52]

What do you expect to accomplish by dozing? Upon hearing these words, Dogen suddenly realized enlightenment. His mind's eye opened deeply. How often have we woken up in a zunda and heard soldiers encouraging Dogen's footsteps, or felt a posture adjustment, or waxed a stick to one side or another? Dovah later went to Rujim's room to have his enlightenment confirmed, burning incense and prostrating himself before his teacher. What do you mean by this? Rujim asked. I have experience of dropping away a body of mine, Dovah replied. Rujim realized that Dovah's enlightenment was genuine and said, you have indeed dropped a body of mine. Dovah demonstrated, I have only just realized enlightenment don't sanction me so easily. Which is, again, it harkens back to Tozon and his teacher Nanshuang's exchange, where Nanshuang felt that Tozon had it, and was saying, you're awake, and Tozon didn't want to have that confirmation so quickly.

[31:57]

For me, it feels like that the student while they can acknowledge their understanding and that way they can sort of sit back and listen. So the confirmation of the teacher openly has to be a process describing to both people. So after Dogen was recognized by Ruxin as his successor. In 1227, he, in his own words, finished his life study, returned to Japan, carrying with him the symbols of transmissions, which was the old place that belonged to Jun, a former teacher of the lineage, and copies of phototexts of the people he'd joined in his samadhi, which we're going to recite on Saturday. And a trip of Ruxin doesn't include much of what the teacher's gave to Jun. So through that sort of teacher-student relationship, not that there aren't teachers and students in the other sects of Buddhism, but instead it's really stressed quite seriously.

[33:13]

And Dogen talks about it. The importance of the relationship to a true teacher of Bodhogan is seen in his points to watch in Buddhist training. He writes, the Buddhist trainee can be compared to a fine piece of timber and a true master to a good carpenter. Even quality wood. It will not show its fine grain unless it is worked on by a good carpenter. Even a warped piece of wood, if handled by a good carpenter, will soon show the results of good craftsmanship. The truth or falsity of the lightment depends upon whether or not one has a true aspect. This should be well understood. Hongzhi, or Wangchi Shoukaku, is Dogen's sort of great-great-uncle in the lineage.

[34:39]

He was an abbot of the same temple that Muzheng was, but it was not the same direct line. You can see it on the chart there. And he was the the inventor, if you will, of the style of illumination sculpture, which was just the Rishikantaza. And there were ongoing dialogues that he had with Da Wu, who was, well, he spoke about last week, who was the propagator of the Buon practice and that other style of sitting. And they were friends. And Monchi Shogaku actually left his final instructions and caretaking and will, I suspect, to this fellow that he was having this ongoing discussion with. In the sense of dropping off body and mind, I exhilarate with, I'm not sure, I want to read a little bit more.

[35:41]

This is a great book, by the way, which Sojin really enjoys and reads from quite often on Saturdays. You must completely withdraw from the invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas. If you want to be rid of this invisible turmoil, you must just sit through it and let go of everything. Attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly, light and shadow altogether forgotten. Drop off your own skin and the sense dust will be fully purified, the eye readily discerning the brightness. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied. This teaching of casting off body and mind, articulated by both Hojur and Dogon, is the essence of silent illumination, which is simply focusing awareness on the totality of self to return to in an act of light, shining, and detail that is our own fundamental nature. Another way of looking at sound illumination is an object as meditation, but it's not a stage practice.

[36:43]

You need to go through various stages to develop degrees of somatosensory concentration or look through holes. I hope you'll take a little break. I want to read one more passage from Muncher, who kind of amplifies that sort of poetic imagery in his own style. A person of the way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere. The white clouds are fascinated with the green mountains' foundation.

[37:46]

The bright moon cherishes the interior along with the gold in the water. The clouds part and the mountains appear. The moon sets and the water is cool. Each bit of autumn contains vast interpenetrations without bound. Every dust is whole without reaching me. The ten thousand changes are still without shaking me. If you can sit here, and with stability, then you can really spend the rest of your day in the world of energy. There is an excellent saying, that the sixth sense doors are not veiled. Highways in all directions have no curtains. Always arriving everywhere without need is gentle without limitation. from the account of Dogen in China.

[38:47]

when he was at Mount Tiantan, not Baoyuan, but the monastery that's like a mile away, another temple, just another mile, maybe a mile, and that Tenzo actually came to see Dogen. He said, as the summer practice period has ended, I shall be retiring as Tenzo and plan to return home. I heard that you were here and wanted very much to talk with me and see how you were doing. I was indeed happy to see him and receive him cordially. We talked about various things and finally came to the matter he had touched on before the ship confirmed the practice and study of characters. He said, a person who studies characters must know just what characters are, and one intending to practice the way must understand what practice is. I asked him once again, what are characters? He replied, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. What is practice? There is nothing in the world that is hidden. And what that means is that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is symbolic of the phenomenon in the world and the relative growth of things that we have to engage in right now and make our peace with.

[40:04]

that there is nothing in the world that is hidden. It simply means that everything is a part of something that you went on. So what you get in the phenomenal world is the experience of a base that operates in your subconscious. So Udo returned to Japan. He didn't sell himself up as a teacher right away. He went to Keninji Monastery, where he had first studied Zen. And his traveling partner, Ryo, is an excellent guy in China. And he appreciated Ryo, so he brought the ashes back to Japan and buried them in the tomb of the temple grounds. And he noticed in a few years that he had been away that the temple practice had sort of declined among stars accumulating, laying in a nice black earth-like church or rooms.

[41:21]

And all that sort of disgusted him for a couple of days or so. And he just about left. But right before he left, he drove through Khamzat Khan Gate, which is a a basic manual of Zazen characters on how to do Zazen, of such and such weapon and ritual, basically. And it was, while it was his own creation, it was inspired from a Chinese meditation manual. But this was really kind of the first treatise on just Zazen in Japan. So really, at some level, a very important place to descend into the constitution. country's government. So he He traveled around to different temples, accepting invitations from various temples to practice there, but he was never satisfied with any of them.

[42:27]

And he finally established his own temple, his first temple in Japan, called Kusho Uriuchi in Uji, which is just outside of Kyoto. He was paid for by wealthy lay people, getting a certain degree of independence from the political and religious authorities in the country. And he was getting a lot of flack from the Tempei establishment there for teaching them because they were running the They didn't have separation of church and state there, as you can imagine. So the fact that he wasn't teaching the Timbale tradition raised light eyebrows there. I can't say exactly what flag he got, but it was unconfirmed that he finally actually left the area and moved to the countryside. He had a student named Kohan Eja who was two years his senior. Kohan was his senior student and teaching assistant.

[43:30]

He received ordination from Dogen and he was the first Shuso or head monk. Dogen invited him to give his first Dharma talk in these terms. I have asked the Shuso to help me with how the way of the Buddhists and the Patriarchs has always been practiced. Many people are awakened by following the teachings of Shakyamuni, and others by following Ananda, who is Shakyamuni's cousin. Shri Saru, don't underestimate yourself by thinking you are an unworthy vehicle for the Dharma. Teach your fellow monks. Tell them about Tulasana and how it successfully sees. And actually, that's when we have the breakfast period opening ceremony in just a few weeks. We'll hear Sojin and our dear Ekai Uchi. Ekai Uchi is a similar, our word exchange, as Loi assists in teaching us during this breakfast period.

[44:36]

So Dogon became more popular because of his understanding of the Dharma, his ability to teach, and his writings that he started creating, which formed the Shobo-Genzai, which is his focus of Buddhist writings. There was more and more tension in the religious community about this guy. And he had ordained a number of people. According to the records, he ordained about 2,000 monks and laypeople. And he received a Quayside honorary title from the emperor at this time. And what he did was he appointed a second, or named a second Dharma successor to take care of the temple. And a few of his most sincere monks left Uji and went off to Echizen Prefecture and took a way out on the edge of the blue docks. And there was a layperson there who donated some land.

[45:48]

And that's where he built the temple. that we are a medium of the two temples of Sakyamuni. And it was his teacher, Wu Jing, actually encouraged him to not stay in cities, to be out in the country in a way, and people would kind of find you there. But originally, he was in the cities where he had learned the practice. But as it turned out, if you were doing too much, he went out to He was pretty young when he died. He was only 53 years old. Fortunately, he was a very prolific writer, and so we have both of his teachings in books. I'm just going to quickly go over some of the basic teachings that he provided us with.

[47:00]

There is a sense of identity of self and others, which is the original spirit of Darwin's Zen. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. And to be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between the self and others. And this is why the core of the Buddha's teaching is that our suffering is caused by a feeling of separation of our self and the other person, other things, or our feelings. And so this teaching, the Genjo Koan is a long, well, it's longer than four lines, certainly. But this is sort of the core outline of that. I think Mel's even said that Genjo Koan is sort of the central teaching of Dogon and everything else is commentary. I think that these four lines pretty much get down to it, which is that when we come and sit that we're studying ourselves, or we practice in a zen-do or at home, that we study the ways of studying ourself.

[48:12]

And when we study the self, we see that we're suffering, in that there's a feeling of separation or anxiety or some kind of discomfort. And as we sit, we have the good fortune to have moments of forgetting the self. We're just being, we're just experiencing self-awareness. And when we have those little glimmers, either in thought or just in our day-to-day life, what is happening is that we are being enlightened by things. Things are coming so-called to us, and we are so-called to them as emerging self, other. And that is what some people call enlightenment or waking up or a cessation of suffering. And as I said earlier, the identity of practice and enlightenment as one thing is also central to Dogon's teaching.

[49:29]

We all came to Zen Center to get something. It's like, I'm just trying to stomp it in here. But for people who actually persisted here and continue to practice, that sense of what we wanted drops by the wayside. And we eventually just sit here just to express ourselves, just to be, just to be sitting. So it's not that there's something wrong with wanting to get something. But for practice really to manifest in a wholehearted way is just It's not getting something. It's realizing that the world is like this, and it's going to have to change that. There's an identity of precepts within Buddhism. Dogen was very strongly encouraging the students to follow the Buddhist precepts. So even though the precepts are part of the older school of Buddhism, the Vinaya and the rules, practices of the old teachings, the bodhisattva precepts, which is what we recite at the bodhisattva ceremony, and the four vows that we recite after lecture are important guideposts for our practice.

[50:45]

So he was encouraging the body students to follow that, and that they were an integral part of their practice. And when we do the bodhisattva ceremony, there is the negative, where the literal precepts, don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, and then the refrain or the line that the doshi, or officiating recite, is actually a quote of Dogen's, and it's a positive side, the all-inclusive side, that is brought to the light. The translation of Genjokulon is, there are a number of translations, one of them is, hopefully you remember, is the way of everyday life. While there's hundreds and hundreds of koans that one can study, and there's books about them, we know also that the Gedjo koan, or the koan of what is it, or who are you, is really the fundamental one that they all are getting to.

[52:00]

We cite, just in good ways these days, so it really gets down to the essence of who we are. How did you tie that in with where you were in most of the studies? Oh, OK, you're just, OK, because I, OK, that's fine. We were on this one, right? If I fell asleep for a minute. We didn't shift to the fourth one. No, I just skipped one. There was a scholar that actually outlined 11 different points, and I was going to skip a few because they're all good points, but it's a little tedious and not so important. So what point is this? The 1700 koans are an important aid to the realization of enlightenment.

[53:09]

Rinzai monks must find a solution to their koan during zazen. Doga stresses that the koan themselves are enlightenment, the practice is enlightenment. The solution should not be sought intentionally, rather as a natural manifestation of stonemason's practice of the light. Ginger poli is a colon of our everyday life, and in the spine, the answer is there. Poli functions can be helpful, but only if they're made relative to our own situation. I am going to end with a little bit about Hakurei Zenji, who is a Rinzai teacher from 17th century, 1685 to 1768 in Japan.

[54:15]

And Hakuin Zenji was a reformer of Zen in Japan at that time. Zen kind of waxed and waned in popularity and degeneration apparently during his day. It was faltering. So he is considered one of the great reformers. And... There's a wonderful quote that I like to read from a letter that he wrote to a layman. He also is a very prolific writer, and while he was certainly knowledgeable about the sutras and had monks practicing with him in a very rigorous way, like Dogen Zenji, He also involved himself with lay people and men and women. There was a very sort of humble way in which he kind of wandered around the streets of town, just greeted people. He wasn't like up in the mountains away from people.

[55:18]

He was a nice intimate connection that kind of reminds me of now when he rides his bicycle. or he goes up to the birthday ball and you can kind of see him around it. He's a very accessible practitioner at the night. So with Hockman's words, one day in Mino province, I observed a cicada casting its skin in the shade. It managed to get its head free, and then its hands and its feet emerged, one after the other. Only its left wing remained inside, still caught to the old skin. It didn't look as though it would ever get that wing unstuck. Watching it struggle to free itself, I was moved by feelings of pity to assist it with my fingernail. Next one, I thought. Now you are free to go on your way. But the wing that I had touched remained shut and would not open. That cicada was never able to fly as it should have. Looking at it, I felt ashamed of myself and regretted deeply what I had done.

[56:20]

When you think about it, present-day gun teachers act in much the same way when they guide their students. I've seen and heard how they take many people of exceptional talent and those destined to become the very pillars and ridge poles of our school, and with their extremely broad diagram and opportune level, end up making them into something they can't make and have achieved. This is a direct cause to the decline of our gun school, the reason gun guidance is already in place. As a young man, his mother, who was a pious Bhishma sect devotee, encouraged him to visit a temple. And at the lecture, he heard of the eight hot palms. And the little boy, the young boy, he used to catch insects and small birds and kill them.

[57:27]

But he soon began his own devotion to Buddha teaching. He had a lot of doubt and fear. And he practiced tirades with the hope of escaping harm, but was awakened to reality by a living hand. When a hot iron rod touched his thigh, he was in real strength again. He was a date of 13. When he finally began to cry, his body began to move. He had some enlightenment experiences, and he was looking for a He wanted to go to his teacher and get verification of his understanding. His teacher was named Othiel Edson. And Hockman, in his own words, said he was very proud of his realization. And his teacher saw that and would never confirm his realization.

[58:28]

He always called him a quirky little devil. And actually, there's no record of Haku Zenji being transmitted by his teacher. It was only later that people, just by their own understanding of writing, what people were saying, that they felt that he obviously got transmission from his teacher. There's no record of it. So while we look at Hakodate as a Rinzai teacher, he borrowed Tozan's writings on the five ranks and five positions as a way to look at koalas. And Mel actually taught a class on the five ranks and five positions.

[59:30]

I'm going to take you there to find it. It's over there on the wall if you want to check it out. So what he did was he systematized all the colons into various sort of groupings or stages for students' development and to whom they're understanding. And he used a sort of teacher's understanding of a relative and absolute with five positions as a tool to sort of pick apart these colons and make it very systematized and very and ritualized, in a way. And you can get a flavor of that if you read Hakuin, as well as Three Pillars of Zen, because that whole line there comes from a poem, a tradition. And you get a little flavor of that, as well as there's actually lots of literature about poems.

[60:33]

I don't know if there's a book about this. I'm sorry. Yeah, we've got 10 minutes left and then we'll make sure we're done. with the name of historic David Connolly. I'm attached to David Connolly because he's a literary man. He was obviously a sincere practitioner, and actually his family, the family of practitioners, it was he and his wife, his daughter and son, And there's a book called A Man of Zen. It's one of the stories of the lady in the palm tree.

[61:33]

But when he sank all of his possessions in the boat, he didn't want him to be burdened by numbers. And then he and his daughter went off and they made money by selling baskets that they wouldn't need because that was a very simple life that they lived. And for me, it's a... It's a short set of verses that does its own thing by expressing the affirmation and negation of the middle language, which brings all that. Levin Pond made this remark. How difficult it is, how difficult it is. My studies are like drying the fibers of a thousand pounds of rocks in the sun by hanging them on trees. But his wife responded, my way is easy indeed. I found the teachings of the ancestors right on the tops of the flowering plants.

[62:36]

When her daughter overheard this exchange, she sang, my study is neither difficult nor easy, and I am hungry, I eat, and I am tired, I rest. So that concludes the formal presentation of the worries of my class introduction to ZIP. And I just want to reiterate there's no unencouraged me. that the purpose of the class was to instill interest or to exert some curiosity, so to us, we'll delve further into the literature. I hope that that was done, maybe in part due to the rushes of some of the presentations, especially mine.

[63:46]

A couple weeks ago, trying to get through it all, but I'll do it as a curiosity. Find out, well, what were those stories about? What exactly was there about teaching? So the books here is one of the books that I think you can check these books out if it takes off. I'd like to encourage people, if they don't have a copy of the Doodrop, that's probably one of the best books to get. I was going to read from all these little flyers here, a little bit of each fascicle, because there's very simple, straightforward teaching of Zazen. There's poetic imagery. And I think everything in between is also essential to our practice as well, a little bit of history of Dogen. And Laurie reminded me, this is her favorite book, and reminded me how, what a great book it is, actually.

[64:48]

chapter length for the chapter. Right, for our class, yeah, yeah. And so you don't have to have a bunch of books, you can be able to sit there for several pages and it's a reader that does chapters of major teachers. And there are really a lot of writings that speak to women and lay practitioners, quotes from famous teachers, and that's helpful in a tradition given where so much of it is patriarchal and priest-like. So roaring scream, the Zen reader. It's out in Palerbeck. It's also heard in others. It's also fostered by speculation. So I'd like to open it up with any questions you may have had about this evening's presentation or former evening's presentations.

[65:54]

I'm being listened here to a 9 o'clock in between the comments. There's always somebody doing some kind of work. You know, you think about all those computers out there that people are in front of, and someone out there decided to formulate, put it in a way that makes it distills what his teaching was about. Some stuff is kind of made up.

[67:13]

I'm thinking of the story of Incubi-Cucumber, I think, where Tasselhardt is being established, and something about rules, and Suzukishi didn't really want rules so much, and he looked over and saw a room with the bristles down, and this is the first rule of Tasselhardt, the room should be handled down so the bristles are taken care of. to be able to handle the question. Yeah. So that's a new tradition. That would be our tradition 1,000 years from now. Let's start it. Yeah. Either he would have liked more up or less up. That would have made the class more accessible and less boring. I guess that would be something, wouldn't it?

[68:23]

Yeah, well I just remember my own, when I came here from New York, that I had a pretty strong reaction to the forms here, that it was very different in certain ways than what I had been accustomed to. So I think about when Melvin tells these stories of moving to Japan or the Japanese months come. The contemporary months come to our country and having to deal with the art style and what kind of adjustment. But I think at best, as Susan Joshi did, just accept this expression, this moment. And I think it's a difficult thing to do. But if you didn't have a TV, you had to say everything. Like, I know I'll talk to you. You want to hear it third-hand? Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because the stories we hear of Dogon is like a lot of forced energy. But then if you read, sometimes there's this really soft, really sweet way in which he presents his understanding.

[69:41]

And it was a real blend of those two lines there. Yeah. You feel because they're both very stern. Cold weather, snowy, ageing snow. There's a little bit of activity there. It's about a five hour bus ride I think from Kyoto. There's a little town beneath the hill, the temple, that does a bunch of curio shops selling Chachkis. But it's really beautiful. There's bamboo groves there. The bamboo is really high. It's kind of loose in the wind. It's really remarkable. But it is far away from the urban centers.

[70:42]

And it's just chock full. It's like Disneyland. It's like chock full of tour buses. It's constantly bringing people who are there on tour of nature just to visit as tourists. Yeah, right. Well, it was a custom there to actually receive a purple road from the upper end as a way of listening to it like the, what was it termed? These are like beyond the brown road. Right. In the literature there are a lot of monks that eschewed the the designation from the emperor of the establishment, if you will.

[71:48]

It's kind of revealed that they'll be able to be sent to the NBA. From the queen, a lot of people said they shouldn't have done that. The Rolling Stones would never have done that, but the Beatles did. The Purple Road? Maybe so. Until that emperor switched. Yeah, by the esoteric teaching, it's not our tradition. Well, if you didn't feel comfortable saying it, you can also, I mean, we didn't do an evaluation for you, but please feel free to write that down, because I'm sure Raul will be surprised to hear. Yeah, that would be good actually. Well, if you read enough of the books, actually the same names keep coming up over and over again.

[73:10]

Some of them did say that. Yeah. Yeah, when I first got involved with Zen, I remember hearing all these names, just kind of being overwhelmed, how do they remember all of them? And then after a while, it's just part of the fabric. It's like when I started the piece, I'm trying to remember all the different combinations. It's just kind of part of it. And if you think about all the things that we actually learn, the brain has a way of just incorporating that. And with notes and people's patience, as we try to struggle with the pronunciation, we'll be able to do that. So at the end of the shiso ceremony, the shiso holds up the staff. and bow a little bit and a humble gesture says that if I misled you, please wash out your ears and appear silent in the darkness. So as best as Laurie, in the present, so as Laurie and I tried our best to share our understanding

[74:12]

We're really sorry. We're just really sorry. And it's really great because the practice period started just a couple of weeks ago. Dear Ekai, Uchi is going to be there leading us all, so please look at your commitment to practice and really up to Andy and keep the temple going. 18, so maybe 4,000.

[74:41]

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