Once, here at Tassajara, a monk asked the founder, Shogak Rishinryo, why do we have seven days hashish? And he said, because we go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Today, we come to the seventh section of the Gakudo Yojinshu, the seventh section of the guidelines for practicing the way. It's called, those who long to leave the world and practice Buddhadharma should study Zen.

[01:08]

Another title would be, the need for Zen training in the practice and enlightenment of Buddhadharma. Now, this section sounds sectarian, in a way, to me. And as you may know, as you may have heard, Dogen Zenji said that his teaching is not the Zen school. His teaching is just Buddhadharma. His practice is not the practice of the Zen school. It turns out that he also felt that the ancestors of the Zen lineage were those who actually had realized the Buddhadharma. So, although he doesn't mean it to be the Zen school, in fact, the people in what they call the Zen school are the people he thinks are practicing Buddhadharma.

[02:26]

This section is a little different, in a way, I feel, from previous ones. A little more subtle. So, at the beginning we saw that for the arousing of the bodhi mind, intimacy, seeing, and becoming intimate with impermanence is a fundamental approach. And to be aware of our selfish thoughts, feelings, and emotions, to be aware of our selfish gaining energies, means that that awareness is also part of the actual birth of the bodhi mind.

[03:42]

And finally, that awareness leads to such intimacy with selfishness that we're able to drop it, or rather that it's able to drop of itself. And then we continue to practice calmly, and this too is the bodhi mind. So I wonder, what's the difference now? Is there something new that's going to happen here in this section? Suddenly we're bringing up Zen. Was that back there Zen? That kind of meditation on impermanence and meditation on egotistical thoughts and feelings? Certainly that earlier meditation is basic Buddhist teaching, impermanence and selflessness.

[04:46]

What does Zen have to offer? Anything more essential? Well, just let me say right off that in this section, there is the language, this key, a key is offered, or it also is translated as this secret, a secret is offered. And this key or this secret seems to be something to do with the Zen practice.

[05:54]

I remember one time Suzuki Roshi said, Zen is the key that unlocks the Buddhadharma. Now Buddhadharma excels among the various ways, Dogen Zenji says. For this reason, people seek it. When the Tathagata dwelt in the world, there were neither two teachers nor two masters. The great master Shakyamuni guided sentient beings solely by means of his unsurpassed awakening. Ever since Mahakasyapa transmitted the treasury of the true Dharmahai, the twenty-eight generations in India and the six early generations in China and all the ancestors in the five schools of Zen have in direct succession inherited without any interruption.

[07:05]

Consequently, ever since the time of Emperor Wu of Lian, all those who were outstanding from monks to kings or retainers never failed to pay homage to Buddhadharma. Indeed, those who are able to love excellence should love excellence. It should not be like Minister Hsieh's love for a dragon. So I told you when we read about that story of the Prime Minister Hsieh who loved dragons and had all these scrolls of dragons, statues of dragons and even had a dragon house. So when a dragon came to visit him, he came up to the window of his house

[08:13]

and when he saw the dragon, he ran away and fainted. So we're being encouraged to love the real dragon. It's okay, by the way, to love carved dragons. It's okay to love imitation dragons. I think it's okay anyway. And actually, I didn't hear Dogen Zenji say you shouldn't love imitation dragons. He says you should not love only imitation dragons. It's okay to love them, but you should move on from there to love real dragons. Now, do you know what imitation dragons are? Imitation dragons are all the things that you love in the world

[09:14]

and all the practices you love, that you can think of. All your views that you love, those are the carved dragons that you love. It's okay to love them. Love everything. But the point is to move on to love the real dragon. Now, it just turns out that a lot of people have trouble loving the real dragon because they've never even heard of it. And when they first hear about it, they might run away and faint. So, go ahead and love everything you love now, but expand your love to love this real dragon, which we call Zazen,

[10:16]

which is called Zen training. In the countries east of China, for those of you who are not geographical whizzes like my wife, east of China is like Japan and Korea and California. And so on and so forth. Moving on across Nevada into Kansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and so on. Switzerland, France, Germany, Italia, Africa, the Middle East, and back to India. These countries, the net of scriptural teachings covers the ocean and pervades the mountains.

[11:24]

Although it pervades the mountains, it lacks the heart of the clouds. In the countries east of China, the net of scriptural teachings covers the ocean and pervades the mountains. Like even here in California, there's Zen everything, right? Zen's all over the place. Although it pervades the mountains and lacks the heart of the clouds, although it covers the oceans, it dries out the heart of the waves. The scriptural teachings have been transmitted to Japan and Korea and so on, but they dried out, you know? They dried the ocean and took the heart out of the clouds. They lost the vitality of the teachings.

[12:26]

Foolish people are fond of this kind of teaching. Just like taking fish eyes and holding it to be a jewel, or taking a pebble and honoring it as a jewel. Many people fall into a demon's pit, often destroying themselves. Here again is the necessity to have a teacher. Again, it's not that the teacher's so smart, it's just that two deluded people are better than one. So, if you have a fish eye and you think it's a jewel, you bring it to your teacher, and when the teacher's deluded too, the teacher will try to take the fish eye from you, and in the struggle it will squirt all over the place.

[13:27]

And you realize it's not a jewel. In Japan, you know, they say if you take fresh fish to the mountains, they think it's rotten. They look at a fresh fish and they think, yikes! Because they never see fresh fish. They think it's rotten. So, I mean, you know, Buddhist teaching is really wonderful, but you've got to be careful if you think the scriptures, for example, the Lotus Scripture, if you think that's the jewel, you could fall into a pit and destroy yourself. That's what he says. In a distant country, a mistaken teaching easily spreads.

[14:34]

Its natural competitors are not around. And the correct teaching has difficulty pervading. Just like we were talking about yesterday, about easy practices. What some Buddhist schools have done is they've taken the traditional form, and they've made it easy, and it's really spread. Don't make it easy. Keep it true. Nobody likes it. So here's Dogenzei to say, this is really hard, but you should really like this. You should love this hard practice. The other practice is really nice, and it's spreading like wildfire, but... it can destroy you. Because it's not so much that it's so bad, but that spending your time working on that instead of what you should work on will destroy you. Even a fairly harmless waste of time is still a disaster

[15:44]

if you get involved in it because you're wasting your time. You don't have much left. So that's why it's very important to actually practice Zen. What is Zen? What are they talking about? When you first enter the gate to study the Buddha way, listen to the teacher's instruction and practice as instructed. When you do that, there is something you should know. Dharma turns you, and you turn Dharma. When you turn Dharma, you are leading, and Dharma is following. On the other hand, when Dharma turns you, Dharma is leading and you are following.

[16:51]

Another way they sometimes say this is, when Dharma turns you, Dharma is weak. You are weak and Dharma is strong. When you turn Dharma, you are strong and Dharma is weak. Buddha Dharma originally has these two modes, but those who are not true heirs have never understood it. Unless they are patchwork monks, they scarcely have heard of it. Without this key, you cannot yet judge how to study the way. How could you determine correct from mistaken? On the other hand, those practicing Zen and studying the way are always given this key, so they do not make mistakes.

[18:01]

Other schools do not have this teaching. Without studying Zen, those who seek the way cannot know the true way. Those who seek Buddha Dharma cannot realize the way without practicing Zazen. Now, this Zen is not like something, this is not the Zen of some kind of Zen. This is referring to the key. Anybody who practices this key will not be mistaken. Anybody who receives this secret will not be mistaken. What's the secret again? The secret is that Dharma turns you

[19:05]

and you turn Dharma. This expression comes from the sixth ancestor of Zen. He was, I forget the situation, but anyway, somebody came to see him, a monk who was an expert on Zen. The Lotus Sutra. And I think the ancestor said, oh no, the guy said that he had memorized the Lotus Sutra, he had chanted it three thousand times but didn't understand it. And of course, the ancestor said, well, even if you chant it ten thousand times, if you don't understand it,

[20:07]

it's still not really too good. And the monk said, well, geez, I can't understand it, the Lotus Sutra is too hard. So, the sixth ancestor couldn't read, so he says, okay, recite it to me. So, the monk started reciting the Lotus Sutra to him, by heart. And when he got to the second chapter, there's a part in the second chapter where the Buddha says, there is one great causal condition for the appearance of Buddhas in the world. And that is to disclose, reveal, enlighten, enter Buddha's wisdom.

[21:10]

To disclose to people, to demonstrate to people, to help people awaken to and help people enter Buddha's wisdom. The desire to do that makes Buddhas appear in the world. And at that point, the sixth ancestor said, stop, this is the main point. And then, a little while later, he said to this monk, when the Dharma flower, the Lotus Sutra is called the Dharma flower, when you're deluded, when you're in the deluded mind, the deluded mind is turned by the Dharma flower. The deluded mind is turned by the Lotus Sutra. The enlightened mind turns the Dharma flower.

[22:16]

Actually, in both cases, the Dharma flower simply turns the Dharma flower. This is the key to Zen. When the mind is in a state of delusion, the Dharma flower turns us. When our mind is in a state of delusion, the Dharma flower turns us. So I'm going to talk a little bit about

[23:26]

about how that happens. But it's going to be so subtle that most of you will go to sleep. But it's okay because maybe the tape machine is working today. This is not going to be very interesting when you first hear it. So just go to sleep or take a bathroom break. But I'll just say this for the tape. When we look at something very small, like a particle of dust or even an atom, it does not mean that we fail to see the world of Dharma in some little inconsequential thing. Like when you listen to the sound of that saw, it does not mean that in that particle of sound in every little particle of sound that hits your ear, it's not that you don't hear the Dharma world there.

[24:27]

It's not that you don't hear ultimate reality. It's not that. And vice versa. When you're looking at ultimate reality or listening to ultimate reality or smelling ultimate reality or tasting ultimate reality or touching ultimate reality, it's not that that little tiny particle of smell or sound or light is not there. You already know this, right? You know it. You've heard about this. When Buddha experiences the Dharma world, they do not exclude us little things or any other little things from their experience. And this is...

[25:40]

this is good. This is good in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end. Now when you're deluded usually, you don't see the Dharma world in little particles of experience. That's the thing about being deluded. You usually don't. Right? Now when you're deluded, of course, you don't look at the Dharma world, so you can't see the little things in the Dharma world. But you can see the little world, but you don't see the Dharma in it because you're deluded. When the Dharma flower turns, when the Dharma flower turns, when you're deluded, the Dharma flower turns you. That means it turns you from being a person who listens to sounds, sees colors,

[26:40]

and doesn't see the Dharma. It turns you into some... into seeing the Dharma in the things. When the Dharma... when you're... when you're deluded, the Dharma turns you, pushes you around, makes you change into somebody who looks at a color and lets the color just be a color. And you see the Dharma world in the color. By seeing the color as such, you see Dharma. And when you're deluded, the Dharma flower or the Dharma period turns you. This being so,

[27:45]

the present is form as it is, color as it is, smell as it is, sound as it is. And the state... as it is of the state of your experience, even in the case of like alarm, doubt and fear, are nothing other than the reality of suchness. Never is any experience that you have in a deluded condition. All your deluded experience as such are nothing other than the world of suchness. And then Dogu Zenji says,

[28:57]

fear, I would say also doubt, and alarm. Alarm doesn't mean like surprise, like, oh my god, how's it going? It means like shrinking back from the experience. Fear, jutting off into the future, and doubt. Doubt that, hey, this is like the Dharma world. Doubt, shrinking back, and fear. These things themselves are as such, the experience of suchness, the suchness of experience. They are the difference between looking at and sitting in the experience. The manifestation

[30:07]

of delusion in the form of, for example, fear, doubt, and shrinking, and alarm, those manifestations are coming from the difference between looking at phenomena and sitting in it. Sitting in it means the suchness of it. Looking at it means still over there. When it's over there, the small is confining, and the Dharma world is completely unhindered, vast, and roomy. But when you sit in your experience, your experience is not confining,

[31:09]

and the Dharma world is not vast. For example, you know, like Nobu Zenji says, talking about people, some of the bad things people do back in Kamakura, Japan, like they get people liked, and praise them for doing things that aren't appropriate, they'll do them, if people don't like them doing appropriate things,

[32:11]

they won't do them. And then he says, and they even think of the future. So, again, many people think about the future these days, and like I said again, quite a few people are thinking about the future here in this monastery. Thinking of the future and fear, of course, are very closely related. But put aside fear for a second, and let's just talk about thinking of the future. Thinking of the future, when you look at the future, okay, it is a waste of time. It is like, you know, you're on the verge of disaster. Especially if you're having the opportunity to practice and you forsake practice to think of the future and look at it over there. And you look at it, it's very confining, actually. It's all twisted and,

[33:11]

you know, what do you call it, complicated and like, you know, reservations. Reservation numbers. Telephones. The telephone doesn't work. Catalogs. The telephone doesn't work. Mom. The telephone doesn't work. Very small. Precise. There's people out there to help you work out the kinks, the tightness of the future. Telephone doesn't work, they can't help you. You're looking at it, looking at it. The difference between looking at it and sitting in it, that's fear. But even before the fear, still it's tight and diluted, this thinking of the future. But if you go and sit in the future,

[34:12]

it's not confining. If you look at it, it's very painful and tight and chokes you. Distracts you and undermines your energy. If you go sit in it, that future is the bliss body of Buddha. That sitting in that future is the reward body of the practice of just sitting. There's the future. Sit in it. No problem. Future thoughts arise. Thoughts of the future arise. Images, fantasies of the future arise. For the diluted person who now is manifesting

[35:16]

this thought of the future, when the Dharma, when the Dharma flower turns, when the Dharma turns you, the Dharma turns you into a sitter in the middle of your, of that thought of the future. And you're in an unconfined unrestricted land of bliss. This is when the Dharma flower turns us, the diluted people who are still entertaining such thoughts, turns us. With the aid of, when you're weak, you know, when we're weak, when we're diluted, we have to, you know, make room for diluted thoughts.

[36:17]

They come. They're assailing us. Here they come. They're in our field of experience. Our field of experience, our delusions, like a future. When the Dharma flower is working and turning us, it liberates us from suffering by helping us sit in the middle of the diluted phenomena. Here comes the other side. When the, when the mind is in a state of realization, when our mind is in a state of realization, we turn the Dharma flower. This describes the turning of the Dharma flower,

[37:20]

that is, when the Dharma flower has perfectly exhausted the energy with which it turns us. When the Dharma has perfectly, totally exerted the energy with which it turns us into a sitter in the middle of our experience. See? It's turned us. It's turned the diluted person completely and completely exhausted the Dharma energy on us. And we're like sitting in the middle of our experience. Okay? The energy as is, the suchness energy with which we turn ourselves will, in turn, be realized.

[38:21]

When the Dharma has exhausted the energy of turning us, the suchness of that energy will, in turn, will, in turn, in turn, turn us into the way we turn ourselves. This realization is the turning of the Dharma flower. And although the former turning,

[39:35]

the Dharma flower turning us, the Dharma turning us, even now has not ceased. At the same time, we are naturally turning the Dharma. And so there's a Zen expression for this. The donkey business is unfinished and the horse business has already arrived. So when the Dharma

[40:36]

turns the deluded person into the place where she is sitting in the middle of delusion, when that energy has exhausted that turning and you have arrived at the suchness of the energy that turns you into the sitting Buddha in your deluded experience, that same energy, the suchness of that energy which has turned you to that place then becomes the energy which you turn yourself into. And by which you now turn yourself in you turn the Dharma. The self now is strong and the Dharma is weak. Before the self was weak and the Dharma was strong. The self was weak. The self was making things troublesome

[41:39]

and the Dharma pushes the self around into its proper position. Now the self is in its proper position namely dropped off and now this dropped off self is strong and uses the Dharma. The dropped off self is the accomplished Dharma, is the point of Dharma and this self is stronger than Dharma, is stronger than the Lotus Sutra. Once the Lotus Sutra has done its job on us we do our job on the Lotus Sutra. So the criticism receiving these wonderful teachings is the highest teachings, the highest scriptures and just letting them turn you is not enough.

[42:41]

You have to let them turn you so far, so completely that the energy by which you are realized, by which you are liberated from yourself, that energy then turns the scripture which turned you. This is the true dragon. This is the secret of Zen. The Lotus Sutra is loved by Dogen Zenji. The six ancestors couldn't read it but when he heard it he loved it. But they all said

[43:47]

don't just love the Lotus Sutra, love the true dragon which turns the Lotus Sutra after being turned by the Lotus Sutra. People don't like Dharma sometimes because they feel weak in a way. Even though the strength of Dharma which is moving your weak self, your weak deluded self is also pushing you towards liberation from this small self. But still the adjustment is difficult. So that made sense to me. I felt good about that. But the other side I thought geez, is it good for yourself to be strong and the Dharma to be weak? Well, it doesn't really mean the Dharma. It just means the Dharma in the form which the Dharma turned you. That Dharma gets weaker

[44:48]

and you get stronger. The liberated you, the realized you become stronger than the thing that liberated you. The thing that turns you, the teaching that turns you once you're turned is not as strong as the results of the teaching turning you. So it's okay that you're now stronger than the teaching and you can use the teaching from that place of realization. And you can use it by venerating it and you can use it by burning. Whatever the realized self wants to do to turn that, to rotate that, to keep that teaching moving. Now the realized self

[45:51]

is in charge of the use of the turning of itself. And in either case as my ex-ancestor said, whether it's you turning the Dharma or the Dharma turning you, in either case it's actually the Dharma turning on itself. The key to Zen is right here in this dynamic interaction between diluted self and Dharma teaching and realization and Dharma teaching turning on each other. I

[46:51]

would not be surprised if you didn't understand what I said and I would not be surprised if you did. Although I wonder what you did. Which was it? Did you understand? No? Yes? It's repeating, yeah. Well, yeah. It's repeating endlessly, yeah. Because you still have a diluted mind that's creating delusions. Right? Your mind is still like what do you call it? Cranking out these little particles. In the Dharma world where there aren't these fixed things in the world of infinite possibility and freedom we have a mind which goes there and packages everything. Package, package, package, package.

[47:55]

We keep imputing our mental energy keeps imputing you know particle-ness to the universe. Right? That's what they found out, right? Physics, they got particles all over the place. All these particles are due to the mind. The mind keeps making the world into particles and putting the particles together. Makes the Dharma world into particle world. Sounds like a theme park. Particle world. You go to particle world and then you get into these little rides and they turn you you go into these little particles and suddenly you realize the particles are infinite in space and you have plenty of room. And then in the particle world that has now been made very spacious so you can live in a tiny little atom then you also make that into little atoms again. So the process of delusion continues you keep making creating a world you know with stars and atoms stars and atoms. Okay? Otherwise there would be

[48:59]

no world. Not to mention the people and trees and stuff. So that that delusion thing keeps happening. Making possibility into concrete limited phenomena. But then if you keep using the teaching you turn yourself into a sitter in the middle of the phenomena which your mind has created in this limited way and you realize liberation. Then from liberation you turn the teaching again. So you do the donkey business the donkey business is you make a little world but before you finish the donkey business the horse business of turning the Dharma arrives. They're simultaneous. So they're turning

[50:02]

turning [...] turning. Anything else? Yes? When you sit completely inexperienced is there a phrase like that? Well there was a phrase like that but maybe if you said it again I would get just exactly the one you're heading for. What is it? How is the Dharma confined? No. The Dharma world is not confined of course. The Dharma world is infinite and unhindered. Okay? But when the when the Dharma turns you when the Dharma

[51:04]

affects you and turns you and transforms you and stuff like that then you're able to like for example sit in the middle of every experience and realize that it's not confined even though of course it had to be confined in the first place otherwise you wouldn't be able to sit in it because you wouldn't there wouldn't be any experience. Every limited experience that you sit in shows the Dharma has turned you. Every experience you have of fear or whatever when you sit there and realize the expansiveness of the fear the Dharma has turned you. Okay? So what question do you have? Okay? Then once you're liberated once that turning has exhausted itself to liberate you in the midst of your deluded experience then you realize the way to turn yourself

[52:04]

and then you realize the way to turn the Dharma and use the Dharma for the next cycle the next deluded event. But now this realized being who had been realized by being turned by the Dharma is now able this realized station this realized state now uses the Dharma to help people. This explains how it is that when the Dharma makes the self drop away the dropped away self can go to work. So it's not like we just get liberated and we're free of our tight egocentric trips but that liberated person then has Dharma tools with which to stir up quite a bit of activity called more turning of more beings into freedom. Does that make sense to this?

[53:09]

Good. Where are you in the process? The expansiveness of the fear you haven't been completely turned so yeah so you gotta let the Dharma turn you into like let that let that energy totally exhaust itself getting you to sit completely still in the middle of the fear. The Dharma is working to get us to completely sit in the middle of our experience. That feeling you had you know that strong feeling you have that's like pressing you to sit completely still you heard about that one? It's kind of fighting against the one which wants you to get out of this little box right? And find a you know have this thing be over what is it I can't wait for it to be over kind of thing. It's fighting against that but there's something in what you want you to sit that's the Dharma turning you to the place where you'll be free of this limitation when you finally

[54:11]

completely accept it. Free of this fear when you kind of finally completely face it. Then you get then you get to turn yourself completely into the confinement of anxiety. And again when you completely let this Dharma turn you into like totally exhaustively sitting there then the anxiety drops too. Anything else? Yes? Did I say there's no world outside our world of delusion? I don't know if I said that did I say that? Yeah. There wouldn't be like

[55:12]

phenomenal things outside of there aren't any phenomenal things outside of mind. There are no that nothing exists outside of our mind. Yes. Our mind makes existent things. They aren't like sitting out there waiting for our mind waiting for our mind to find them. Before our mind meets reality reality is just probabilistic distributions. There aren't even any particles in the universe according to Buddhism and modern physics. There aren't things out there. They're just probabilities. Everywhere you go and find anything okay here we are there's a probability probability there's a high probability of something here there's a low probability of something here there's a really low probability of something here Pardon? No. There's a probability of the probability. If you make it an existent

[56:13]

then there's a probability that that probability is there. There's only probabilities only possibilities in the universe. But the mind makes them not into probabilities but into like actually there. This is that's actually a woman not a probably woman not a potential woman. Forget about the potentiality for now. Let's just have the actualization of it. The mind makes it. And also if the mind doesn't make it it's not there. So for us nothing's there if the mind doesn't make it there now if the mind can't just make things there all by itself though it has to cooperate with other minds. But even if you cooperate with other minds if your mind doesn't cooperate it's not there for you. The mind makes the world the mind makes the world there is no world outside the mind. Yes. But there is a world of truth. There's a truth but it's not the world

[57:13]

of phenomenal entities. It's the world of potential. It's the world of freedom. There's no prisons there's no hells and there's no heavens in the world of Dharma. But we do work on the world we make it into things we do. Okay. Then there we got it. Now the Dharma starts working on us when it makes us enter into the world which our mind is created in such a way that we find freedom from the limitations of what we have just successfully freedom from the limitations which we have just successfully concocted. We create the limitations we sit in the middle of what we've created we understand how we've created and the created limits drop. And our own limited self also drops. This unlimited

[58:14]

liberated state the realization of this liberated state then turns back on things and uses them to liberate further. That's the key of Zen. That's the key that unlocks the Buddha's teaching. Section 7. Okay? Now you probably do understand, right? Do you understand better now? A little bit better? A little bit? Okay, now jump in there. Sit in that little bit. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

[59:30]

Thank you.

[60:17]

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