I vow to taste the truth of the totalitarianist world. Good morning. Welcome to Sasheen.

[01:17]

Today I'm going to, can you hear me? Today I'm going to be commenting on Dogen's Ehei Shingi. As you probably know, most of you know, Ehei Shingi is a collection of Dogen's talks on practice as distinguished from his Shobo Genzo, which is more philosophical, so to speak. Not actually philosophical, but more mental, whereas ehe shingyi is more practical, practical side of practice.

[02:32]

But in the ehe shingyi, Dogen talks about examples of practice from the old ancestors. And he uses these examples to express how we inspiration for practicing the way. One section that Kastanahashi and I translated some years ago was the section on the six officers in the monastery. In the monastic setup, there are six officers who take care of the monastery, the business of the monastery.

[03:36]

the director, the work leader, the tenzo, the treasurer, the assistant director, and there are actually more than six, but we count six plus. These are the people who consult with each other every day and so Dogen presents examples of someone who is in a certain position and a story about them in that position. So I think I've read this, I've talked about this before, but sometimes I talk about something four or five times and someone will say, how come you never talk about that?

[04:48]

This is quite frequent. So you've probably never heard this before. He says, so Dogen says, this is an example of a great awakening while serving as ino, which we call the zendo manager. But the ino is actually, has a bigger role than just zendo manager, because in the monastic, in the monastery, the ino takes care of the monks, takes care of the practice of the monks. So it's a bigger role than just being the manager. So this is an example of Great Awakening while serving as Ino. Zen master Zewan Tugui of Longxiang in Wen province was an heir of priest Foyan.

[05:56]

Foyan was a very famous Zen master in China. Foyan Kingyuan. One day he went up to Foyan and expressed his understanding of everyday matters. Foyan said, you have reached the limit of your discriminating mind. What you lack is exerting effort in practice and the open eye. Tugui was then put in charge of the meditation hall as the ino. One day when he was standing, waiting on the master, he asked, what about the moment when one goes beyond duality? Foyan said, it's like making a sound with a mallet in the hall. Tugui did not stop pursuing his inquiry. In the evening,

[06:57]

Fo Yon came to the hall and Tu Gui asked the same question again. Fo Yon said, playing with words. At that, Tu Gui attained a great awakening. Fo Yon said, there's nothing to say. So I'm going to read this again. This is an example of great awakening while serving as Ino. Zen master Zhuang Tugui of Longxiang, Wen province, was an heir of priest Fo Yuan, Qing Yuan. He went up to Fo Yuan and expressed his understanding of everyday matters. What are everyday matters? Everyday matters are drinking tea and eating rice. and going to the toilet. This is a very well-known list of daily matters for a Zen practitioner.

[08:10]

It means just those necessary things, just those things that seem ordinary. Tuhui was kind of overlooking what's really ordinary. He was expressing his understanding, but he was expressing his understanding from a lofty position, you know, from on high. Tugui was a scholar and he did a lot of writing and so his head was full of ideas and full of abstruse commentary about Buddhadharma.

[09:26]

But he was overlooking what was under his feet, or under his fingers, or what was really close to him. So he was kind of distant from what was really close to him. So he expressed his understanding of everyday matters. Fouillon said, you have reached the limit of your discriminating mind. what you lack is exerting effort in practice and the open eye. So what's the open eye? Open eye is this one. The eye in the middle of your forehead. So when we look at each other, we don't see the eye in the middle of the forehead. a Buddha has the eye in the middle of his forehead, so if you look at the Buddha figure up there, if you get close, you see that he has an eye in the middle of his forehead.

[10:42]

This is the single eye, the eye that sees non-dualistically. That's the eye, So he says, what you lack is exerting effort in practice and the open eye. So what is exerting effort in practice? Well, we all know what that is. Do we? Is there anything that's not practice? It's something outside of practice. We say continuous practice. It's like seamless practice.

[11:47]

Continuous meaning seamless. And seamless is like a ball that has no seams. or holes. When there's a hole, we say that's leaking. Something's leaking. So it may be a samadhi ball. A samadhi ball is a ball where the pressure is has vitality. It's the pressure of total vitality. And the ball is the same size as the universe, which is the same size as a grain of sand.

[12:53]

It's zazen. It's expressed in zazen. This samadhi, this pressure, which contains the whole universe, is expressed in zazen. And it's balanced and total. So he's kind of criticizing the monk, you know. You have a good, your thoughts are taking over, your mind is taking over, and your practice is, you're overlooking the practice. You're overlooking what's real. You're talking about something that you're not doing. That's what he's saying. You're leaking. because he's allowing the mind, the thinking mind, to take over or to overbalance.

[14:08]

It's a kind of leakage. So the teacher is kind of admonishing him to put your finger in the dike, put a patch on the hole. so that the whole can be seamless. So that what you're saying is consistent with what you're doing. And what you say comes out of your activity rather than just talking about something. So correct speaking, correct language comes out of understanding. rather than talking about understanding or as an idea. It means being in touch with reality so that the expression expresses the reality.

[15:16]

So he says, what you lack is exerting effort and practice in the open eye. Thu Gui was then put in charge of the meditation hall. One day when he was standing waiting on the master, he asked, what about the moment when going beyond duality? Fo Yan said, it's like making a sound with a mallet in the hall. Pop. What is that sound? when Kyogen was sweeping, he swept a pebble which hit a piece of bamboo, went pop, and his mind opened up.

[16:23]

This is like hitting the board with a mallet in the hall. like hitting the Han. If you've been to Tassajara, you know the Han. Bop, bop, [...] bop. And just that sound, without questioning, without thinking, to let the sound be the sound. The mallet, the board, and your mind, All one piece. Tugui did not stop pursuing his inquiry. He didn't get it. In the evening, Foyan came to the hall, and Tugui asked the same question again.

[17:32]

Foyan said, just playing with words. You're just playing with words. At that, Tugui attained a great awakening. Foyan said, there's nothing to say. So what is this beat the drum or hitting the mallet, hitting the mallet in the hall? Hitting the mallet in the hall is every action that we do is hitting the mallet in the hall. Hitting the mallet in the hall means When you drink tea, you become one with the cup and the tea.

[18:34]

You drink tea with two hands. When we lift the cup, we are one with the cup. When we put the cup down, how do we put the cup down? What kind of sound do we make when we put the cup down? What is the feeling? between the cup and the board? Are we aware of the feeling of the cup meeting the board? Or do we just kind of put something down? And when we put it down, where do we put it down? Do we just put it down someplace? Or does it have a place in relation to everything around it? Each thing, each object has a place in this world.

[19:38]

And the objects that I come into contact with have a relationship with me. So when I'm dealing with objects, so-called, they're part of myself. The object makes me and I make the object. I make the cup and the cup makes me. When I pick up the cup, the cup is telling me something and I'm listening to the voice of the cup. It says, because I have this particular shape and I weigh so much and I contain something, you have to treat me in a respectful way that recognizes what I am. So I drink the tea, and the tea is offered.

[20:46]

It becomes transformed. It becomes a part of me. When I drink the tea, the tea permeates my body, and my body transforms it. It's no longer tea. So how we interact with everything, not only objects, but with each other. How do we interact with each other in a respectful way, respecting what each one of us offers or presents or is? Not just coming from our idea, but with actually an open mind, totally open mind, how we meet everything with a totally open mind so that we can see what things really are instead of just relating to things according to my idea of what they are.

[21:55]

So how we take care of things, how we walk, how we carry ourselves. As we move, we create, we bring the life of things to life. And how, we treat what we meet, things bring us to life. So form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. No person. So just because of circumstances, what we meet creates tells these skandhas how to move.

[23:16]

Because we're not fixed, we can accommodate to every situation. And every situation informs us how to move. So when we serve food, what are we doing? We talk about formality or non-formality and so forth. Formality helps us to practice. because it makes us conscious of how to move and how to relate and how to become one with things and how to include our surroundings in our action, in our activity.

[24:29]

The five skandhas plus our surroundings is what we are. We don't live in a vacuum. We live integral with our surroundings. When we live integrally with our surroundings, in harmony with our surroundings, we can let go of I, we can let go And then allow true self to emerge. Allow the true personality to come forth. The personality that's not trying to build itself up, doesn't need to have adulation, doesn't need to collect things,

[25:36]

doesn't need to be in some position, but simply moves with everything harmoniously. Because there's no self in it. Everything we meet determines what the self is. So Dogen says, Foyan was an excellent disciple of priest Wuzhu, Fayan, of Fifth Ancestor Mountain. Tugui, the student, received the blood spirit of the ancestral school and met this fine opportunity while he was serving as Ino.

[26:39]

That same person nowadays is called Gushan. Few people can be compared to the reputable Tugui when it comes to commenting and writing both prose and verse on the ancestors. In other words, now he can really do that because of his understanding. Do you have any question?

[28:08]

No. Does Gushan ever forget? Is he always aware? It's almost impossible to be always aware, but when Gushan So forgetting is like when you're sitting in Zazen. Do you ever forget? No, but you return, right? So this is our life, forgetting and remembering. Those are two oscillating Two sides of the one activity. One is remembering, the other is forgetting.

[29:11]

And they oscillate. So in Zazen, we make this effort to remember what we're doing, and then we forget, and then we come back, and then we forget, and then we come back, and then we forget, over and over again. So you're always climbing back on. over and over climbing back on. It's not this kind of path, it's like this. I was thinking when you were talking about the mallet hitting the wood that the Han calls us to Zazen. Right, when the han, when the mallet hits the han, you just put down what you're doing and go to the zen. There's a koan about that. Why, when the mallet hits the han, do the monks put on their okesa and go to the zendo?

[30:20]

I gave a talk on that one once too. As a matter of fact, it was printed in French somewhere. Too bad I couldn't read it. So we relate to a teacup in a certain way. And a teacup is kind of, in some ways, very stationary. It doesn't. Stationary? It doesn't think? It doesn't say something you don't want. So, and we're all Buddha. So, I think that I forget more often

[31:26]

I remember more often with the teacup than I do with... People. Well, you know, some people think that they like their dogs better than they like people. You know, because, I mean, dog always loves you no matter what you do. So people are difficult, much more difficult. So we have to work harder to deal with ourselves So people are also teaching us something all the time. Everyone is teaching me something. Not like the teacher, but everything I meet is teaching me something. So I have to get the message of what I'm being taught. The old saying,

[32:29]

Walls, tiles, fences are all preaching the Dharma. Everything is constantly preaching the Dharma. Everything around me is constantly preaching the Dharma. What am I hearing? If someone pisses me off, that's preaching the Dharma. So, how do I respond to that? How do I respond to that? How do I respond by preaching the Dharma back? You're not going to give us the answer. But you have to give the answer all the time.

[33:33]

And sometimes we forget. We always forget. And we have to remember. So the more we remember, the more reinforced our memory will become. The more effort we make, the more it will reinforce ability to actually respond instead of reacting. So preaching the Dharma is to respond rather than to react. How do you respond from your Buddha nature? So in other words, my vow is to act like a monk, to act like an ordained person. How do I do that? The story there,

[34:56]

he's made Ino. Yeah, what was his qualification? Well, you know, I can't say actually, but you know the positions in the monastery do that. But this is in China, this is in the 10th century or some 9th century or something like that. I don't know exactly what the nature of their practice was in that particular place at that time. We only have our own practices to compare with, right? So when we think about, well, what was the practice like, we But our practice has a lot of the elements of the ancient practice, but it's changed a lot too.

[36:03]

So I don't know why exactly it became, but in a lot of these stories, that happens. So-and-so became Tenzo, but it doesn't fill in all the details of why, but it's just rotation. Well, maybe, you know, or one of, actually, probably someone else would do that, but he might. See, in those days, the job, the activities, you know, included a lot of things that we would give to the minor practitioner, minor positions now. And also, sometimes the monasteries were eight or ten people. Dogen talks about that, he says, you know, doesn't matter whether eight or ten people and then he cites various sanghas of these famous Zen masters who only had ten people in their sangha, you know, or eight people and they did just fine, you know, but you know that would do all kinds of things that the Ino

[37:19]

Can you speak more about the effort between the remembering and forgetting? Well, there are two sides. One is remembering what your life is about. If your life is about practice, then pretty much, you know, you know what you're doing. And when you forget, something will tell you, right? I mean, like, you know, if you're driving your car down the road and you're a driver, and then you, you know, talking to somebody, but if you have good practice, you know that even though you're talking to somebody, you know something's happening there and you turn and pay attention.

[38:34]

So you have to keep, because you know what you're doing, even though you get distracted, you pay attention. Otherwise you get derailed. So the more practice you have, the more you remember. even though you may not want to. That also happens. You may not want to remember, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's when you come to a place where you have to make decisions and you have to struggle with things sometimes.

[39:40]

Yeah. That comes into the picture. You get distracted by something or turned on by something. you just have to, whoa, you know, come back. So the coming back in Zazen trains us to come back in our daily life to what we're doing. That's discipline. Discipline is, without discipline, we can't really practice. But sometimes discipline's hard. But still, without discipline, we can't practice. Discipline is an integral and important part of practice. Like in that struggle, in that time of struggle, where is effort?

[40:46]

What is the effort? Well, you know, yes, that's a good point. Struggling doesn't necessarily get you where you want to go. Sometimes you have to let go. You know, so that's a good point. When you find yourself facing something that's pulling you in a certain direction, to just stop. Right, just. And sometimes you can really save yourself by sitting zazen. That's always a good place to go when you have this conflict or you can't get your mind together, you can't get your feelings together, just sit zazen. I've done that. When I was just being pulled around, sit zazen, and I just sat down and said, I'm just gonna sit zazen until this is reconciled.

[41:48]

I won't get up until it's reconciled, and it worked. How long did you have to sit? Actually, not too long. Not too long. It works pretty fast. The fast pill. Yes. I find sometimes even discipline is easy to become lazy. Is what? It's easy to become lazy. Lazy. Sitting zazen day after day. Yeah. I often find that, you know, my body goes there and I sit. There's something to keep sustaining the effort. To sustain the effort to stay present. Yeah.

[42:51]

Well, you know, you go through periods. So the problem is, we start to judge, you know, oh, I'm not really making the effort. So you go through that period, and then if you want to continue to make the effort, then you do that. If you want to continue to make the effort, you should give yourself Zazen instruction throughout the period. You should do that anyway. Every time you sit down, you give yourself Zazen instruction, and you give yourself continuous Zazen instruction throughout the period. That's what we should do all the time when we're sitting Zazen, is always give ourselves Zazen instruction continuously throughout the period. That way, when your mind wanders, you're giving yourself that instruction and you come back.

[43:57]

Concentrate on posture. Concentrate on breathing. That's all. So, continuously micromanaging your posture. If you keep doing that, then your mind will stay in place, pretty much, and your attention will be focused on Zazen. So we enjoy the thought patterns, but that's the scenery of Zazen. Don't let it bother you, even though that's going on. It's okay, that's the function of the mind, is to produce those bubbles, thought bubbles, little bubbles, big bubbles, colorful bubbles. That's okay, that's its function, so let it, that's the background of zazen.

[45:03]

When it becomes the foreground, recognize it as the foreground, and then put your attention into posture and breathing as the foreground, and then the bubble bursts. But it's still going on in the background. It's always going on. The thought patterns are always going on. The bubbling is always going on. Just, if we get, getting caught by it means getting worried about it. Just don't worry about it. It'll always go on. You can't turn the mind off. You can turn it off, but so what? It's just another thought. Turning the mind off is just another thought. So think the thought of Zazen. That's what I say. Think the thought of Zazen.

[46:06]

Oh, Zazen. Sit like this, put the hands like this, and you know, just go, just give yourself intimate Zazen instruction all the time. Because that's what you're doing. Yeah. Is that another way of saying think non-thinking? Think non-thinking, yeah. Yeah, think non-thinking means give yourself Zazen instruction all the time. And don't worry about thinking. Just think the thought of Zazen. So thinking, not thinking, doesn't matter. Non-thinking. That's non-thinking. It includes thinking. Yes? Thank you. Earlier you were talking about how we handle or relate to objects like teacups. of keys to the zendo, leaving the rest of the keys out, not slamming them down.

[47:15]

And so I, for whatever reason, I tend to sort of listen and hear and see things plopping down, hearing keys and all that. And what comes to mind is that line in our liturgy is different expressions of the same reality. And why is it that we encourage people to lay things down a particular way and not just plop them down. These other encouragements that you and other teachers typically give us, it feels right for me. And so I feel kind of safe and comfortable and kind of empowered and encouraged in a when I see other expressions of reality that don't coincide, and yet this encouragement is still given to that one side, it's just that the other side is not. Not encouraged, but if you let it get you upset, then you have a problem.

[48:23]

It's just like the thoughts in your mind in Zazen. If you let them get you upset, you have a problem. if you are worried about, you know, or upset by the person next to you who lays down, who kind of throws their keys on them, and then you get upset, then you have a problem. It's your problem. I realize that, and you said that when you notice that in other people, that you come back to your own. You don't get into tripping out on this brother chief doing that, or whatever. And at the same time, we still encourage with the style of our practice. So why is that? Why is that or how is that? We simply do the practice and encourage the practice and those who see it, see it. Those who don't see it, don't see it. But nevertheless, by doing it over and over again, those people who don't see it

[49:27]

You can also say, you know, be careful how you set down your keys. You can do that too. Be careful how you set down your key. Don't bring a bunch of keys into the... Leave your wristwatches outside. But we do encourage people to be... practice, a harmonious practice with things and with each other. That's what we're doing. And to recognize, to see the Buddha nature in each shape and in each object and the function of each object. practice harmoniously with the function of each object. Why is that a problem?

[50:36]

Well, maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate, perhaps. I think, well, if I take off my scarf and I kind of bunch it up and throw it on the floor, that to me is a different feeling than folding it up and laying it down. And maybe that also would perhaps mean that if one is careful about laying down a scarf, they probably would be careful in relating to people. They relate to people differently than bunching up a scarf and putting it on the floor. And I also want to hold out judgment on that, and that it's possible to also relate to people compassionately and comfortably, even if the tendency is to bunch up and talk to them. That's right. I have a predisposition for holding And I really saw a lot when I was in China.

[51:38]

We went to these temples there. It's a very different style in Tibetan practice. It's like there's this Japanese saint, which is encouraging to me, supportive to me, and I think all the people here. And yet, what is keeping us from really seeing the different expressions of the same reality, and that as a flowering of Buddha, and not me, or Japan, or Suzuki Roshi, or that sort of stuff. Yeah, so you have to be strict with yourself according to what you feel is practice and compassionate with others when they don't meet the same standards that you feel are appropriate. I think that's what you're saying. Right.

[52:39]

I'm just sticking to my standards. I don't want to have my standards. As we all do, we have our predisposition. Well, there are people who have predispositions and then people who have standards. Some people are naturally careful. and tidy and so forth. Others are not, but they have a standard, so they come up, they make an effort to maintain that standard. We don't have much time. I just quickly, just listening to Ross morning, if he's asking whether taking care of the scarf is not It's like taking care of life. We take care of life, we take care of the spark. They're the same thing, but maybe they're not exactly the same. And he's asking about the way in which they're not exactly the same. Is that right?

[53:40]

Well, more about the person handling it. It's like, one would think that if... I think we tend to feel that a person who's handling the teacup gently is probably going to be gentle or harmonious with people, and people who tend to objectify or seemingly objectify scars or objects and toss them around might not be so harmonious with other relations with people. It doesn't necessarily follow. No, it doesn't. But we do encourage that. But still, we encourage that. It seems like with all these kind of issues, it's like that story where three Zen monks are supposed to be silent. And then one of them says, oh, that's great. We're being silent or something. And the other one says, hey, you're not supposed to talk. And the third one says, you two both screwed up.

[54:43]

It's like in each and so that all three of them ended up kind of predicting this practice. I think part of the point of that was that it's not just a question of that it would be good to be silent and it's bad to talk. It's like whatever the practice is determined to be, like you decided, then how do you approach the falling off of that? Because it's not just, if everybody was just silent, there wouldn't be anything happening. is a practice of silence in which some people will talk, accidentally or whatever, and then the question is, how do you deal with that? And that's part of the practice too. The practice isn't just being silent, or just saying, this is the correct way, and you screw it up. The practice is also, when this other person talks, how do you deal with it?

[55:45]

Do you just sit there, or do you whisper, you talk to later, and it's hard to, you can't just give a rule, but that's part of the practice too. So part of the practice is how do you deal with the clash of the keys there? Like, do you get upset and start mulling it over for 10 minutes, or do you just, and then go on? So there's that constant interplay with how you deal with the things that don't fit in? Well, when we are attached to standards then we have critical mind. So we have to be careful about critical mind because if you have standards of perfection then you want everything to be a certain way and when it's not that way then you can't stand it. Standards are not standards of perfection.

[56:49]

They're simply guidelines for how to relate. And guidelines are not rules, and they're not standards of perfection. They're simply how you stay in harmony with things, as a Zen student. What? What I wanted to say was I think we get hung up on being right instead of waking up. The practice is to help you wake up. If you make mistakes, that helps you wake up. And if you try to be right, you get stuck. Right. It's not really a matter of right and wrong. And the keys could work well. On that note... That will be in the next Koan book.

[57:51]

And he was awakened by the keys.

[57:55]

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