Yesterday I spoke about where and how Buddhas are born. I think I said something like they're born in the thorough intimacy of our life. Today I would say they're born and function in the unfabricated activity of the immediate present, which occurs in stillness of each moment.

[01:20]

I'm proposing that enlightenment is living in stillness. That it is an unfabricated it is the unfabricated way of our life in stillness. This morning we celebrated the appearance of enlightenment in this world in the form of a person, of a human being in India. The manifestation of this unconstructedness and stillness as a person, as a teacher, as the founder of the teaching of enlightenment.

[02:46]

And again, I propose to you that this appearance in the world of the Buddha is a ritual performance. That Shakyamuni Buddha performed the ritual of being a Buddha. He performed the actions of Buddha. the performance of a ritual is a fabricated thing, is constructed.

[04:27]

Seems to me that all rituals are fabrications, are constructions. The ritual that the Buddha performs is a construction to convey the unconstructed. It's a construction to convey Buddhahood. And a construction to convey Buddhahood is the realization of Buddhahood. It's a construction which is insubstantial. Being insubstantial, it is able to convey the insubstantial.

[05:38]

In order to perform this ritual, it is necessary to be thoroughly intimate with the ritual or to perform the ritual in thorough intimacy. We wholeheartedly perform the ritual of Buddha knowing that the form of our performance does not reach the Buddha. We do a constructed activity, a constructed karma, understanding that this is a construction and that the constructed does not reach the unconstructed.

[06:49]

However, if we still are able to wholeheartedly, thoroughly perform this empty construction, we realize the unconstructedness in stillness. The ritual is a way for us to experience and affirm enlightenment as real. our experience of enlightenment is not enlightenment. Our insubstantial, playful ritual realizes the unconstructed. This is a belief, I just said, and by performing it, one

[07:54]

realizes affirmation of the belief that enlightenment is real and that performance of enlightenment is the way to know that. Beyond recognition. The only way of knowing it is by the ritual. There's no understanding in addition to that. And as Tetsugikai said, even if there were some further knowledge of the Buddha way, in addition to the performance of the ritual, it would just be the same thing. There's no other reality beyond reality. And reality is only practiced by ritual performance of your daily life as the Buddha way.

[09:01]

Knowing that it's a ritual helps us all the way to understand that it's insubstantial. Once the Buddha appeared in the world and received the job of being Buddha, the Buddha then, according to our stories, according to our constructions, our constructions, in our constructed lineage, the Buddha had some students and one of them was called Mahakasyapa. which I guess means great light drinker. One day, according to our stories, and some research has been done, and this story, there's no sign of this story before the 10th century or before the 9th century.

[10:24]

So this story can only be found in China, although it's a story about India. There's no traces of an India so far found. The Buddha was on Vulture Peak. All the assembly was there and he raised a flower. He raised a flower And in the translation that I worked on with Tanahashi Sensei, we translated, he raised a flower and winked. Another translation says, he raised a flower and blinked. Winked is one eye and blinked is two, right? Although you can, sometimes people might say that you blinked with one eye.

[11:29]

Winked is almost like you intended to do it with just one. Anyway, that's what Tanahashi Sensei and I translated. Winked. Raised the flower and winked. And then it says in the story, and Mahakashyapa cracked, his face cracked into a smile. I remember it said cracked. I don't know, maybe Mahakashyapa, he did have a reputation for being very enthusiastic about austerities. He was very skinny, and his body was really, it struck awe into people to see this yogi. So you can imagine he was not usually smiling, perhaps, and his austere body cracked into a smile.

[12:38]

Only Mahakashyapa smiled. Even though the Buddha winked, only one person thought it was smile-worthy. And then Shakyamuni Buddha said something like, I have the treasury of the true Dharma eyes, the inconceivable, wondrous mind of nirvana. I now transmit to Mahakasyapa. I propose that this is the ritual performance of Buddhahood. And In the lineage of Dogen, this story is one of the examples of what we call intimacy, face-to-face transmission, menju, which literally means receiving the face.

[13:41]

It's the ritual and acumen of Buddha with the disciple. And the Buddha winks, like, this is just a ritual. Don't take this seriously, this flower here. This isn't a substantial flower or a substantial Buddha or a substantial transmission. Isn't that funny? And this is, like, really important. It took me a long time to get to be a Buddha to perform this, and now here I am picking up this flower, offering it to you, and one person, there he is, he's the one who sees how funny this is. This is the great disciple who gets the joke. I also used the expression a while ago, which I think I'm good to use it now, so you have a few days to digest this comment, that Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, pretended to be a Buddha for the welfare of all beings.

[15:10]

He pretended to be a great, compassionate, wise person He could even say he pretended to be a person. The person who teaches, I mean the being that teaches that there's no persons, pretended to be a person. And he taught, this body does not belong to you and does not belong to somebody else. It doesn't have a self. It doesn't have a person. But I'm pretending to be a person to tell you this. I'm pretending to be a kind person, a wise person, by telling you these great teachings. Pretending means I'm taking this form to help you, but this isn't something substantial. But I'm pretending it's substantial just enough, or maybe a little bit more than that, if necessary, for you to be able to see me and hear me. I am kind, the Buddha could say.

[16:22]

But my kindness is not much use to you unless I pretend to be kind in a way you can see. And the way I pretend to be kind is not the way I'm kind. It's a ritual of kindness. so that Buddhahood can be realized, so the teacher can be realized. We might say they play. We often do say they play. We might say they perform rituals. They think they're doing rituals sometimes. They say they're doing rituals sometimes. But even if they don't say so, they look like they're performing rituals. But even when they play, there's something about their play which has a lot in common with ritual. For example, when they play Mommy and Daddy... Sometimes everybody who's in the play group is a girl.

[17:33]

So one of the girls has to be daddy. And one of the girls has to be the baby. And one of the girls has to be the mommy. Not has to be. One of the girls gets to be the mommy and the other maybe girl has to be the daddy. Can I be the daddy this time? No, I don't want to be the daddy. I want to be the mommy. You're always the mommy. You have to be the daddy this time. Okay. And who's going to be the baby? Usually it would be the youngest of the children that would be the baby. So then they play mommy and daddy and baby. And sometimes there's two little girls that are babies and sometimes one of them has to be the boy baby and one of them has to be the girl baby. So the little child who's playing the little baby boy, the little girl who's playing the baby boy, she knows she's not a baby boy. Usually they know. If they're not old enough to know that, they usually aren't invited to play.

[18:36]

Or rather... If they're actually a lot younger than that, I guess they could be invited to play. But if they're old enough to, if the little girl's old enough to think that she's actually really a little boy, they might have a problem with her playing. But a really tiny baby, they could just tell the baby girl that it was a baby boy and the little baby wouldn't know what they're talking about and go along with it. They could put on blue clothes and stuff like that. The baby wouldn't mind. Go along with it very nicely. Could also be all boys. Okay, you know, Brian, you're the mommy now, okay? I'm going to be the daddy. You say, no, no, you be the baby. Okay. So I'm the baby girl, you're the mommy, and Carolyn's the daddy.

[19:38]

So we play. And the children, generally speaking, not always, sometimes they have problems, you know, especially in the negotiation phase. Like, I don't want to, I'm not going to be the daddy, the little girl says. So she's not, she doesn't want to do the ritual anymore. If they can finally agree, then they go to work. And when they play, when they get into it, they're really sincere. I mean, they're like totally trying to be a daddy and totally trying to the best of their ability to be a mommy. And if you watch them, you're amazed how well they've been watching their parents. It's amazing what they've learned. And even they know how to be a little baby. When they're not a little baby, they know how to pretend to be a little baby, perform the ritual of being a little baby. And what I propose to you is that they cannot, they will not be able to be thorough and intimate with their part if they don't understand that it's pretend.

[20:53]

If they actually thought that they were daddy and mommy, they would be terrified They know they're not ready for daddy and mommy jobs. That would mean like, well, does that mean my daddy and mommy are gone? If I would be actually daddy, would that affect my daddy? Well, the answer is yes, it would. But also, if you pretend to be your daddy, it will affect your daddy too. But pretending to be your daddy is more in a line with reality than thinking you're actually your daddy or a daddy when you're not. Children, generally speaking, know this and so they can be wholehearted and have a really good time. Like, just wholeheartedly be a mommy.

[21:57]

And you can stop anytime you want. Unlike being a regular mommy. Who thinks, this is not, I'm not pretending to be a mommy. This is not a ritual. So regular mommies, if they are practicing that way, they are suffering. Because they don't think it's a ritual. Therefore they have trouble being wholehearted. Because they substantiate that they're a mother. They usually do not think, that they're the father when they're the mother. They sometimes think they're a single parent and they have to switch back and forth, say, now I'm the father, now I'm the mother. But whichever position they take, they often feel like, well, this is substantially a mother. I'm a substantial mother. This is not performing Buddhahood. This is performing sentient being And it's performing sentient being who does not want to make every activity of daily life the performance of the Buddha way.

[23:07]

When they play doctor, when they play nurse, they know they're not doctors and nurses, but they can wholeheartedly be, they can be more wholeheartedly a doctor than a doctor can be when a doctor thinks. that they're not playing, that they are substantially a doctor, that there is a substantial thing called a doctor. Bringing this home to formal Zen practice, it's the same. If you think you're a Zen monk, it's okay. You don't have to think you're a Christian monk. You don't have to think you're a rabbi. But it would be fine if you did. But if you did, you'd know that you were pretending to be a rabbi and pretending to be a Christian monk, which is fine. We can do that. We didn't have skits this practice period, but you can do it maybe next practice period.

[24:11]

You can pretend to be a rabbi during the skits. But between now and then, please pretend to be a Zen student. Please. This place is set up for you to pretend to be a Zen student. to do the ritual performance of a Zen student, of a Zen person, of a Zen being. But make it a ritual so that you realize it's not real. It's a construction of a Zen student, and everybody's got their different construction. But if you realize it's a construction, then maybe you can be thorough, maybe you can be intimate. But if you make it substantial, it's going to hinder your intimacy with being a Zen student. Or some of you said, I don't want to be a Zen student. I'm a Tussauds, but I'm really secretly not a Zen student. Well, then secretly perform the ritual of being not a Zen student.

[25:16]

Then you can be wholehearted. Then Buddha can be born in that intimacy with your pretense of the pretense will enable the total devotion to your activity. Then all your activities are, you understand all your activities are ritual, and then all your activities can experience and affirm enlightenment as real, as really existing here now at this place, filling the whole universe and being filled by the whole universe. I'm suggesting then that if we are remembering, if I were to remember to make every action for the rest of this session, for the rest of this practice period, for the rest of my life, to make every action the performance of the Buddha way, then every action is a practice ritual.

[26:56]

And in order for that to really work, I have to lighten up all around it, all throughout it. I have to be light about it, because this is a very heavy thing, to have that kind of commitment to the way, to the Buddha way. And I say lighten up if I substantiate this attempt to make every action the Buddha way, my effort will leak. My effort will leak. My effort will be drained, will be tiring. So I have to simultaneously be totally devoted to a form which I realize is a construction and does not reach the thing it's meant to realize. And remember, yeah, and remember that, that this form I'm using right now does not reach what I wish to realize.

[28:09]

And still go ahead and do this form. And understand that there's no way to realize what this form can't reach other than performing this form. Once again, the form doesn't reach what it wants to realize, but there's no ways to realize the thing that can't be reached other than by performing this form. Well, then does the thing that can't be reached by the form reach the form? It always did, always will. But if you don't, and I don't, devote myself to some form, some pretense, some ritual, then I will not be here to affirm and witness and transmit that which can't be reached, which is coming and filling my every action.

[29:15]

this lightness, this playfulness, this arbitrariness, this emptiness is necessary in order for the form to realize emptiness. So we perform forms to realize emptiness. The forms don't reach the emptiness, but the forms are never separate from the emptiness. If we perform the forms half-heartedly, the half-heartedness makes us not present for the emptiness which is right there. If we perform them wholehearted, that means that we included that the form is empty. There's no argument about the form being really something good or something bad. It's just an opportunity for total exertion, and total exertion requires a likeness. There's so many wonderful stories about what I've been just talking about.

[30:59]

One of them goes something like this. I'll introduce it today and perhaps go into it thoroughly later. So it's a story about one of the Sixth Ancestors' chief disciples, Nanyue Huairang. He's the one who, when he met the Sixth Ancestor, the Sixth Ancestor said, what is it that thus comes? And he said, seven years later, he said, to say that it's this misses the point. That's why we're on Nanyue.

[32:02]

So his student, one of his main students, is the horse master, Matsu. Some of us went to China together and we went to Matsu's temple, which is now in the middle of a big city. And outside the gate is a wonderful shopping street where you can buy amazingly nice Buddhist stuff to play with, which many of us did purchase. We were told that this monastery which we visited used to be surrounded by a vast estate of monasteries and that when they had fire watch, they used to do fire watch on horseback around Matsu's temple.

[33:06]

It took a half an hour to do fire watch on horseback. It was a very big practice center. So Matsu had 139 enlightened disciples. Dogen Zenji said that after Matsu had received this face-to-face transmission with Nanyue, he used to sit all the time after. So that's Dogen's understanding is after you have Dharma transmission, then you sit all the time. Before you sit occasionally. Before you forget, occasionally, to sit. Sometimes you think you're not sitting.

[34:10]

You think you're doing something else. The sitting that you do afterwards is a sitting which has nothing to do with sitting or lying down. But the strange thing about this story is it sounds like he was actually sitting at the moment of the story. But Dogen Zenji says he's always sitting after his Dharma transmission, after he received the Buddha Mudra affirmation. And so his teacher comes up to him and says, he says, Worthy one, what are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation?

[35:10]

Worthy one, what are you aiming at in sitting Zen? Worthy one, what is your intention? in sitting Zen. The teacher is asking the student to turn around and look at his intention. He's sitting there. Please look at your intention. What's your intention? What thinking is going on in you while you're sitting? What are you aiming at, or are you aiming at something? And Matsu says, my intention is to become a Buddha, or I'm thinking about making a Buddha.

[36:20]

At this point, Nanyue picked up a tile. and rubbed it on a stone. My great comment on that is if you go to China, you'll notice they have a lot of tiles there. At length, Matsu says, Master, what are you doing? Nanyue said, I'm polishing this tile to make a mirror. Matsu says, how can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile? Nanyue says, how can you make a Buddha by sitting in meditation? Matsu said, then what is right?

[37:41]

And Nanyue replied, when a person is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should she beat the cart or beat the ox? Matsu did not reply. Matsu was silent. Also, I might tell you that there's a lot of silence in China also. But we've got just as much here. We don't have as many tiles, but we've got just as much silence. We've got all the silence we need for great Buddha activity. Check it out. Nanyue went on, gave further instruction.

[38:52]

Are you studying seated meditation or are you studying seated Buddha? If you're studying seated meditation, meditation is not sitting still. If you're studying seated Buddha, seated Buddha has no fixed characteristics. In the non-abiding Dharma, there should be no grasping or rejecting. If you're studying seated Buddha, this is killing Buddha. If you grasp the characteristics of sitting, you're not reaching its principle. Or if you grasp the marks of sitting, you are not reaching the heart of sitting.

[40:00]

in this little house of cards that I'm trying to build here another little card I want to put in there to hold it up for a little bit is one I've offered before and that is it's an elaboration of one of the basic cards that I've offered you do you remember the card enlightenment is living in stillness Remember that one? I propose that to you. I'm building this little house. That's one of the little cards I'm putting up there. Another one I put up there. If you, then you may or may not be surprised if I say, in stillness, if enlightenment is living there, then also the Bodhisattva precepts are living there. the bodhisattva precepts are living in stillness.

[41:17]

That's where they live. And if they're sort of in the same general area, if they're intimate with enlightenment, the enlightenment that lives in stillness is unconstructed and the bodhisattva precepts are also unconstructed. They can be expressed intimately. as constructions, just like that unconstructedness which is enlightenment can be expressed as constructions. And the first pure bodhisattva precept, which is unconstructed, is expressed as its name. regulations and rituals. These are constructions which we can make based on the precept which is actually unconstructed.

[42:23]

And one of the rituals is sitting. So when one is sitting, there's a lot of things which could be going on, and Nanyue is asking and teaching Matsu about what can be going on, asking what is going on for him when he's sitting, what kind of thinking is going on there, and what kind of study is going on there. in the ritual of sitting, in the ceremony of sitting. Sometimes at Zen Center we translated that first pure precept as embracing and sustaining right conduct.

[43:38]

Right conduct as a parallel expression for these regulations and ceremonies. If these regulations and ceremonies are in accord with this unconstructedness, they will be right conduct. But I would say in order for them to be right conduct, we need to understand that they're forms, that they're regulations and ceremonies. That if we think that right conduct is a substantial thing, That means we don't, yeah, then that's not in accord with where right conduct comes from. Right conduct doesn't come from a substantial place. If we think right conduct is unconstructed reality, That's not right.

[44:41]

It is constructed, but it needs to be constructed in such a way that we realize that it doesn't reach the principle of right conduct. It doesn't reach the heart of right conduct, which cannot be apprehended, but which can be realized in this constructed form, if we remember that. And working with these two together, again, is what Dogen calls dropping off body and mind. I feel that the Buddhas are not possessive of anything, that they're not possessive of the ritual performance of Buddhahood, that they invite us and allow us to also perform Buddhahood in our daily life.

[46:07]

that the masters and mistresses of the Buddha way are perfectly happy for us to join the Buddha way, for us to devote every action to the performance of the Buddha way. Now if we wish to and we give it a try, the Buddhas will also give us instruction about what's necessary in order to actually make the performance the performance of the Buddha way. It must be thorough. We must be intimate. Now, if we could possibly be intimate without even thinking about the Buddha way, we would be realizing the Buddha way. So again, the Buddhas who have realized intimacy also invite us to practice intimacy.

[47:10]

There's two different ways to put it. Performing intimacy, performing the Buddha way. Buddha Shakyamuni performed Buddhahood, he performed the Buddha way. Attaining the Buddha way is performing the Buddha way. He performed the Buddha way when he attained the Buddha way. but he also performed intimacy when he attained intimacy. So I'm again trying to draw together the theme of intimacy now with the theme of attaining the way by performing it in every action, by donating, dedicating, devoting every action to the Buddha way, to intimacy. So I encourage myself to do this practice from now on, and I encourage you to also.

[48:25]

And I... Again, I'm saying this about the Buddhas not being possessive because I did not get a direct message. Nobody passed me a note today saying, on behalf of the Buddhas, we want you to know it's okay if you invite people to practice the Buddha way. I think the Buddhas would be okay with me inviting us, saying to us, you know, I think it'd be okay if we did this. It'd be okay if we did this. It'd be okay if we remembered that it would be okay. As a matter of fact, it'd be okay and good if we remembered it. And what just popped in my mind was my, I think, second or maybe third or maybe first day of work at this monastery.

[49:31]

a man named, I think his name was James McCarthy, and we had two James McCarthy's in that practice period, and one of them was assigned with me to go up this stream here, which didn't have a name yet, and repair the water lines which at that time were plastic pipes suspended above the ground in the creek coming down from the stream, and they had broken apart in a storm. So we were asked to go back up there and put the pipes together. And so we put one... one set of pipes together, and then we went up to put another set of pipes together. And I think when we got to the second joint, I said to him, let's go back and do the, let's go back and connect those pipes together right.

[50:45]

And he said, okay. He knew what I meant. And he wasn't insulted because we did it. We both did it half-heartedly. And we both, I realized when I said that to him and he was okay, I realized we both realized we had done it kind of half-heartedly. So we were both willing to go back and do it wholeheartedly. And so we did. And then we went to the next one and did it wholeheartedly. So how about us being wholehearted about the way? How about us making everything we do for the way? How about making everything we do the performance of Buddhahood? And remember also that you need to be light about this.

[51:47]

It needs to be like playing in the sandbox. Because if you get too heavy about this thing, which is kind of important, you know, saving the world, it also has to be just a ritual. You have to balance these two sides. It's just a game. It's just a ritual. It's just playing in the world of suffering in this wholehearted way in order to make things beneficial for all beings. Yeah. So, wow.

[52:49]

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