Dharma Talks

Mind Itself

Dharma Talk from Myoki Sensei, March 17, 2024

What is mind? This is perhaps the most fundamental question for our practice and one that has inspired vast literature, commentary, and inquiry, in the Buddhadharma. The word “mind” is used prolifically in koans, commentaries on koans, poetry, throughout the teachings, and in the sutras. In fact, the very first verse of the Dhammapada, the earliest written record of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings, begins with these three lines: “All experience is preceded by mind,/Led by mind/Made by mind.”

What are these teachings referring to when they use the word “Mind”?

As I’ve been delving into this question, I come to understand that “Mind” is not just one concept in the Buddhadharma, but it is flowing and changing and metamorphizing, thus making it a rich area for contemplation and study.

Today’s talk will focus on the first half of Dharma Hall Discourse 323 included in Dogen’s Eihei Koroku, his Extensive Record, translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura who gave the discourse the title, “This Very Mind Cutting Notches in the Boat.”  Dogen gave this particular discourse around 1248-49.

He begins by saying: “An ancient said, ‘This very mind, this very Buddha’.” Dogen is referencing a story from The Gateless Gate koan collection, Case #30.

Damei Fachang asked Mazu in all earnestness: What is Buddha?

Mazu answered: This very mind is Buddha.

I understand the earnestness in Damei’s question to his teacher. I keep hearing about buddhadharma, buddhanature, refuge in buddha, but teacher, please clarify for me: What exactly is Buddha? and Mazu’s response, “This very mind is Buddha” can send Damei off on a lifetime of investigation. (Which in fact it does, and that is a topic for another talk). What does Mazu mean when he uses the word “mind”? What does Mazu mean when he equates this undefined mind with this undefined Buddha? Whose mind is Buddha? Damei’s mind? Mazu’s mind? Your mind? Mine?

Dogen says in the next sentence of the discourse that there are very few who can understand that mind itself is Buddha. Investigating Mazu’s answer to Damei’s inquiry, “This very mind is Buddha,” Dogen tells us what mind is not. He says mind is not the first five consciousnesses as proposed by Vasubandhu, the 4^th-5^th century CE Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher who originated the teachings of the Yogacara or Mind Only school. It seems that Dogen and Vasubandhu were intrigued by the concept of mind that they both devoted their efforts to clarifying what mind might mean and how it might function. Alluding to the teachings of Yogacara, Dogen says that Mind is not what Vasubandhu proposes it is—it is not eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose, touch, or taste consciousness. He goes on to say that mind is not chitta, a Sanskrit term that refers to the human mind and all its aspects, nor is it some faculty that creates and connects with objects such as thoughts, memories, dreams. It is not the mind of thinking or knowing, the mind directed toward awakening as in bodhichitta. Nor is it the mind of the heart essence. He says it is not alaya consciousness, the storehouse consciousness, that Vasubandu said is the repository of all experiences, both wholesome and unwholesome, which form the seeds of future action.

Here Dogen is modeling what he continually asks us to do when approaching any expression of dharma—he is investigating thoroughly, challenging the teachings, and encouraging us to do the same as he explores his understanding of what mind is not, rather than trying to define what it is. He’s bravely negating and challenging the teachings that have been handed down to him. If mind is not defined by these teachings, then what is it, he now asks. After he says what in his view the mind is not, he asks again: “It is not thinking, knowing, memory, or sensation, not views or understanding, not spiritual knowledge or clarified knowledge. Arriving at such a ground [where we understand it is not any of these kinds of mind], who can fathom ‘this very mind, this very Buddha’?”

Great question. Can we fathom this? Mind is not what we/I think of as mind—thinking, knowing, memory, sensation, views, understanding, spiritual knowledge, intellectual clarity, etc.

In the next two paragraphs of the talk, Dogen begins by saying that only one out of more than 80 good teachers who was a disciple of Mazu fathomed “this very mind, this very Buddha.” This was our ancestor Dongsi Ruhui. Dogen says that Dongsi “grieved that Mazu’s disciples continued to ceaselessly recite and memorize the saying ‘This very mind, this very buddha’.”

How often have I grasped onto a teaching without thoroughly investigating, or recited some words because they sounded right, or true (whatever that means), or aspirational. Words can enchant. And entrap. We can parrot teachings that sound good or right to us, but not challenge ourselves to ask exactly what the words express. Out of a sense of complacency, we don’t go deeper.

Dogen admires that Dongsi challenges Mazu’s disciples and asks them: “Where does Buddha dwell that could be called This very mind? The mind is like the painter of the world, but you call it ‘This very Buddha.’” Let’s stick with this description of mind for now and explore it.

Dongsi’s words point directly to Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings in the Dhammapada mentioned above: “All experience is preceded by mind,/ Led by mind/ Made by mind.” This is also what Yogacara, the Mind Only teachings, assert. We see what the mind is conditioned to see, not what is actually in front of us. A thing becomes what we call “real” to us when the organ of perception, its object, and its consciousness come together. A bird sings. The sound vibrates my ear drums. My mind assigns a name to the vibration: robin, and then creates thoughts about the robin. I see a mental image of the robin. I like the robin. I want to get my binoculars to look at the robin. Or maybe I think “That robin is disturbing me.” Or I start planning: “I think I’ll go birdwatching by the river. There are always so many birds there. I hope my hip won’t bother me. I’ll stretch before I walk.”

The external world is not apart from mind, and objectivity is not possible because we are always inside the picture we think is out there. Anything we know and experience, we know and experience as a result of the workings of our consciousnesses. Yogacara does not posit that nothing exists in the outside world, only that anything we think we know about the world “out there” is created by mind consciousness. There is no “out there” separate from “in here.” To restate this: reality exists, but we cannot fully perceive the vast inconceivable reality because we exist in human form with human physiology.

When I look at a garden in bloom, I see red roses, purple lilacs, green leaves, yellow lilies. When a hummingbird flits through the same garden, she experiences and entirely different garden. She sees colors invisible to my human eye because she can see UV colors. Which garden is real? Both are real, depending on the consciousness that experiences it.

Dogen addresses this in Shobogenzo Genjo-Koan (title translated as “The Realized Universe” by Nishijima and Cross) (paragraph 10): “Within the dusty world and beyond, there are innumerable aspects and characteristics. To a fish the ocean looks like a palace; to a heavenly being a jeweled necklace. To us as far as our eyes can see, it looks like a circle. All myriad things are like this. Within the dusty world and beyond, there are innumerable aspects and characteristics; we only see or grasp as far as the power of our eye of study and practice can see.”

Dongsi says that the mind is like the painter of the world. This statement seems to me an accurate description of what happens in zazen. Even if I am staring at a wall in zazen, or a white sheet of paper I lay over my keyboard, mind is painting the world. I don’t register the white paper or the wall. Instead, what mind conjures and focuses on are thoughts of the past, the future, breakfast, the dharma talk I am writing, the conversation I had last night, or the one I am anticipating having this afternoon. At other times during a round of zazen, sights, sounds, smells, feelings, tastes, and thoughts disappear. A sense of my body occupying space disappears.

We may rightly wonder why does all of this philosophizing matter? As I see it, studying what this thing (that is not a thing) is that we call Mind can open us up to profound realization and affect our whole being in the world. Dogen said to study the Buddha Way is to study the self, and if we study the self by studying the thing (for lack of a better word) we call mind, we might come to some understandings about our relationship to our thoughts and feelings, to ourselves, and to our interactions with others.

The mind is like the painter of the world. Each one of us sees the world in a unique way. As Yogacara teaches, when my eye organ comes into contact with a shape in the tree, I live the experience of seeing something I call a bird. You look at the shape from your perspective a little to the left of where I’m standing and the bird is a branch. My mind consciousness contacts a thought that the item was not delivered to my door, and I know the driver stole it, but when I receive additional information the next day, I discover that I was wrongly accusing, judging, and creating a reality about the driver that had nothing to do with what actually happened. The mind is like the painter of the world, and I believe the painting is reality. Until I don’t.

Our sitting practice and our study broaden and deepen our ability to see and grasp the innumerable aspects and characteristics of the world, or to understand that we might not be seeing the whole picture. We can open to differing perspectives, we can challenge our certainties.

The discursive thought path that led to this talk perhaps was generated in some mysterious thing we have collectively agreed to call mind and that word has myriad meanings. All of this leaves me with some provisional understandings I am holding for the time being: Mind is not a thing or an object I own or possess. Mind is not me. The mind is not the brain. It isn’t a place inside of me. Can I abide with ease in the open space of not knowing what mind is without reaching for some firm ground in which to root myself?

Have No Designs

[Myoki Sensei shared this talk with sangha during our half-day Zazenkai on February 25, 2024.]

Dogen Zenjo’s teaching in his Fukanzazenji is fundamental to Soto Zen practice, often read aloud daily in Zen communities as part of their morning service, frequently quoted, and extensively commented on. Fukanzazenji, Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen, is the first text that Master Dogen wrote when he returned to Japan in 1227 after spending five years in China studying with his teacher Nyojo (Rujing).

What motivated Dogen to write it? He said he didn’t specifically intend to found a new Zen school, but he did want to spread the true teaching he learned in China, which he said was zazen. He wrote this essay in an effort to challenge what he saw as the misplaced emphasis in Japanese Buddhist practice on scholarly study rather than sitting.

The version that he wrote in 1227 did not survive, so we don’t know exactly what it contained. The surviving versions are the Tenpuku-bon version, dated and signed 1233 and the Rufu-bon (popular version), completed around 1244.

He continued to write variations and expansions of Fukanzazenji as well as additional explorations of zazen practice in fascicles such as Shobogenzo: Zazenshin, The Acupuncture Needle of Zazen (1242); Zazengi, The Standard Method of Zazen (1243); and Zanmei o Zanmei, The Samadhi that is King of Samadhis (1244), indicating that Dogen thought consistently about how to express and teach the practice of shikantaza.

Here is the passage that I want to focus on today as we practice together in Zazenkai:

“For the practice of Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements, and cease all affairs. Do not think good, do not think bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha.” (Waddell/Abe translation)

Dogen begins by instructing us that “For the practice of Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately.”

A quiet room is suitable. We take care of our place of practice. Whatever space we have, large or small, a dedicated room or a space in a room, we may keep an altar with a statue of Buddha or Kanzeon. We light a candle and incense, and then we bow to the Buddha and to our cushion and sit.

About twenty percent, or one-fifth, of Fukanzazenji is instruction on how to comport the body, before, during, and after sitting. We do what is necessary to come to our cushions with the body balanced and grounded. We take care of our bodies by wearing comfortable, loose but not sloppy, clothing; eating and drinking moderately, not so much food that we become drowsy during sitting or so little that we are hungry. We take care of our elimination needs.

With these needs attended to, we can sit on our cushion relaxed and upright, hands in the cosmic mudra, dignified, centered, and ready to devote mind and body to simply sitting.

Now Dogen asks us to “cast aside all involvements, and cease all affairs.” As we enter into this sacred space for sacred practice, we leave the mundane world behind. We leave behind our concerns and considerations about the affairs of the day ahead, our ruminations about what happened yesterday, our upcoming our plans and schedules, our relationships, the routine worldly activities that we might say are “on my mind.”

Dogen next instructs us: “Do not think good, do not think bad. Do not be concerned with either right or wrong. Do not judge true or false.” These words are straightforward and most translations are the same for this passage, but there are varying translations for the next section: “Cease all movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of thoughts and views.”

Dogen says to “Cease all movements of the conscious mind.” What is the Buddhist understanding of conscious mind? Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings assert that there are six sense consciousnesses, rather than the five we are familiar with. In addition to seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching; or eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body as we chant in the Heart Sutra, Buddha adds a sixth sense, consciousness, identifying mind itself as an organ that perceives.

When you hear the sound of the bell that indicates the beginning of a round of zazen, your ears function physiologically. Sound waves contact your eardrum, and the experience of hearing occurs. When we are sitting, there may be many sounds that make our eardrums vibrate. We hear everything, but we don’t make contact with all the sounds. There is a difference between hearing, which is a physiological response to sound waves, and our experience of what we are hearing, which is a function of the mind making contact with the sound and assigning meaning to it. The sound of a bird song might distract us and we think, “Oh what beautiful birdsong. That’s a Carolina wren, I think. Or maybe it’s that other bird I saw in the tree yesterday. What is it called? I wish I could remember. I saw one the other day on the oak tree. That limb should be cut or it could fall on the house in a windstorm….” and on and on and on.

A thing becomes what we call “real” when the organ of perception, its object, and its consciousness come together. Thoughts are a natural production of the brain, in the same way that sweat is secreted from our pores when we’re hot, and saliva is secreted from the glands in our mouths when we walk into a bakery or pizzeria. Mental consciousness occurs when the mind contacts the energy of thoughts, ideas, and images.

Here are Dogen’s instructions again: “Do not think good, do not think bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of thoughts and views.”

As Uchiyama Roshi says, the mind secretes thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies about the future, etc. and sometimes mind consciousness grasps onto the thought, emotion, memory, fantasy and takes a ride with it, sometimes a long, rambling, wandering ride. At other times a thought arises and disappears without us making contact with it. Our practice is to experience aware presence as thoughts arise and recede into the background without mind consciousness grasping the thought that leads to another thought and another and another.

The translation above says: “Cease all movements of the conscious mind.” Here is another translation of the same passage: “Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views.” Another translation reads: “Halt the revolutions of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop the calculations of thoughts, ideas, and perceptions.”

I think the translation that says stop the calculations of thoughts, ideas, and perceptions, is more accurate; Dogen’s teaching isn’t to cease or stop thinking, but to cease or stop or give up the calculations and measuring that arise in reaction to the thoughts.

Notice the words that signal intellectual pursuits and evaluations and measurements—the “operations” of the mind, “measuring” thoughts, “calculating.” Dogen asks us to put aside for the time we are sitting our dependency on the intellectual, analytical approach to our lives. This kind of analytic thinking is valuable and necessary in various situations in our lives, but not on our cushions.

Our practice is just to sit with the rising and falling of all experience without thinking “this is good, that is bad.” “This is wrong, that is better.” We let go of attachment, aversion, and judgment. The practice is both simple—we simply sit down in the present moment of being alive—and not so simple, because we have deeply ingrained habit formations of evaluating and judging our thoughts, sensations, feelings, our practice, ourselves. We are seduced by the impulse to gauge our thoughts and views, to indulge this habitual dualistic thinking—wrong right good bad. We push aside what we don’t like, grasp what we like, and constantly judge to know the difference.

The third ancestor Sosan teaches in the poem Hsin-Hsin Ming, Trust in Mind, “If you wish to know the truth, then hold to no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.” Picking and choosing is a disease of the mind that seems, when we sit zazen, to be consistently at work. The treasure of our sitting practice is that we become intimate with this disease of the mind.

In his commentary on Fukanzazenji, Maezumi Roshi says: “Dogen Zenji isn’t urging us merely to become like logs or stones. Without any thoughts or views, we can still function clearly, like a bright mirror. The mirror is there, and simply reflects whatever is before it. When the object vanishes, so does the reflection; not a trace remains behind, but the mirror is still there. That’s the state of mind to maintain during the practice of zazen.” Can we experience the mind as clear, empty, and infinite? Simple, but not easy. Philippe Coupey says in his commentary on Fukanzazenji: “If it’s easy, then it’s not authentic.”

When Dogen says we should cease all movements of the conscious mind, he is instructing us to, over and over again, be aware when consciousness focuses on a sound, or an itch, or a thought, and to come back to the basic fact of just sitting. He calls this taking the backward step. And to do this over and over and over again in a round of sitting is our practice. We may experience doubt, but we also have faith and determination to just keep sitting.

This passage ends with Dogen admonishing us to have no designs on becoming a Buddha. There is a wonderful koan. Dogen wrote elaborate and complex teachings on the practice of shikantaza, yet at the same time, he says that we needn’t strive to attain a particular state. He says that practice and realization are the same activity, so we don’t need to worry about becoming a Buddha. In fact, Shakyamuni Buddha didn’t practice to gain realization; he practiced because he was already enlightened.

Our being present with whatever arises, whether on the cushion or off, is the opportunity to be who you are right now. And right now. There is nothing to fix, and no preferred state to strive for. Free yourself from the delusions and fantasies that you hold about becoming enlightened, becoming a buddha, becoming a great Zen Master. Free yourself from these delusions. Who is that person you are imagining? The great enlightened Zen Master is a person you are fabricating in your head. What if you just are you? And why is that a scary notion? To just be who we are?

Taigen Dan Leighton says this in his book, Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry: “Just sitting focuses on not trying to get anything from our investment of time from showing up, but not trying to get rid of anything either. Can we actually be present with this body and mind as it is, not our idea of who we are but actually be present with the physical sensations and the swirling thoughts that are happening on our cushion, right now? If you think about what you are going to get out of this experience, that is just consumerism, or turning your experience into some kind of commodity. If you try to get rid of anything, that is also a kind of holding back from actually just being yourself. This is a practice of just radically being yourself, to be completely ordinary, to be a human being, in fact to be the human being on your cushion right now.”

And yet, you will experience transformation when you whole-heartedly commit yourself to Zen practice with nothing to attain, and at the same time without holding anything back. I am certain of this and I think that this is what Dogen is pointing toward when he says further on in Fukanzazenji that zazen is the dharma gate of ease and joy.

I used to understand this phrase to mean that I would feel this ease and joy on the cushion only if and when I let go of thought, preoccupations, memories. Now I can experience the ease and joy in the midst of thought. Thought coexists with ease and joy when I open the hand of self-clinging, and thought just is there, like a sound or a smell. I don’t have to make any special contact with the thought, I don’t have to hold on to it or, as the metaphor goes, invite it in for tea.

Joy can be experienced only with this body and this mind. Joy and ease do not exist somewhere else outside of this moment and this experience no matter where we are. Where else could joy and ease be but right here right now? With continuous practice, the trials and tribulations that once plagued us become less weighty, and we perhaps can even appreciate our suffering. Maezumi Roshi says, “Appreciate Your Life”; he doesn’t say appreciate only those aspects of our life we like and label good, pleasing, or congenial. We appreciate all of life, and all of our miraculous humanness with joy and gratitude for the random gift of our temporary existence in the world. Suzuki Roshi says: “Just being alive is enough.”

Ben Connelly writes this in his book, Vasubandhu’s ‘Three Natures’: A Practitioner’s Guide for Liberation: “. . . everything is always already free from suffering. What you see is what buddhas see, and you cannot be separated from Buddha. Buddha is not a deity; the word means ‘awakened one.’ It means one who is awake to the truth and thus experiences no suffering. The truth is already true, and we are already awake. We don’t have to wait or strive for liberation. This moment is complete and real, beyond all ideas, and freedom is here.”

May we have faith in the truth of these words as our practice continues.

Thank You for Your Practice and Presence

Dharma talk from Myoki Sensei, February 4, 2024

The paramitas originated in Pali canon, the earliest written form of the historical Buddha’s teachings. These teachings were written on palm leaves and collected in baskets around 100 BCE. Paramita is translated as “perfection,” “transcendent perfection,” or “transcendent virtue,” and they are guidelines for practice and action in Mahayana Buddhism.

These are the six qualities and attitudes that bodhisattvas cultivate and that ground their actions, and they are always listed in this order: Generosity or dana; ethical conduct or sila; patience or ksanti; joyful effort, virya; meditation, dhyana; and wisdom, prajna.

Although they are listed in a particular order, we don’t practice the paramitas as a progression of qualities to attain. They are interwoven and interconnected in our practice and our actions.

The teachings on dana paramita tell us that there are three ways to enact generosity. We give money or material gifts. We give the gift of spiritual teaching and inspiration. And we give the gift of fearlessness.

In a way, giving material gifts or money is the easiest way to practice dana, and it is also the most intimate way to study the self and see whatever obstructions and hindrances arise to expressing generosity. Listing generosity first may be an acknowledgement of our ever-present inclinations to self-clinging, stinginess, greed, our natural tendency to be closed and defended that can impact all the other paramitas. Instead of a spontaneous open act of giving, there can be a clenching, a stinginess, self-talk that might go something like this: I don’t have enough, I don’twant to, I’ll do it tomorrow, someone else can do it.

On the other hand, dana can sometimes arise as a spontaneous impulse, prior to thought. Karmic formations, delusions that disguise themselves as rational thought, dissolve instantaneously and a spontaneous impulse of generosity arises in which the distinction between giver, receiver, and gift dissolve. The elements in the expression of dana are flowing, free, and completely interdependent. I don’t actually have anything, I can’t possess anything because any object including the me I think I am is in constant change and flux. Any concept I cling to of a fixed self is delusion. I and all being are a flow of form, emotion, experience, sensation. The teachings on dana emphasize the emptiness of the three wheels: giver, receiver and gift. No entity is fixed so there is nothing to give away, no self to give it, no one to receive it.

Dogen writes about giving in his Shobogenzo Bodaisatta-Shishobo, “The Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance.”

The fascicle opens with this sentence: “First is free giving.” Dogen uses the adjective “free.” FREE giving. Giving freely. He continues: “The Buddha said, ‘When a person who practices giving goes to an assembly, people take notice.’ Know that the mind of such a person communicates subtly with others. This being so, give even a single word or a single verse of the Dharma; it will be a wholesome seed for this and other lifetimes. Freely give your valuables, even a penny or a blade of grass; it will be a wholesome root for this and other lifetimes. The truth can turn into valuables; valuables can turn into the truth. This is all because the giver is willing.”

In this passage Dogen touches on all three ways to enact dana paramita. He says we can give money or material gifts: even a penny or a blade of grass is valuable. It is not the gift that is ranked in value, but the act of generosity itself is immeasurably valuable. He says we can give the gift of spiritual teaching and inspiration: “even a phrase or verse of the Dharma.” He says that such givers covet no reward but give according to their ability and that giving the teachings, a phrase or verse of the Dharma, is wholesome seed for this and other lifetimes. The lifetimes of the giver of the teaching and those in the assembly who hear the teaching benefit. When he says the giver is willing, he means that even if the giver experiences fear when it comes to giving, she lets go of that emotional state and gives anyway—this is giving freely.

On the absolute level, the world is our sangha where we enact dana paramita. It is also true that our Two Rivers Zen Community is our sangha on a most intimate level. Dogen quotes Shakyamuni Buddha’s saying that “when a person who practices giving goes to an assembly, people take notice. Know that the mind of such a person communicates subtly with others.”

Your commitment to practice with sangha is an expression of dana paramita. Every time we practice together, we support each other with the gift of fearlessness. We courageously sit on our cushions and willingly face our karmic formations without distraction or diversion, we face and experience suffering and the end of suffering. Our committed practice is also a gift to the world, of this I am sure. Each moment that we study the self and each moment of forgetting the self, we let go of self-clinging and bring stability and peace to ourselves and our encounters with all being. We are realized by the 10,000 things. Each moment a single being sits zazen, there is a person in the world who isn’t acting from the grip of greed, hate, and delusion. When a person commits himself or herself to zazen practice, upholding the vows and precepts, that person accepts and enacts a wholesome path to action.

In Shobogenzo Bendowa, On the Endeavor of the Way, Dogen says: “…when just one person does zazen even one time, she becomes, imperceptibly, one with each and all of the myriad things and permeates completely all time, so that within the limitless universe, throughout past, future, and present, he is performing the eternal and ceaseless work of guiding beings to realization.”

This is surely an immeasurable gift.

When we chant the precepts, we vow not to disparage the three treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Shakyamuni Buddha advised on the importance of having good spiritual friends, pointing to the treasure that sangha is. Even two people practicing together is a sangha, and Two Rivers Zen Community is fortunate that many sangha members practice dana on a daily basis in many ways: by showing up with a firm commitment to sit zazen as I just mentioned, by hosting Zooming Zazen, by facilitating Wednesday evening study groups, by attending these study groups and fearlessly discussing the dharma, by giving dharma talks and listening to dharma talks, by meeting in dokusan, by enacting the roles of doan (keeping time and ringing the bell), doshi and kokyo, leading chants during Ryaku Fusatsu and Sunday practice. Everyone’s presence here this morning is the expression of dana paramita.

The enactment of dana paramita is a gift that gives us a place and a means to practice together, a place to take refuge in the treasure of sangha. Dana paramita creates our home among our spiritual friends where we are sheltered and nurtured. Here we are given the gift of a place to practice with good spiritual friends.

Separately and together we sit on our cushions, we chant, we explore and question, we share our understanding and confusion. Dogen says in Bodaisatta-Shishobo: “Mind is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. And yet, in giving, mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms the mind.”

As I was writing this talk, I was attracted to a non-human animal drama that was happening outside my window. We live with a rafter of wild turkeys. At dusk, we see them come up to the top of the hill, one behind the other, and then they stand together at the crest of the hill. First one turkey runs and takes off to land on a tree branch where it roosts for the night. Then another follows, and another and another until they each have found their particular roost. In the morning, they reverse this sequence and one by one drop out of the trees and gather to forage for food. The other day when it was snowing, they stayed on our property foraging for food instead of heading off. Suddenly, I saw a hawk swope down and strafe the turkeys. I thought the presence of the hawk would make the turkeys scatter, but instead they came together very closely in a group. I thought, “Why aren’t they dispersing?” It seemed to me each bird would be less likely to be eaten by the hawk.

Then it occurred to me. They were protecting each other. If the hawk came down to attack again, they would be able to fend off the attack together more effectively than if each one were acting individually. I kept watching, and the hawk settled in a tree branch but didn’t come down again and eventually flew off.

I thought of the hawk as Mara, the demons that can hover near us and tempt us to leave our cushions, to leave practice, to abandon sangha. But in the refuge of sangha we are as one joined together and fending off the impulses that may keep us from our practice.

It’s easy to overlook or take for granted the depth and impact on our lives of refuge in sangha. We go through our days—to-do lists, appointments, chores, interactions with other people—and all of these activities and relationships are influenced by the treasury of our practice together. Dainin Katagiri Roshi brings this home when he writes in his book, You Have to Say Something: “If you think you can accomplish everything just by your own effort, you are ignoring the fact that you are already on the boat with all beings. You are all moving along together.”

When we recently dicussed our responses to the words of the Morning Gatha, some people expressed that the gatha felt weighty to them. “May I be a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance, a resting place for the weary.” Then someone said that it might be interesting to explore substituting “We” for “I”. “May we be guards for those who need protection, guides for those on the path of true dharma.” It occurs to me that in our commitment to practice, to our vows, to the spirit of the Morning Gatha, “We” and “I” are not different. We is the same as I. There is no I without we, and no we without I when it comes to sangha!

Katagiri Roshi says: “Self-awakening must coincide with other-awakening. In other words, if we would awaken, we must help others to awaken. …Generally we approach practice with our eyes, just on our own awakening. But this is to misunderstand practice. There is no self-awakening unless it is supported by other-awakening. The idea of awakening by oneself doesn’t make sense. In fact, if, in your practice, you emphasize yourself, self-awakening doesn’t happen. True practice can’t take place without others.”

Dogen Zenji teaches the same thing in Shobogenzo Zuimonki, Record of Things Heard: “Each of us attains the Way because of the assistance from people in the sangha. Although everyone is sharp-witted, we can only practice the Way because of the power of the assembly.”

Many of us come to practice motivated by a desire to be liberated from our unique experience of suffering. What I want to say today is that your motivation to practice with others to relieve your suffering is also at the same time a gift to those with whom you practice. Zooming Zazen hosts sometimes end the round of zazen with these words: “Thank you for your practice and your presence.” In other words, thank you for fearlessly showing up today and giving everyone else who showed up the gift of your practice.

Karma: Hot & Cold

Dharma talk from Seiso Roshi

A Monk asked Dongshan:

“When cold or heat come, how are we to avoid them?”

The master says, “Why do you not go to the place without cold and heat?”

The monk says, “What is the place without cold and heat?”

The master says, “When it is cold, kill the ācārya with cold.

When it is hot, kill the ācārya with heat.”

Karma simply means ”action” or “activity.” Karma is a fact of human life. In this regard Zen deals directly and intimately with human life. That is, Zen deals with karma as it actualizes in human life and the results of karma in relationship with self, other and environment.

For instance, the intention to raise Bodhicitta, that is, to maintain a neutral, non—attached awareness of the rising and falling of all experience is important because karma and intention are directly related. What is the intention that we bring to practice, or to any situation for that matter? Acting on the commitment to the intention to raise bodhicitta neutralizes karma and softens or wears away the actualized influence of previous karma. How is this possible? Yogacharya, an early Buddhist psychology describes the storehouse consciousness as an accumulation of all impressions created by the actions of our life. For example, the impressions left by the activity of watching a Halloween horror movie can evoke nightmares or bad dreams. So you see that the fruition of karma created by our past actions manifest internally as well as externally. Zen considers thoughts as actions too. Sooner or later, all activity engenders results, which can then become the seeds for future actualization. For example, a seed can sprout into a beautiful flower or into troublesome weeds that choke out the flowers. What will proliferate? Intention plays an important part. In fact, Frances Cook points out that karma are actions or “doings” preceded by will or intention. However, we need to keep in mind that in the human realm all actions have some intention behind them. So, as you can see, intention plays an important role because we can choose to act selfishly out of greed, anger or ignorance – the three poisons at the hub of the Wheel of Life and Death – or compassionately out of the vow to “save numberless beings.”

Bodhidharma points out in his famous dialog with Emperor Wu that even the most noble act can have a selfish intention behind it. The emperor asked Bodhi about the merit he would obtain by building temples and giving alms to the poor. Bodhi answered: “Vast emptiness, No merit!”

This is the basic reality of life regardless of our beliefs. Reality has no stake in how we understand it; believe about it or how we label it. The central reality that we work with from the Buddhist perspective is our fundamental impermanence. We are born, grow, age, get ill and eventually die. This was the great awareness of Gautama Buddha that motivated him to seek a remedy for suffering beings. This reality doesn’t change. What can change is our relationship to the reality of this experienced life. But it’s not so easy.

Dongshan says: “Kill yourself with cold, kill yourself with heat.” Embrace heat and cold.

Embrace reality, work with reality. Where is the place of no heat and cold? No merit, vast emptiness! Where is the place of no heat and cold? Here, now! “Being-as-it is!” . . . to quote Suzuki, Roshi.

In another koan Dongshan says: “Go to the place where there is no grass for 10,000 miles, but where is such a place?” There is grass everywhere. There is heat and cold everywhere inside, outside, in-between, over under sideways, down. Just step outside for a moment and you’ll see. I was at the barbershop one day. It was raining outside. The previous customer almost forgot his umbrella. The barber said: “You would have remembered the minute you stepped outside!”

In Shunju, Dogen talks about this koan. I like the title: “Spring and Fall.” It’s about change, which is most obvious in spring and in fall. We see the cycle of life and death in spring and fall. We realize that we don’t live in “Endless Summer.” You remember that movie? About surfers traveling around the world seeking the perfect wave? Well, even surfers get old. Dongshan and Dogen are both telling us to “get real!” the Three Gems, Buddha, dharma, sangha help us to get real, helps to keep us out of the seduction of the God realm, which to me is a metaphor for complacency, for “I got it made mind.” When sitting in zazen, no matter how far we wander off into daydreams, fantasies, mindlessness, sooner or later, we find ourselves being the basic fact of sitting, being the expression of Buddha nature that we are right where we are. The wandering off is not the issue. The return to the basic fact of sitting is what is crucial. We return repeatedly. This return is what Okumura, Roshi describes as “repentance,” vow and repentance, two wings of the one bird.

This is why shikantaza is a totally human process, a reality process, a make it real process. We return to the reality of being and all it entails; the reality that is always present whether we want to believe it or not, no matter how one chooses to define it.

No distraction, no mantra, no visualization, no counting, no technique. Just sitting, just being real, sharing in sangha being real together, being hot, being cold, being spring, being summer, being with flowers, being with weeds. No future pure land, heaven, hell, no right hand of God, no self-deception. There is enough self-deception without all of these add-ons. As the koan says; “No flowers added to brocade.” This is it! . . . a come as you are party. This is the Harry Truman koan: “The buck stops here!” What can we do about it? Keep sitting. Who was it that said: “Don’t just do something, Sit there!”

“Go to the place where there is no heat or cold!”

Where is that place?

Where is this place?

What is this place?

Thank you

Seiso Paul Cooper, Sensei    [Bendowaji, Honesdale, PA 11/2/14]