interesting weather. This is kind of like Dharma rain and you can tell it's Sunday because there's the smell of fried chicken in the air from the Thai temple. It's all pervasive. Dogen didn't ask whether the wind of the The frying chicken reaches everywhere. So we're going to continue. Yes? I actually had a question about yesterday. Can I ask it now, or do you want me to wait? Let me read something quickly and make a couple comments, and then before we go in, before we start the text. Can you make sure people have materials who want them? Yeah. If anybody would like the text, who who wasn't here yesterday.

[01:00]

We have extra copies. Ross, can you turn this down just a little bit? Sure. Thank you. Alright, I'm talking, I'm talking. That sounds, okay, yeah. Okay, can you hear? Good. I just wanted to read you something from, by the way, a couple of thoughts by way of introduction. We're going to continue discussing Dogen's fascicle Zenki and then move to Shoji. These are intimately related. In his editorial comment to Shoji, the Dogen translator Nishijima says this, and I think this is really good and relevant. Although the words life and death exist in all languages, Master Dogen says that we are not able to understand intellectually what our life and death are.

[02:07]

He says that their meaning is embedded in our real day-to-day life. In this chapter he explains life and death as the real momentary state at the present moment. In our daily life, life and death both exist in undivided wholeness. So to me the heart of this is we're not able to understand this intellectually and that the meaning is embedded in our real day-to-day life itself. That's part of the context of this making a mistake on purpose, talking about these issues. And it put me in mind this morning, yesterday I was talking briefly about Kategiri Roshi. There's another experience of Kategiri Roshi that I think actually speaks to this question.

[03:14]

And you should excuse me if you've heard this before. I have come to the age, actually if you ask my children, I reached this age probably about 15 years ago, where you only have a certain number of stories and you tend to tell them. And not only don't you remember whether you've told them before, but also where or when. So you may have heard this, but I was sitting I went to do Sesshin with Katagiri Roshi and Hokyoji on the Minnesota-Iowa border. This was in the late 80s. One day he said, tomorrow I'm going to tell you all about birth, death, karma and reverse. And we got really excited.

[04:19]

It's like, oh, now we're really going to hear what this is about. He promised us. And he was particularly going to talk about rebirths. And the next day he showed up and he kind of verbally rambled about for 15 or 20 minutes and finally said, I'm sorry, I can't talk about this. The problem is I believe and you don't believe. That's it. So we're actually left on our own to work this out. Dogen is is giving us suggestions and pointing us in certain ways. I also came across something, I was reading the brand new New Yorker, because there was an article that caught my attention last night, called How to Be Good, about an Oxford philosopher,

[05:38]

by the name of Derek Parfit, who I had never heard of. Have you ever heard of him? Evidently he's a very influential philosopher, but I don't read philosophy. So let me just read you what this woman writes really well, Larissa McFarquhar, and again this I think has some relevance. Suppose that a scientist were to begin replacing your cells one by one with those of Greta Garbo at the age of 30. At the beginning of the experiment, the recipient of the cells would clearly be you. At the end, it would clearly be Garbo. But what about in the middle? It seems implausible to suggest that you could draw a line between the two, that any single cell could make the difference all the difference between you and not you.

[06:43]

There is, then, no answer to the question of whether or not the person is you. And yet, there is no mystery involved. We know what happened. A self, it seems, is not all or nothing, but the sort of thing that there can be more or less of. When, in the process of a zagat, cellular self-multiplication does a person start to exist? Or when does a person descending into dementia or coma cease to be? There is no simple answer. It is a matter of degrees. That's right. Parfit's view resembles in some way the Buddhist view of the self, a fact that was pointed out to him by a professor of oriental religions. Parfit was delighted by this discovery. and he was delighted to find out that a figure like the Buddha, vastly removed from him by time and space, came independently to a similar conclusion.

[07:47]

Well, that was extremely reassuring. And then, later in this piece, she writes, it seems to a friend of Parfit's that his theory of personal identity is motivated by an extreme fear of death. But Harfet doesn't believe that he once feared death more than other people, and now he thinks he fears it less. He writes, My death will break the more direct relations between my present experience and future experiences, but it will not break other relations. My death will break more direct relations between my present experiences and future experiences, but it will not break various other relations." Then she writes, Some people will remember him.

[08:50]

Others may be influenced by his writing or act upon his advice. Memories that connect with his memories, thoughts that connect with his thoughts, actions taken that connect with his intentions, will persist after he's gone, just inside different bodies. And then he writes, this is all there is to the fact that there will be no one living who will be me. Now that I have seen this, my death seems to me less bad. So anyway, I thought that was relevant, this idea of what continues, who am I, and how we can't, both we know what our self is, we know what our life is, we know what our death is, and as Dogen is pointing out, it is always beyond our understanding.

[10:01]

So this is just sort of little appetizer before we go into this. Tamara, your question. Yes, I wanted to go back to the paragraph about the boat. Yes. Life is like riding in a boat. Yes. Although you row, the boat gives you a ride, and without the boat, no one could ride. I think that I was struggling with this. I guess I was kind of imagining a triathlon, Jogan's view of a triathlon. So you have a person swimming, running, biking. And each time, it's like being in the boat. There's no swimming. There's no, especially the bike. The bike is what you like to go. But it kind of seemed to me that it could be misunderstood. The metaphor could be misunderstood to imagine that you have a sort of immortal soul, like the man or the woman, the person riding the boat.

[11:03]

somehow has an existence apart from the boat. So I was kind of confused about that, because I'm sure that's not our understanding. And it made me wonder if there was something I was missing in the metaphor. I kind of understand the part about this whole world being born once the person steps into the boat, and the world kind of ending once you step out of it. But I wonder about... I think that the... You know, the reason that I don't think of it as this kind of immortal or essential you, I think that's what you're asking about. Well, something that gets reincarnated after you die.

[12:04]

Something that persists. You finish sailing the boat, e.g. you die, is the metaphor. But yet you go on and get on the bicycle. Some fairly intact, organized thing moves from one existence to another, even though each existence is Yeah, I mean he would probably say something to the effect that each of those is a different being. You know, it's the boat riding being and the bicycle riding being. But then there's the conundrum of the fact that something, we do have a perception of something continuing. Certainly not immortal, but there is something that we conveniently call the self and we recognize that's going from one of these triathlon activities to the other. And it has a momentary... I think this is what we're going to get to later in this, that one birth and death do not hinder another birth and death.

[13:22]

In other words, you are born and die within one activity, but there are many activities that each of us undertake, and they don't hinder each other. Does that make some sense? But they do condition each other. Yes, they condition each other. Yeah. So you're conditioned by what has come before but you're still fully free in your present. Right. This is what Dogen... I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Okay, can you say it louder? You are, your circumstances, your existence is conditioned by what's happened before, but you're still fully free within your circumstances.

[14:26]

If I was in jail the moment before, in the next moment I'm still in jail. So it ain't freedom, there's a lot of restriction on your freedom from the previous circumstance and the conditions that lead to the next. there are other conditions in jail. So you can feel free in jail or contained in jail, depending upon much more than just the condition of the structure that you're in. Well, yeah, I was just using that as an example. There's the whole mental Ah, but that, so did you hear that, what he said? Say it again a little louder. The most relevant condition, it seems to me, the condition of my present moment is my human karma, which is from the previous moment.

[15:41]

If I'm in a bad mood in the previous moment, I'm going to be in a bad mood in the present one so apparently things can change imperceptibly over infinite moments lasting five minutes. Right, so this is actually you're pointing to a central question about the Buddhist notion of karma. Actually what I'm getting at is what is the freedom that is being I was taking that word differently and I think you meant it. So Mary and then John. I think the conditioning is different than being determined. And that conditioning is not an inevitability. But it is a circumstance about which one is either knowing about or not knowing about or choosing about or not choosing about. Yes, I mean, if I didn't get enough sleep last night, then I'm tired, I have a choice.

[16:49]

That's a conditioning, but I have a choice about how to meet that with more or less freedom. That's circumstance, right? Doton, maybe, there's a choice. What came up for me in response to what you said, I don't know what you say. So if we're conditioned, this current moment is conditioned by the mood of the previous moment. If I'm in a bad mood, I could be limited by that. So how could I be free? How could there be freedom at the same time as I'm conditioned, as this moment is conditioned? That makes sense to me. But there's something about that that freedom may only exist may exist in a certain way with recognition of it. And maybe in the moment when we're totally under the thrall of conditioning of the previous moment, we're not recognizing the freedom.

[17:51]

I don't know if that makes sense. There's a lot of freedom in knowing that mood is not me. Yes. This was one of the things that was radical about the Buddha's notion of karma, which stood in opposition to the societal notion of karma that preceded it. Dharma meant duty and karma really meant your fate, which was determined by your last moment, your last life, and that the proper way to meet that karmic thrust was to live in the position that fate seems to have assigned you.

[18:57]

In other words, to live in your caste, to live in your job, to live in your gender, whatever. What the Buddha said, which was radical, is that karma is determined by past volitional actions. And in each moment, as it arises, you have a choice as to how to act. A couple of quotes from a different context, but probably relevant. Hegel says, freedom is awareness of necessity. And Marx said, man makes his own history, but not under the conditions that he chooses, or within conditions that he doesn't necessarily choose. I don't think you and I have talked about this.

[20:01]

I gave a talk here, there's this Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar, Neland Suarez, who passed away a little while ago, who was a Marxist. And that's exactly what he's doing. He's not putting forward a political philosophy, but he's looking at conditionality and the possibility of freedom even within those conditions, including social conditions. And he's arguing that the Buddha did that. There was a dimension of his teaching that was socially radical because it was actually attacking the ideological heart of the caste system. But this is a little off-topic perhaps. But I'm thinking about what you said about I'm still in jail. I teach at this prison and one of the things that came up last week was just we had a discussion.

[21:12]

I said, well, why are you here? Why have you come to this meditation group? And it was precisely about finding some measure of freedom within the conditions, which they were acknowledging, and I was acknowledging, is the conditions are oppressive. They're about social control, they're about punishment, and in some cases they're legal punishment for crimes that actually have been committed. But still, how do we turn this within our lives? It's okay, I'd like to go on. So, moving through... I'm on section... I think it's section 8?

[22:18]

This being so... Is that eight? This being so, the undivided activity of birth and death is like a young man's bending and stretching his arm. Or it is like someone asleep reaching with his hand behind his back for the pillow. This is realization in vast wondrous light. What Sojan says in the lecture I was quoting is, he's talking about the bending and stretching the arm, or bending and extending the arm. One position is like birth, the other is like death. These are movements of the same arm.

[23:22]

That it can move this way, it can move this way, same harm. And he's not saying, and we can't say which one is life and which one is death. It's just it has this potentiality for contraction or expansion. And this is, let's see, Yes. While you're searching, may I say something? I had an interesting experience this morning while getting a key. Okay. And that was, you know, I bent and stretched my arm. I didn't think anything about it. And as I looked for the key, out came a key and it had the name of someone who used to live here, who's now deceased. Dolly's name was on the key fob.

[24:26]

And so I'm thinking about how Dead or Alive, that koan, and how in this sangha there are a number of people who have passed away. We have Rebecca's statues and sangha members' pictures in the garden shed. I wonder if that some kind of enactment of that koan, dead or alive, you know, because Dali's name was there and I, you know, it stimulated these thoughts and memories about Dali and her passing and so on and how sometimes I felt her presence here. So that was a Zen key. You don't know how much money I gave her to do that, do you?

[25:32]

No charge. Yeah. And that seems to me to be related to what Parfit was saying in that New Yorker article, that in that moment, Dali is alive to you, right? And comes back very vividly. You know, as we were talking about Rebecca yesterday, I was remembering her very clearly, I'm sure other people were. That's a kind of life. It's certainly, it's alive, it's a life that extends, what I like about the carpet piece is like, it's a life that exists within other bodies. you know, that physical body dies, is gone, but her life persists in other various ways.

[26:37]

The quotation, just to say, I'm looking for a citation, this bending and extending, Dr. Abe says, it's from the kamarā-yojo-kyo, a meditation sutra. But he says the same thing, bending and extending are both total activities of the same arm, which do not hinder each other. Just as birth and death, the two great movements of the universe, are each total, mutually unhindering activities of that universe. And then the second expression, we've heard before. It was like someone asleep reaching with her hand behind her back for the pillow. And that's referencing case 89 in the Blue Cliff Record, the hands and eyes of great compassion.

[27:46]

What does the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara do with her thousand hands and eyes and actually the person who's responding is also Dau from the condolence call. This is his koan and he says, it's like reaching around in the middle of the night for a pillow. This is For some reason this is always a very powerful image to me because you do this, it's like, it's as if it were in Zazen. It's like we go through a 40 minute period of Zazen and what happened? Who knows? Just like when in our sleep we don't know what happens.

[28:51]

but we just automatically reach around behind our head to put the pillow at just the right angle to give ourselves ease, right? And unlike our conscious waking life when we're sometimes dogged by self-consciousness and questions of self-worth, there's not a person in this room, or in the world, I think, who wakes up enough to ask themselves the question, do I deserve to put my head at a comfortable angle? We do this with other things. Do I deserve to be at ease? Does this other person deserve to be at ease?

[29:58]

There is no thought about that. You just do this. And you do it unthinkingly, automatically and perfectly. That is the meaning of this phrase. The point is that it's this automatic unquestioning... The meaning of the phrase is that it's automatic. That the Bodhisattva's activity is... And direct. Yeah, exactly. Automatic, direct. And she has all of these arms. And the way that the koan continues... Ngan says... And Dogo says, how do you understand this, what I've just said? And Angan says, well, it's like having hands all over your body. And Dawu says, well, you've got half of it.

[31:01]

And Angan says, well, what's the other half? He said, all through your body. our hands and eyes. So your entire functioning, this gets back to Zen Ki, your entire functioning is about creating, without thinking, creating a harmonious, a unified activity in your body. gave a talk in which he used the example of, like, you step on a thorn. It was gill, wasn't it? Yeah. And so you pull out the thorn. Right. And I can't to make Buddhism, or some aspect of Buddhism, so elementary and commonsensical that there would be no question about it.

[32:33]

You would just say, of course, you pull out the thorn. And maybe it's hard to pull out, or da, da, da. But it's just an automatic thing that you do. You wouldn't have to justify it. with this? Yeah, I think it's similar, and of course, pulling out a thorn is probably not as straightforward and simple as that, but in a narrative way it is. And yes, it's just very direct. To me, this is a very direct koan. And Gil's Vipassana approach is very nuts and bolts. It's very direct. That was what was, to me, very refreshing. Whereas we tend to circle around and we have a different kind of discourse.

[33:36]

In that case, it's a kind of automatic response. But I think that the response, What Dogen is pointing at here, I think, is true in both cases. You do what you're trained to do. Some things are trained by your actual physical body, so there's a form you would instinctively pull it out, if you had the means to do that. Other things we're trained to do, we're so... the complexity of, say, something, the life of a Sajin is so complicated, you know, you've been a head server for the last two days. You're really well trained as head server. You don't think so much about, I would guess, about the particular steps of that activity, right?

[34:45]

because you have them in your body. And this is one of the things that we're trying to do with practice, is to develop this sense of appropriate action in our body in a very wide way. And that's a manifestation of our life. It's like someone reaching around with his hand, with her hand behind her back for the pillow. And then the final piece of this is, this is realization in vast wondrous light, which is one of Sojin's favorite koans. This is, it's a reversed Buddhism is always talking about light. And in this case, one reference would be case 86 in the Blue Cliff Record, Yunmin's Light.

[35:59]

Yunmin taught, everyone has her own light. When you try to see it, you can't. The darkness is dark. dark. Now, what is your light? So again, this is like... You could call the light our life, and you call the darkness our death, but they're not separate. They're part of one reality. Everyone has their own light, And also everyone has their own darkness and shadow. And then in the next section, he gets to the conclusion.

[37:01]

He says, about just such a moment you may suppose that because realization is manifested in undivided activity, there was no realization prior to this. In other words, everything moves towards one realization, but what he's saying is, however, prior to this realization, undivided activity was manifested. There's realization after realization. There's realization possible realization meaning your awareness of the moment that you're in or as we were saying yesterday perhaps you can't say whether it's your awareness or it's your memory of just infinitesimally the moment before because as soon as the mind works

[38:04]

we're in the next moment. He says, but undivided activity manifested previously does not hinder the present realization of undivided activity. Because of this, your understanding can be manifested moment after moment. And that's his conclusion. That's a really great response to the question of being in a bad mood. The bad mood does not hinder you from waking up to what's going on. I think there is something about awareness of your bad mood that completely changes it.

[39:08]

Well, it can. It also strikes me as in Tamar's Go Back to the Triathlon you actually have to demonstrate your ability in these different modalities of action and one being skilled at one doesn't necessarily imply that you're going to be skilled at the other one. And you have to move seamlessly from one to the next, functioning. One of the things I was realizing last night, thinking about both this and Shogi, which we will move to, in a few minutes, is that, and then trying to think whether this held true for other fascicles of Dogon, and this is just my thought of the moment, is that there's a motion in this fascicle and in Choji from beginning with like this great complexity

[40:20]

where you can hardly get your mind around what he's talking of. And moving towards a more practical and straightforward conclusion that points towards practice and points towards something you can do. And I thought of this in relation to say, an improvisation, a musical improvisation, thinking how I construct a guitar solo. And, you know, a lot of improvisations move from... they'll state the melody and move towards increasing complexity. And just... not the way I've done things.

[41:24]

Usually, when I play, it moves... At the end, what I'll do is something fairly simple and clear, melodically clear. And that was just... I mean, I never thought about it, but that was just a sort of intuitive thing. But I realized, thinking about this, is, well, it's nice to leave somebody with a melody. or it's nice to leave someone with something that's been really plainly or simply stated because then that sets the stage for then they can move to the next moment. So that may be over generalizing but I think in both of these just till this one closes but undivided activity manifested previously does not hinder the present realization of undivided activity.

[42:26]

Because of this, your understanding can be manifested moment after moment, which means we have the opportunity not to get in our own way, but to actually find freedom even in circumstances that look very difficult. And then at the end of Shoji, as we'll read it, there's an easy way to become a Buddha. And then he gives you this kind of shopping list of activities after beginning in a very complicated way. So, tomorrow. I was just going to comment. I think it's kind of interesting that It uses being asleep as an exemplar of realization, because usually we talk about awakening, waking up from our dream and being awake, and in this section it's being asleep that is realization.

[43:32]

It's our activity while we're sleeping that is most realized. It's just interesting to me that he kind of turns that really conventional image of realization on his head like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, he certainly is known for doing that, but this is even more unusual. It's pretty much on its head, but, you know, he's also pointing to something that we can all recognize in a human way, I think. I'm not recognizing it. It's not obvious to me that this person reaching behind their head is asleep. It's just something that, I mean, I imagine me doing and I'm not necessarily asleep. It's an instinctive activity. But maybe they were asleep. I'm not saying that that isn't what's going on. It says right here, asleep. It says on the paper, asleep.

[44:34]

It doesn't say that. It does. It does. Or are you reading? This being so, the undivided activity of birth and death, like a young man bending and stretching his arm, or like someone asleep. Wake up! Go back to sleep. Here's my question about this. Why is that realization? And what's the connection between that and life? You talked about what life is in various different contexts, but you didn't say why this is an example of light, not only light but wondrous light, and why this instinctive unconscious activity is realization, which is something that seems to me is supposedly unlike enlightenment, is something you actually cognize. I can live an enlightened life and be enlightened according to Sajjan, but realization is understanding something.

[45:35]

That's many questions. Just answer any one of them. That's what I don't like about Dogen. He says things that are obvious. Like, birth doesn't hinder death. I didn't need to be told that. Birth and death both happen. But that seems to be something important to say, an important point he has to make after saying something else. I don't see the connections between his statements very often. To me, I think this statement is being used to see it concretely and to see it metaphorically at the same time. What we're looking at is human activity, is human life. That's the whole subject of this.

[46:42]

This leads directly to the next piece because this is the fundamental question that's posed at the beginning. Is this realization? He's saying it is. He's saying, try looking at it that way. Try looking at it from the standpoint of, it's a miracle that you can do this. So, thinking about Kinyin, seems like a very simple activity. Once you start really looking at the unlimited complexity of taking a step, then there's realization within that. It's like saying, just being conscious of your in-breath and your out-breath is wondrous realization also. Yes. I think that's what he's saying.

[47:48]

This realization is vast, wondrous light. There's a moment, there are moments when You feel this light. This is just completely... I can take a step. This is completely amazing. Usually we take it... The thing is, usually we take this for granted. But he's kind of insane. It's not something special. And yet, it's extraordinary. At the same time. There's a simultaneity, I think. When I did Case 89, I seem to recall that the translation I used that was given to me was, it's like someone in the middle of the night reaching behind their head for a pillow, which sort of seems to refer to that liminal state between waking and sleeping.

[48:50]

I agree, yeah. I don't know about sleep, frankly. You have to work either way anyway. Yeah, I mean it's like, that's the sort of translation that I've seen. It's like, you're sort of half asleep. You're in this liminal state, you're in between, but you don't... It's like your conscious mind is not able to, it's not functioning to make sense of what you're doing. But something in your body is saying, put me at ease. And something in your body is not consciously responding, not saying, OK, I'll do that. It's just doing that. Ronnie? Well, I think this is about intuitive behavior and how it's experiential and it's beyond words. Thank you, Dogen, for so many words. There it is. It's something, and I think it's something that

[49:52]

we all have done and we're not editing, we're not commenting on it, we just do it. And also for me it speaks to that state of being in an activity and maybe it's something that you have learned so well that you can do it without guiding yourself by intellectual thought and you drop away somehow. And somehow there is then only the activity, rather than a commentary going on about the activity, or anything else, actually. It's just the activity. I don't know if this is relevant, but for some reason, the way that we do forms, it never occurred to me that the way that one does forms could change depending upon the inner state one was in.

[50:56]

I know that sounds kind of ordinary, but I mean I was thinking about it in terms of doing ariyoki and thinking about it from the point of view of doing everything just right and having that energy versus doing ariyoki and doing it because one is feeling lovingly toward one's bowls or food, that there's a sense of kind of pervasive enjoyment or gratitude or some other that is not about the rightness of it or the correctness of it, that there's a different, even though you would do the same movement, that it would shine differently or look different somehow, or feel different. Well, I think Suzuki Roshi said something that, you know, when you're Basically, I don't remember the exact quote somebody might, you know, when you're sitting zazen, upright facing the wall, when everyone is doing that, then I can see how you are.

[52:00]

You know, I can see in that unified activity, which in certain sense is the same, he was able to see the particularity of each person's state. That's what he's saying anyway. And I think that is something that is about how we manifest the forms. And I think, just to say, aspects of practice that's coming up is for the forms in our heart and our heart in the forms, how we manifest them, not how we do them right or wrong, but also within that, how we're caught by right and wrong, and how we're free from right and wrong. How about just one sentence out of section seven?

[53:10]

Even though there's many sentences there that I wonder why he's saying that. But just this one is the worst. There is undivided activity in what is not birth and not death. I'm surprised to hear him say finally there's something that is not birth and death. Let me look at another translation, OK? Yeah. Not true. OK. I mean, this is this is the answer to me. No, I mean, right. Ross is always right. It's just like these other. No, no, no. Yeah, exactly. It's not. We're saying it's. in A, and it's in not A, and it's in neither A nor not A, and it's in both A, right?

[54:13]

Yeah. But not birth is not ... it is like the Heart Sutra in that it's ... okay, don't get caught on something called birth as apart from the whole works. Which includes birth and death. birth-and-death. Mia? Yeah, it's really funny to think about this. Oh, this is so... What a strange, obvious thing to say. That whole quality of Dogen that you were talking about yesterday, where he covers all of the bases. I'll say it's this, and then I'll say it's not that. Because then, when you were reading that philosopher earlier, the main thing I noticed was how he had this idea of death as living on, and he's living on in other bodies. But then, it occurs to me that then when somebody pointed out that this was the way that the Buddha thought about death, that he said that it was assuring to know that somebody else independently came to that same conclusion, instead of saying what seems obvious to me, which would be, oh, I must be one of those other bodies that the Buddha was talking about.

[55:33]

It was just really, I was like, oh, wow. And then so in that sort of leaving that out, or not immediately going to that inclusion, but instead being assured of his independent thought, or his particular abilities, or something. I think he thought it was independent thought. Because he didn't know anything about Buddhism. And I think. I don't know, and looking at other stuff in this article, I don't exactly understand his thinking, but he didn't come to it by way of Buddhism. Now, Buddhism may have been in there, but also Buddhism is not the only intellectual tradition that would have these ideas. It comes through all kinds of philosophical traditions and religious traditions.

[56:36]

It's not unique, but he felt reassured that 2,500 years ago somebody came to a very similar conclusion. That's understandable. I guess I'm not really talking about the intellectual part so much. I like more his idea about that somatic or physical quality of it. Like, do you find the key? to Ali's name, it's different from just like an intellectual regression. And so it's just interesting. There's no reason why he couldn't have said, oh, Well, then I must be one of those other bodies. Well, if you read more of this article, you see this guy's not living too much in his body. Somatic perceptions are not his strong suit. OK, let's take a breath. And then I'd like to read Shoji so that we can sort of begin this.

[57:46]

I'd like to get to a bit of it. OK? Just stop and take three breaths together. So, um... You have the translation of Shoji? Let's start, let's go up the row from Marie and just read a section at a time. Is it broken into sections?

[58:47]

Mine isn't broken. And just follow along. Okay. Marie, why don't you begin? Because a Buddha is in birth and death, there is no birth and death. It is also said, because a Buddha is not in birth and death, a Buddha is not deleted by birth and death. You should certainly not neglect them, because they are the words of those who attain the Way. Those who want to be freed from birth and death should understand the meaning of these words. If you search for a Buddha outside birth and death, it will be like trying to go to the southern country of you, with our spear headed towards the north, or like trying to see the Big Dipper while you are facing south. will cause yourself to remain all the more in birth and death and lose the way of emancipation.

[59:51]

Just understand that birth and death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided. There is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth and death. It is a mistake to suppose that birth turns into death Birth is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future. For this reason, in Buddhadharma, birth is understood as no birth. Death is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future. For this reason, death is understood as no death. desire them.

[60:56]

This birth and death is the life of Buddha. If you try to exclude it, you will lose the life of Buddha. If you cling to it, trying to remain in it, you will also lose the life of Buddha, and what remains will be the mere form of Buddha. Only when you don't dislike birth and death, or long for them, do you enter Buddha's mind. However, do not analyze or speak about it. Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha. Then all is done by Buddha. When you follow this, you are free from birth and death, and become a Buddha without effort or calculation. Who then continues to think? There is a simple way to become Buddha. When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors, and kind to juniors, Not excluding or desiring anything, with no desiring thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha.

[62:01]

Do not seek anything else. So again, I see this kind of motion of moving from complexity to a kind of clear statement of what you can do to practice. There is some supposition that the ending really has the flavor of Shin Buddhism. And there is some speculation that the actual provenance of Shoji is not clear. where it was written and when. But Dr. Abe and I guess some of the Japanese scholars speculate that this was a talk that he gave at a Shin Buddhist temple, which is why he is emphasizing this side of throw yourself into the house of Buddha, which is very much a Shin Buddhist

[63:21]

concept, kind of this concept of surrendering to Amida Buddha. And we don't really have evidence, but what I'd like to read for you is, this is a koan. I was talking with Sojan about it, and he said, of course, it's a koan. So this is the unpacked, this is Dogon's unpacking of a koan in the record of Zen master Dame. And there's a bunch of stuff about Dame in Annie Ferguson's book. What is it? The Chinese Heritage? Zen and the Chinese Heritage. So, let me read you the story.

[64:24]

And it's the story that is the whole version of those first two lines. Because a Buddha is in birth and death, there is no birth and death. It is also said because a Buddha is not in birth and death, a Buddha is not deluded by birth and death. As the monks Jāsan and Dīngshan were traveling together, they had a discussion. So they're walking along together in the Chinese countryside. Dīngshan said, when there is no Buddha within life and death, then there is no life and death. Jāsan said, when Buddha is within life and death, there is no confusion about life and death. The two monks couldn't reach any agreement, so they climbed the mountain to see Dāme Phāsan.

[65:29]

Jāsan raised their question with Dāme and asked, we'd like to know which viewpoint is most intimate. In other words, who's right here? Dāme said, this is an interesting response, he says, Go away, come back tomorrow." And the next day, Jāsana again came to Dāme and raised the question of the previous day. Dāme said, the one who's intimate doesn't ask. The one who asks isn't intimate. And then in parentheses it says, years later, when Jasana was inhabited, he said, at that time I lost my eye. Dr. Abe says, I translate this, at that time I lacked the eye.

[66:54]

It's a little different. So, let me read it again and then I think this is a good place to stop. come back later not to take Dame's position. I think it's you know this why he sent him away is really to me that's like the the pivot of this you know it's like and I'm curious to know what you what you think about that. As amongst Jashan and Dingshan were traveling together they had a discussion. Dingshan said When there is no Buddha within life and death, then there is no life and death." Jāsana said, when Buddha is within life and death, there is no confusion about life and death. The two monks couldn't reach any agreement, so they climbed the mountain to see Dāme-paśāna.

[67:59]

Jāsana raised their question with Dāme and asked, we'd like to know which viewpoint is most intimate. Dāme said, go now, come back tomorrow. The next day, Jāsana again came to Dāme and raised the question of the previous day. Dāme said, the one who's intimate, which is Dīṁśana, doesn't ask. Well, the one who doesn't ask is Dīṁśana. Let's say that. The one who's intimate doesn't ask, and the one who asks isn't intimate. Years later, when Jāsana was abbot, he said, at that time, I lost my eye, or I didn't have an eye. I realized I didn't have an eye. Yeah. I lacked an eye. At that time I lacked the eye. Just not to leave it hanging totally here. Dr. Abey writes, while both Jashan and Dingshan refer to the idea that samsara is nirvana, nirvana is samsara,

[69:06]

The former speaks of liberation from birth and death, emphasizing that Buddha is not apart from birth and death. The latter indicates that same liberation more clearly, emphasizing that birth and death is absolutely birth and death, without respect to Buddha or anything else. In the full episode quoted above, Dāme says, one is close and one far, but Dogon judges them as equal, emphasizing the non-duality of saṁsāra and nirvāṇa, and especially to show that not hating saṁsāra and not desiring nirvāṇa is the attainment of the Buddha. I think we'll stop there and pick this up this afternoon. We have a slightly shorter session this afternoon.

[70:12]

But we can explore this. I'd like to explore this koan and I'd also really like to explore what he says at the end. This thing is a simple way to become a Buddha. Very encouraging. So does that count out a number in a book? No, but it's page eighty nine. And Andy Ferguson's book is, you know, there's a there's a huge cause. What? I don't have a number in the book. Well, it has a number in it. It's it's part of. this vast Chinese record of the Zen masters, which is where Andy got it, that has not been translated, I don't believe. And, you know, it's like, each of these masters has their own record, and then there's the compilation of these records, but it's not in something as condensed as, say, the Blue Cliff Record or the Mumukam.

[71:19]

So, thank you.

[71:22]

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