Well, first I just want to say that people who have just learned how to do ariyoki, I think that we will have some instruction, maybe tomorrow, to go over it again. for you so that now that you've had a little practice you can look at it again to see where you're missing the details. Oreoke is a wonderful way to eat our meals when we know what we're doing. We don't know what we're doing. It looks like a lot of fuss over a lot of details So once you have some feeling for the details and how one action flows into the next, then it becomes a wonderful way to do something.

[01:13]

So I think we shouldn't let you just fumble around forever. A follow-up should be good. That'll be open to anyone. We're all second city. Could be. We won't discuss it here. But from time to time I point out some things during the meal, which I think for most people is probably Maybe enough. But no matter how much we learn orioke, everybody does it their own way, eventually. I used to think that we could all do it the same way, but it's a losing battle. But anyway,

[02:30]

If we know the main points, even if you figure out some other way to do it that works, that's okay. As long as it works as well as the way that... Because when you do orioke, I don't want to say the right way, but the way that we learn it, There's no wasted motion. There's no, you know, fiddling around, putting things away and taking things out. It's one motion flows into the next without any wasted motion. And when you do that, you have this feeling of, a wonderful feeling of flowing with the movement. And then, it becomes very enjoyable. And you just do it without thinking too much about it, but with mindfulness, and it helps us to be mindful and concentrated.

[03:45]

So, with that in mind, I think it's good have some follow-up. Today, I'm going to follow up on something that I talked about a few weeks ago, which was the Shishogi. As I said before, Shishogi is a piece that was put together by the abbot of Eheji and the abbot of Sojiji, the two head temples of the Soto school, in 1888, something like that. During the Meiji period, in order to

[04:52]

give mostly lay practitioners a sense of the essence of Dogen's Zen. So these two abbots collected or they gleaned from Dogen's Shobo Genzo five points which they felt were the five main points of Dogen's teaching. And they put it into this paper called Shushogi, which means the meaning of practice and enlightenment. And these five points do not include Zazen. There are two or three translations of Shushogi, but people don't pay so much attention to them here. because we study Dogon directly and Shushogi doesn't seem to be that important to us, especially since it says nothing about Zazen.

[06:15]

During the Meiji period was when the priests were turned out of the monasteries, monks were turned out of the monasteries and were made to have families and this is where the family temple system became very dominant in Japan. And since family practice became very important, the temples became like little churches. And Zazen was neglected. And to this day, the temple system still exists. And all the temples have little zendos, but nobody does Zazen in them.

[07:20]

Or very, very seldom. Maybe they have... An old man will come and sit with the priest one night a week, Wednesday night. That's usual. So zazen becomes a small part of what the priests do, if they do it at all. So this shishogi was put together mainly for the practice of laypeople, who were not expected to do zazen. But it also applies to everyone, of course. And when I was in Japan, during this translating conference, the Japanese wanted us to do a translation of Shushogi because it's still very important to them. And so I thought it's a good idea to investigate Shushogi again, to look at it and to

[08:30]

talk about it, because it does contain wonderful points. And so we can study shishogi and supply the zazen ourselves. We can add that to the shishogi. The missing link. So I'll go over the five points, and I want to talk about, a little more in detail, during Sashin, some of these points, which I mentioned in my talk a few weeks ago. The first one is to clarify the meaning of birth and death.

[09:33]

For Dogon, that's the most important thing. And I think for any Buddhist, that's the most important thing. And I think that for any person, that's the most important thing, is to really clarify the meaning of birth and death. And various religions have various ways of clarifying that. I think Buddhism is the most realistic, in a sense. And then the second point is finding freedom through repentance to acknowledge our acts and shortcomings and to ask the universe or the Buddhas

[10:42]

and ancestors for support. And the third point is taking the precepts and taking the precepts and arousing the way-seeking mind, the mind of enlightenment. And the fourth is the vow to save all beings or to help all beings, to work on your own practice and through that to help all beings, save all beings from suffering and confusion. which is the same thing as clarifying birth and death.

[11:44]

And the fifth one is continuous practice and gratitude, a feeling of gratitude toward all those that are helping you and have helped you in the past. And along with that, to realize that this very mind is Buddha. So the two most important factors are to realize this very mind is the Buddha and to clarify birth and death. Clarify the meaning of birth and death. The other three are ways to help do that. Understanding that this very mind is Buddha and clarifying the meaning of birth and death are the two cornerstones of Dogen's teaching and of Mahayana Buddhism.

[12:59]

So I'll read you a little bit, it's not very long, of the first point in Shushogi. The thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death is the most important problem for all Buddhists, since the Buddha, which Buddha means enlightenment, Since the Buddha, or enlightenment, dwells within birth and death, and birth and death means delusion, here, these two terms, Buddha and birth and death, mean realization or enlightenment and delusion. Since the Buddha dwells within birth and death, the latter do not exist.

[14:18]

In other words, since enlightenment replaces the delusion of birth and death, enlightened understanding replaces the delusion of birth and death, which I'll talk about. Simply understand that birth and death are in themselves nirvana, there being no birth and death to be hated nor nirvana to be desired. Then, for the first time, you will be freed from birth and death. Realize that this problem is of supreme importance." This is a quotation from Dogen's Uchi. It is difficult to be born as a human being, let alone come into contact with Buddhism. By virtue of our good deeds in the past, however, we have been able not only to be born as human beings, but to encounter Buddhadharma as well.

[15:28]

Within the realm of birth and death, then, our present life should be considered to be the best and most excellent of all. Do not waste your time Do not waste your precious human body meaninglessly, abandoning it to the winds of impermanence. Impermanence cannot be depended upon, neither do we know when our transient life will end. This body is already beyond our control, and life, at the mercy of time, moves on without stopping for even an instant. Once the ruddy face of youth has disappeared, it is impossible to find even its traces. When we think about time carefully, we find that time, once lost, never returns. Faced suddenly with the prospect of death, kings, state ministers, relatives, servants, wife and children, and rare jewels are of no use.

[16:30]

We must enter the realm of death alone, accompanied only by our good and bad karma. You should avoid associating with deluded people in this present world who are ignorant of the law of causality and karmic retribution. They are unaware of the existence of the three stages of time and unable to distinguish good from evil. The law of causality, however, is both clear and impersonal. Those who do evil inevitably fall into bondage. He has, in parentheses, hell, but I use the term bondage, which is the same thing. Those who do good inevitably ascend into... He has heaven, but that's not really a Buddhist term. Buddhists have various heavens, you know, the 33 heavens.

[17:32]

Neither one of which are the place where you should be. I would say release from bondage. Freedom from bondage. Maybe that's heaven. Those who do good inevitably ascend into release from bondage. If this were not so, the various Buddhas would not have appeared in this world, nor would Bodhidharma have come to China. The karmic retribution of good and evil occurs at three different periods of time. One, retribution experienced in one's present life, retribution experienced in the life following this one, and three, retribution experienced in subsequent lives. For retribution, I like to use the word result.

[18:36]

Retribution, the way we use it, has the connotation of somebody punishing you. But result is impersonal, less personal. the karmic, not retribution, but karmic result, the result of your actions. When we do something, any volitional action, there can be an immediate result, or there can be a result further down the line, which you are all aware of. Or, in the second stage, there can be a result in the next the next form, or the next realm in which one's life force appears.

[19:45]

And then there can be a result in subsequent life forms in which one appears, in which the life force appears in some form. This is the first thing that should be studied and understood when practicing the Way. Otherwise, many of you will make mistakes and come to hold wrong views. Not only that, you will fall into evil worlds, undergoing a long period of suffering. Understand that in this life you have only one life, not two or three. How regrettable It is as if fruitlessly holding false views, you vainly do wrong, thinking that you are not doing bad, when in fact you are. You cannot avoid the karmic retribution of your evil acts, even though you mistakenly assume that because you did not recognize its existence, you are not subject to it.

[20:56]

I know a Zen abbot who doesn't believe in the law of karma, but is experiencing it painfully. So, you know, In India, in ancient India, reincarnation has always been a big... There's always been very much belief in reincarnation among people. And Buddhists, too,

[22:05]

have some of this understanding of reincarnation or idea or view of reincarnation. But strictly speaking, in Buddhism, we talk about rebirth, but not reincarnation. Rebirth is not necessarily reincarnation. I've talked about this before, that in the Mahayana, the term is more like action influence. All of our, the accumulation of our actions, our volitional actions, when at the point of liberation from the body, the dynamics of the life force continues in some way to influence another life form or other life forms.

[23:17]

And this is totally believable. What those life forms are, are up to speculation. So to say that I will be reborn, that this person will be reborn at some other time, is strictly speculation. It's a view, an idea. And we can prove that many people have been reincarnated, you know. And people talk about, what about Mozart, you know, who had all this music in his head when he was five years old. and Beethoven and various other people who come out speaking, you know, spouting history, you know, when they're three years old. I don't know how these things happen. And people say, well, this is proof of reincarnation.

[24:22]

Some person who has evolved was born into another form. And this is who they are. And the Tibetans sort of believed it. They go looking for the new Lama after the old one passed on. This is very interesting, but I don't know that it proves reincarnation. I don't know what it proves. If we stop there and say, well, it proves reincarnation, then we start thinking about what else it could mean. So when it comes to these views, I neither believe them or disbelieve them. I don't want to be proven wrong. But I'm not sure that I believe them.

[25:24]

So I just leave myself open to, oh, that's an interesting view. I won't say it's right or wrong, but our actions in this life are what we can study. If we study how the law of karma works in this life, then we have something to really work with. It could be that the patterns of this life extend into other realms of existence after this particular existence. Scientifically, the energy created by some existence is never lost. What happens to it?

[26:30]

interesting things, but I'm not sure what happens to all that. Anyway, it's reported that Buddha says understanding karma is the most difficult thing there is, and I believe it. So, we say in Buddhism, there's no birth and no death. The reason why that's said is because something is not born out of nothing. Something always comes from something. For everything that exists there's a cause. And something doesn't arise spontaneously.

[27:37]

There's no spontaneous origination. People have always believed in spontaneous origination. You know, some people used to think that maggots were born through spontaneous origination because you put garbage in the garden someplace and you put a candle up someplace and then pretty soon these maggots appear and they didn't relate them to flies laying eggs. They thought, well, maggots appear through spontaneous origination because you put the fruit there in the garbage can and then a couple of days later, there are the maggots. But actually, things don't arise through spontaneous origination. There's always a cause for them. So, human beings, or people, are not born from nothing. There's always a cause for birth.

[28:41]

And there's always a cause for death. So, birth comes about through a cause. When a being ceases to exist in this realm, it's a cause for some other existence, for the arising of some other energy. It does not disappear. So things don't come out of nowhere and go into nowhere. They come from somewhere and they go somewhere. Everything is a cause and a result. Everything that arises has a cause and is a result for the next arising.

[29:45]

So this is the law of karma, the basis of the law of karma. Buddhists sometimes say. It's not that you just appeared. The reason you're here is because you've always been here. You've always been here. But this particular form which you identify as yourself is unique. So, then we have to say, well, then who am I? What is myself that's always been here? So, Dogen talks about Buddha nature.

[30:49]

Within birth and death is a Buddha, is enlightenment or is realization. Or when he says Buddha, he's not talking about a Buddha in the sky. He's talking about Buddha nature. When Dogen says Buddha, he means, in this sense, Buddha nature. Buddha nature is the nature of all things, the basic nature of everything. And what each one of us is, is Buddha nature. If someone asks you, who are you? You can say, I'm Buddha nature. Don't say it though. But you can say so. You can say that to yourself. I am Buddha nature. That's who I am. I'm not Joe or Mary. I'm Buddha nature. Well, who's Joe and Mary?

[31:58]

Joe and Mary are Buddha nature. Buddha nature has always been here and gives rise to Joe and Mary as manifestations of itself. But because we identify so much with Joe and Mary, we have a hard time identifying with Buddha nature. So that's why we sit satsang. is to be able to identify our true nature. We forget about Joe, and we forget about Mary, and we forget about pleasure, and we forget about pain, and we forget about desire, and we forget about all the things that make us so happy and unhappy. And we just reside in our nature as ourselves, forgetting all about all that other stuff.

[33:02]

This is called dropping body and mind. And it's called the birthless and the deathless. It's called resolving the matter of birth and death. That's Zazen. We use it for various reasons, you know, to help our brain or Well, can you do things more concentratedly now that you've sat down for 30 years? No. It's still the same bundle. It has really nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with self-improvement. Although, when you touch your nature and let go of body and mind. Wonderful things happen, but it's incidental.

[34:07]

You shouldn't do it for those reasons. So, when did our existence begin? We can say, well, my existence began when I was born. Or my existence began nine months before I was born when my parents came together and provided the two parts of my existence. Or we can say, well, I existed in my grandparents before that. And you can just keep going back to Adam and Eve. You are Adam and Eve. We're all Adam and Eve. We're the last people and we're the first people. And we're all people and we're nobody.

[35:14]

But, so we talk about birth and death in several ways. There's, if we deny you know, the birth from my mother and the ceasing of existence in this realm called death. That's a little too not inclusive enough. We have to, yes, okay, I was born on July 9th, 1929. And I don't know the other date. Yes. But And that's my lifespan in this particular life. But it's not the span of my real life. It's not the span of my whole life. It's only this particular piece of time and space. And this particular form which is continually transforming.

[36:23]

So there really is no separate self. So who is born and who dies? This is what we should clarify. And we say conveniently, I am alive. I am here. That's the fact of existence. And it's also the fact of reality. Reality is the mark of reality. is impermanent. We tend to think that what's real is permanent. See, it's backwards. When we talk about reality, we want to talk about what's permanent. Isn't that what we think? This is real, you know? This is real.

[37:27]

This is real. It is, because it's impermanent. It's not real because it's permanent. Anything permanent would be unreal. So yes, we should understand reality and see reality with our naked eye. See things as they are, as it is. Having no self-nature and being impermanent and continuously transforming, and continuously eternal. This is eternal life. Eternal life is the life of no self. If you have a self, there's no eternal life. All you have to give up is this form.

[38:35]

and you have eternal life. But we want this particular form to have eternal life. It's impossible. This form is not this form. It's only this form for this moment. Why do you want to hang on to it? So we have to know how to live our life through what it means to let go of it. So this is also what we learn in Zazen. In order to live our life in Zazen, we have to let go of it. And we have to let go of it by being completely one with it, moment to moment.

[39:36]

That's how we let go of it. It's by living it completely. By living our life moment to moment completely, on the moment when dying, we live our dying completely. So Dōgen calls earth and death the realm of delusion. To cling to life and to cling to death, to be attached to life and death, that's the realm of delusion. But within life, to live life completely. Life covers everything. And when it's time to die, to die completely.

[40:41]

And then the realm of death covers everything. What else can you do? You can pray for mercy. But for a Buddhist practitioner to practice birth and death. To actually immerse yourself in the practice of birth and death is the practice. In Uji, this short vesicle called Uji, Dogen says, since there is a Buddha within birth and death, there is no birth and death.

[41:43]

since Buddha nature resides within birth and death. There is no birth and death. It is also said, since there is no Buddha within birth and death, one is not deluded by birth and death. These ideas were uttered by two Zen masters, Chao Shan and Ding Shan. being the words of those who have attained the way, they cannot have been uttered in vain. Those who would be free from birth and death must clearly realize their meaning. For a person to seek Buddha apart from birth and death would be like pointing the cartails northward when you wish to go south to Yue, or like facing south to see Ursa Major in the northern skies the cause of birth and death would increase all the more, and one would leave completely the way of deliverance. This is because the dualistic idea of Buddhism is, when you completely eliminate samsara, then you have nirvana.

[42:55]

In order to have deliverance, you have to shun the world or renounce the world. He's saying there's a Buddha right within the realm of birth and death is where nirvana is. To live life completely rather than trying to escape from it. But that doesn't mean to live life wantonly. It means to be completely alive. These two Zen masters were talking, walking and talking.

[44:01]

This is the story. And one of them said, since there is a Buddha within birth and death, there is no birth and death. And the other one was saying, since there is no Buddha within birth and death, one is not deluded by birth and death. These are two sides, right? And it's generally believed that one is right and one is wrong. But Dogen says, no, they're both right. Both of these statements are correct. Since there is no Buddha within birth and death, well, Mu Buddha, This can be taken in two ways. Since there is no Buddha within birth and death, birth is just birth and death is just death. Then if you see birth is just birth and death is just death, there's no delusion. When a thing is alive, it's alive.

[45:04]

When it's dead, it's dead. life there is death, and within death there is life. This is the most important thing to understand. The nihilists say, when you're dead there's just death and there's nothing. That's it. And when one is alive, it's just alive and that's it. But... Then people think that this is what Buddhism is. Sometimes. But this is not a correct view for Buddhism. Within birth is death, within life is death, and within death is life. And life and death are continuously practicing together. A moment of life is a moment of death. It depends on where you're looking at it from. We always take the standpoint of looking at birth and death from the point of view of standing in life.

[46:09]

We say, I am alive, right? And so, from our standpoint of I am alive, we see life as I, as what we are, and death is something else. But you can also take the standpoint of death and see, look at life and death from the standpoint of that death covers everything. When you look at birth and death from the standpoint of life, life covers everything, including death. And when you take the standpoint of looking at it from the point of view of death, death covers everything, including life. So, no Buddha is mu-Buddha, means Buddha covers everything. Actually, does the dog have the buddha nature?

[47:16]

Moo. Does not mean the dog doesn't have the buddha nature. Moo, buddha, means buddha nature covers both birth and death. Buddha nature and no buddha nature. No, for a dog with no buddha nature means non-dualistic buddha nature. In Dogen's fascicle on buddha nature, he uses this mu, and you begin to understand what he means, what Dogen means by mu. Sometime we'll study Dogen's buddha nature fascicle. So, it's not like life is near and death is far.

[48:20]

We tend to see it that way. Life is here, but death is somewhere on the horizon. I'm not sure exactly where. This cliff, you know, or this dark night. But actually, it's right here, moment by moment. We're in it, right now. And each moment we're coming to life, and each moment we're dying. So, one minute ago, it's gone forever. You know, in the Sando Kai, Sekito says it's like the foot before and the foot behind and walking, right? Here we are, we take this step into birth and this one is already in death.

[49:25]

And then we take this step into birth and this one is already in death. One moment, each moment is a moment of dying and coming back to life. So we should really be able to appreciate our life moment by moment. and to appreciate dying moment by moment. But we see if we can appreciate our dying moment by moment and appreciate our coming to life moment by moment, we can sit very easily. We can appreciate our life, both sides of our life. We can appreciate death, and we can appreciate life. And we know that life is in death, and death is in life. I used to chant a sutra that said, life is a period of itself, death is a period of itself.

[50:40]

that firewood does not become ash and does not become firewood again. I'm wondering if you would explain this to us. It has its own before and after. Every existence has its own before and after. You were saying, I feel as if I'm the center of the universe. And we all feel as if we are the center of the universe. The world revolves around you. The whole world revolves around you. And the whole world revolves around me. It's true, but it's not complete. Because if we think the world revolves around me, without realizing that the world revolves around everybody else, too.

[51:45]

Then we think that we're the center of the universe, but we're just the center of our world. So we have our own history and our own future, and each moment it changes. Each moment, it changes. As we change, our history changes and our future changes, or the possibility of our future changes. And we don't return to what we were. Firewood is in its own dharma position as firewood. And ash, we say, well, firewood becomes ash. But the firewood is just the firewood, and the ash is just the ash, even though, because of the firewood, there is ash.

[52:49]

But you can't say that the firewood becomes ash. You can say it, but ash is in its own dharma position, and it has its own past and future. It's like we look at a steer, and we say, that's a steer. We don't say, that's a steak, or that's a hamburger. I mean, sometimes you do, but it's a joke. You say, oh, look at that hamburger. But a steer is a steer. Then it goes to the butcher and gets killed. And then it gets chopped up. And then it's meat. And meat is not a steer. Meat is meat. You don't say, oh, let me have some of that steer. You say, let me have a steak or a lamb chop or something. Meat is meat. And there's some association, but lamb chops will never become lambs. Lamb chop is lamb chop.

[53:54]

It's meat. It's not a lamb. And tofu will not become soybeans again. And if you asked tofu, if you said, do you know that you were once soybeans? Tofu would laugh at you and say, Are you kidding? Do I look like soybeans to you? What about Tempe, though? Tempe talks back. Sometimes when I'm sitting and thinking about these things, I think of my children. And that's very important.

[55:14]

And it's hard for me to take that feeling and integrate it with just letting go. How do I let go? But if you have some, if you think about it, and you have some realization of the reality of life. You know that the children, the child that you want to hang on to, is not something you can hang on to. And this is one of the biggest roots of our problems with our families, is that we want our children to be a certain way, and we want to, you know, the mother wants to, oh, I wish my child would never grow up, you know, I want them to be the certain way they were at six. Life's not like that.

[56:18]

We have to accept and enjoy what they are now and let that go for the next moment. As someone said, catch the joy as it flies. Bye. Don't hang on to it. You can't hang on to anything. If you enjoy your own transformation, you can enjoy your children's transformation. We have to be able to follow our life all the way to the end, appreciating the changes all the way to the very end. That's practice. If we know how to practice our life all the way to the very end, then we can appreciate our life totally, instead of seeing it as something bad.

[57:19]

This is where we had practice. Practice to accept the reality and enjoy the reality, rather than seeing it as something tragic. Anyway, that's my feeling about it. I understand to go with the changes and enjoy whatever it is, you know, the last moments by letting go. This is, I think, a very important practice for Buddhists to know how to let go. And this is what we practice in Zazen. That's why we're practicing Zazen, in order to learn how to live and die. without regret. So it's just one breath after the next and you're offering yourself completely, you know, this good posture, you know, do your best posture means offering your best to the universe.

[58:39]

You could die at any moment in Zazen And everything would be quite nice. Ziggy, she gave a lecture recently. I edited this lecture recently. When you breathe out, this is dying. Just let go. And when you breathe in, you come back to life, surprisingly. What's the wonderful surprise? Oh, now I'm alive. I think I'll die again. I think we have to be able to air out life and death, you know, not keep it down and in this kind of hidden place and not talk about it, you know, and not... We have to get it out there and think about it and have some realization for ourselves. And just in the same way that we

[59:43]

and talk about anything else so that we can begin thinking about it openly and we don't get caught by it. Yes? Sorrow then is delusion. Say that again. Sorrow is delusion and attachment. Some sorrow? Sorrow. Oh, sorrow. Well, you know, we have our emotions, right? So sorrow is important and necessary, but it can also be a trap. So especially self-sorrow can be a trap. Self-sorrow is being sorry for ourself. So it's important to see various sides of something.

[60:49]

We're sorrowful for the Holocaust. Of course, when someone dies, we feel sorrowful. When Suzuki Roshi died, we all cried, even though you're not supposed to cry when your teacher dies. Everybody cried, of course. If you don't cry, there's something wrong with you. Everything, every emotion and every feeling and every thought is a possibility of being caught, gives us a possibility of being caught by it. So, you know, the trick is to be able to feel and to be able to think and to be able to emote without being caught.

[61:59]

And if you are caught, it's okay. Sure, of course, we all get caught. But we don't want to stay there. And so the other side is that everything bad that happens is also good in another way. It's also okay in another way. You know, someone dies, and the sorrow is ours, it's not theirs. It's okay. I mean, it's terrible, you know, it's awful. But on the other side, it's okay. Everybody dies. It's gotta be okay. Well, this is a question that I have some difficulty with at times, not just in a personal sense, but in a philosophical sense, because there are some things that happen that are very hard to see as okay, and there are some kinds of deaths that seem to mark the world.

[63:30]

In a way that, you could say it happened so it must have been necessary, but that's a little too easy. The event wasn't necessary maybe, but the fact that someone died was necessary.

[63:53]

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