The Zazen I speak of is totally culminated enlightenment. The Zazen I speak of is the Buddha's function, the Buddha's life, the Buddha's meditation. It's the mind of Buddhas. When we wholeheartedly sit body and mind drops away and the original face manifests. This original face

[01:10]

is the Buddha's mind. Traps and snares cannot get the original face. The original faces that manifest One body and mind drop away is also called the face before your parents were born. The sixth ancestor asked the monk who was chasing him, what was your face before your parents were born? And he woke up. He entered that realm. This original face is also called, this realm of the original face is also called the realm of self-enjoyment samadhi of the Buddhas.

[02:35]

In the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra, It's the other dependent character of all phenomena when it is freed from all conceptual clinging. The other dependent character of all phenomena is their dependent co-arising. everything that exists, everything that there is, all phenomena are dependent co-arisings. All phenomena dependently co-arise. They have the nature of dependent co-arising. That's their basic nature. But this nature can have conceptual imputation put upon it and sentient beings grasp those conceptual projections as being this other dependent, dependent co-arising nature.

[03:54]

And then there's affliction and all sickness. But this other dependent nature is always actually free of those projections and that freedom is its reality. When we understand that, we abandon these conceptual clings and realize the purified basic nature. Sentient beings, as I say over and over again, naturally, constantly are involved in storytelling. We believe our stories of our relationships with the world. We cling to them and we suffer because of that. We have the opportunity to study these stories and by studying these stories we explore our mind.

[05:01]

By being very kind to these stories, by bringing you know, therapeutic attention to these stories, to the stress and pain of these stories, the stories drop away with body and mind and we realize freedom from stories. We realize the freedom from stories which is our original, basic, other-dependent nature. and that other dependent nature is also just a conscious construction only. It's not a substantial thing. It's free of all substantial projections. But it allows itself to be projected upon and if we cling to those projections we suffer.

[06:09]

We have various kinds of confusion. We need to practice kindness towards this situation which we have. Someone came to see me and I think the person said, I'm here to say, and then they said something, which I'll tell you. But when they said, I'm here to say, I thought of a Chiquita Bananas song. I thought Chiquita Banana said, I'm Chiquita Banana and I'm here to say.

[07:15]

But she didn't say that. She said, I'm Chiquita Banana and I've come to say. She said, I've come to say. She didn't say, I'm here to say. She said, I've come to say that bananas have to ripen in a certain way. Little did we know that Chikita was guiding us to the Dharma. Bananas have to ripen in a certain way. They have to be treated with compassion. And then they will become as sweet as liberation. So the person said, I'm here to say that Just sitting is enough. And that was what she said. She didn't say, by the way, I'm here to say just sitting is enough.

[08:24]

So there. She didn't say so there. Or take that. Yeah, it is enough. And now I have something to say about it. This just sitting, when you say just sitting, you could mean just sitting in the midst of an awareness, of a self-fulfilling awareness of the Buddhas. This isn't just sitting your idea of just sitting. This is just sitting in the awareness that just sitting goes far beyond your idea of just sitting. That just sitting is the just sitting in the midst of Buddha's awareness that what we're doing here must be enlightenment.

[09:26]

For the Buddhas, what they're doing here must be enlightenment. They have no choice. It has to be. What can I do? And enlightenment must be what they're doing. That's the way it is for the Buddhas. And for the undistracted bodhisattvas. In Asanga's commentary on the teachings of the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra, he talks about various kinds of distractions of bodhisattvas. Zen folks get weary. Zen folks do get weary. Bodhisattvas get weary and get distracted. Isn't that amazing? But when they're not distracted, they're not distracted. In other words, when they're not distracted, they're not distracted from what they're doing is and must be enlightenment. And enlightenment must be what they're doing.

[10:28]

Otherwise, enlightenment's no good. But enlightenment is good because enlightenment is what we're doing. but we can get distracted, right? It's easy to get distracted. Just get slapped in the face with a big wad of fatigue, with a tidal wave of exhaustion and pain, or a big insult, or a big misunderstanding, and we forget, oh, this must be enlightenment. Get distracted. Get distracted. But although we get distracted, there is this thing called grandmother mind. Grandmother mind never forgets that what we're doing has to be the Buddha way. Grandmother mind doesn't have to remember. Now what is it again? Grandma naturally says, oh yeah, what we're doing is the Buddha way. When we're walking, it's the Buddha way.

[11:30]

When we're sitting, when we're eating, when we're serving, when we're spilling water, when people are spilling water on us, They're sorry when they spill water on us, usually, which is very nice of them. Have you noticed how when they spill water, your lesions kind of, oh, sorry? They don't necessarily say it, but you can feel that they didn't mean it, usually. We must remember that what we're doing is the Buddha way. What we're doing must be the Buddha way. We must make it that way. We must understand that it is, really. Really. And some of our ancestors heard this from their teachers and they couldn't believe it.

[12:32]

They couldn't believe. They could believe some things they were doing were the Buddha way. But not every action. There's some that are better candidates for the Buddha way than others, they thought. And I always tell the story over and over of Tetsugikai Daisho. He got to hang out with Ehe Dogen Daisho, and Ehe Dogen Daisho taught him that. That what you're doing, you're an excellent monk. You're an excellent tenzo. You really take care of this place. and all your actions throughout the day, every task you do here in this monastery, that's the Buddha way. He didn't believe Dogen. Can you imagine that being in Dogen's presence, he tells you something and you don't believe him? Well, if you can imagine that, then you can imagine what it's like to be Tetsugikai. Because he didn't believe the great teacher.

[13:34]

And the great teacher says, you know, he didn't quite say this, but basically Dogen says, you're a great student. I'm teaching you with my whole heart and you don't believe me. You're resisting my teaching. And he didn't say that. He did not say that. Well, he said it another way. He said, I'm teaching you a grandmother mind and you're not accepting it. And he told him three times, And when Dogen died, he still hadn't really understood. But a year and a half later, he understood. And he said, I didn't believe our late teacher. Now I do. And some people think that Tetsugikai Daisho went a little overboard on this grandmother mind. That he wouldn't talk about anything other than what was happening right now. Whatever he was doing with his students, that was all there was.

[14:40]

And he was right, but he wouldn't talk about anything other than that. Totally into daily life. Wonderful teacher. Somebody came to see me and said, I don't have your faith. And he didn't say what he thought my faith was, but I thought he meant, I don't have your faith that our practice must be enlightenment. And enlightenment must be our practice. Maybe that's what he meant by my faith because that's my faith. I don't see any alternative to our practice being enlightenment and enlightenment being our practice. In other words, I don't see any alternative to genjo koan to the manifestation, ultimate reality, now.

[15:53]

Now as the manifestation of ultimate reality. But then this person said, that he was here in this temple and he was up early in the morning one day standing near the coffee brewer with another one of the practitioners. They were waiting for the coffee to be brewed. And he said this wonderful, delicious coffee. He was waiting for it with another practitioner. And I thought he was going to tell me that the other practitioner started talking, but he didn't. They were standing there, waiting for the coffee. And he said that he kind of, this person who said he didn't have my faith, the kind of faith I have,

[16:59]

standing there at the coffee machine. He said, and I kind of, it came to me that it's all here. It's all here. And I said, you don't have to have my faith, but it sounds like you believe That it's all here sometimes. That can be your faith. It's all here. And I said, you can express it. You can express it's all here. It's all here. You can express that. You can express that. This can be your faith. You can express this in every here. Here, it's all here.

[18:04]

Here, it's all here. Here, it's all here. Here is the Buddha way. You can express that. So at that moment, he had faith. It's all here. But again, we can get distracted from that, right? We can be standing at the coffee machine and get distracted from it's all here. And then when we get distracted from it's all here, we might do something kind of, get something that's appropriate to being distracted. We won't get into those things that we do when we're distracted from it's all here. When it's all here, we can act from that place. It's all here is not fabricated. But it's not without speech. You can speak from it's all here.

[19:06]

You can say, thank you for having coffee with me. Or you can say, from that place. you can express your faith that it's all here. In every here. It's possible. When I said that to him, he seemed to realize that he did have faith and that he had an opportunity to live it out. To live it out. And he looked very happy. He said, I think this is enough. Thank you. He showed me his faith, and his faith is pretty much the same as mine.

[20:07]

Suzuki Roshi gave me a name. And sometimes I call it my name, but really, he gave me a name to take care of for everybody. And the name is Tenshin. Zenki means it's all here. Zenki means the whole works. Zenki means everything, but also it means everything is working right here. Always everything is working right here. Tenshin means basically here. It means whatever you are, being whatever you are. This person who also who said he didn't have my faith, he said, I'm getting confused about these two selves. I said, I didn't talk about two selves. And he said, well, you're talking about settling the self on the self.

[21:11]

Like there's one self, you settle it on another self. No, no, that's not two selves. That's one self settling that you're settled in. It's one self that you're not distracted from. It's not two selves. It's the self which is all here, self. That's the settling the self in the self. It's not two. That make sense? It's one undistracted, completely settled self. It's one completely settled body. It's one completely settled mind with the faith That what we're doing right here is where it's happening. This is where enlightenment must live. And I know there's a lot of other interesting things in the world. But this is where it's at. That's called just sitting. Sometimes. So Genjo Koan is talking about the self-fulfilling samadhi.

[22:43]

It says, when you find your place right where you are, practice occurs. Realizing the fundamental reality. When you find your way right where you are, practice occurs, realizing the fundamental point. The place, the way are neither large nor small. How do you find your place? You can wholeheartedly sit or stand or walk in your place. You sit or stand or walk in the way you're thinking, in the way you're speaking. That's how you find your place. You wholeheartedly sit. You wholeheartedly walk.

[23:49]

Body and mind drop away and you find your place. And the practice occurs. Here. [...] Did you hear that? Here. Where's your here? Where's your here? Where is it? Where's your here? Where's your here? And maybe there's some stress there, but still, where's your here? Here. Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. Do you understand this is Zazen instruction? This is instruction in Buddha's mind. Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. The boundary of enlightenment is not distinct.

[24:58]

For enlightenment comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of Buddhadharma. And the mastery of Buddhadharma comes forth with making Buddhadharma right here and now. It isn't that you master Buddhadharma and then enlightenment comes. It comes from mastery of Buddhadharma. Mastery of wholeheartedly sitting, thus body-mind drops away. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. When you realize this self-fulfilling samadhi in stillness, it does not appear within perception.

[26:04]

It is unconstructed. You realize it, but you don't grasp it with your grasping equipment. You take care of your grasping equipment until it drops away, and then you realize the Buddha Dharma. Don't get the idea that the attainment necessarily becomes your own knowledge and views, that it would be known by discursive knowledge. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. And the inconceivable actually is a translation of the term. One word is the character which means mystery or secret, but also means intimacy.

[27:13]

It's one character. The next character is being. So it could be mysterious being, secret being, or intimate being. That Chinese character, Mitsu, it's the character that's also used to translate the Samdi Nirmacana Sutra into Chinese. The Chinese translation is releasing or revealing the deep mysteries. This mysterious being, the original face, the self-fulfilling samadhi of the Buddha, the other dependent character of the enlightened mind, may not be apparent, even though you're totally living in it.

[28:20]

Its appearance, it has an appearance. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. Its appearance, well, I would say its appearance is, in some sense, its appearance is, you know, I kind of want to say it's not an appearance. And yet, when Dogen Zenji was not too old, he was sitting, I guess, in his hut, in an area around Kyoto called Fukukusa, which I think means tall grass. Does it mean tall grass, Fukukusa? Do you know? Deep grass. He's sitting in this section of Kyoto called Fukukusa and he called it his Fukukusa house. So he's sitting there and he's talking, basically he's talking about, you know, sentient beings are, you know, dream walkers.

[29:30]

They're walking around in dreams. How sad. Suddenly awakening to reality. Black rain on the roof of the Fukukusa hut. So in some sense, maybe, it does appear. Black rain on the roof of Fukukusa Hut. But this... this wonderful one reality, is just conscious construction too. It's not a substantial reality. And this original face is just conscious construction. It's not a substantial original face. And the marvelous workings of Buddha's inconceivably skillful and liberating awakening is just conscious construction only.

[30:39]

Freed from Clinging, however, freed from conceptual grasping. And also realizing that all conceptual grasping, which is the source of affliction, it also has an original face. It also is insubstantial. So that's why we should be nice to it. If you're mean to conceptual grasping which is causing all our problems, that will enhance conceptual grasping. It'll get stronger. It feeds on unkindness and gets bigger and stronger even though it's an insubstantial bigger and stronger. It becomes more and more horrible even though it's an insubstantial more and more horrible. But the kinder we are, it becomes trained And finally it just rolls over and surrenders, rolls around in ecstasy at our feet.

[31:52]

If we're very, very kind and very, very kind comes to conclusion at very, very still and very, very quiet. So in the commentary, in the talks on the Samadhi Namo Uchana Sutra, speaking of the three characteristics, We had this discussion. It came up to call conceptual clinging, conceptual grasping, conceptual projection on our life. We call it the dream. Our life, our basic life, we call the mystery or intimacy. And the third characteristic of reality we call the absence of the dream in the mystery. Is that right? The absence of the dream in the mystery is reality.

[32:55]

The absence of our dreams in our intimate life together is reality. But that's actually not the whole story of reality. That's just the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is the absence of all projections of existence and non-existence. But there's another kind of reality, which is our life. And our life supports unreality and reality. The intimacy of our life is free of the projections which cause afflictions, but our life does support afflictive projections and it supports reality too. The editor of the book Third Turning of the Wheel, he likes to, instead of saying the dream

[33:58]

the mystery and the absence of the mystery. He likes the dream, the mystery, and silence. I think that's what he likes. But you could also have the dream, the mystery, and stillness. But the sutra says, dream, mystery, and absence. It doesn't say dream, mystery, and absence. It says absence of dreaming in our life. Finally, there's an absence of dreaming. In the meantime, there's dreaming, as you may have noticed. So the dreaming is something to be kind to. The dreaming is the stress, the stress center. Stress, stress, stress around the dreams. Good day, bad day. Good person, bad person. Stress center.

[35:00]

Again, kindness towards that story, generosity towards it, the stillness with it, and the exploration of it will bring it to drop away. There's a dream that arose recently, quite recently, that you all understand the Dharma perfectly. What we're doing is enlightenment and also what we're doing is really ordinary. and what we're doing is challenging.

[36:03]

And I want to start with what I'm going to say now which is I was deeply moved by the story I had of your great effort yesterday. With all your difficulties with all the stresses I felt not only did you stay present with them moment by moment, throughout the day. But you stayed present with them in a kind way and took good care of the body and mind. And I have a dream that I don't know if you were completely wholehearted about it and if all bodies and minds dropped away. I don't know that part. I mean, that's the dream I have. I have the dream that I don't know. But you can let me know if, in fact, bodies and minds did drop away yesterday. I think this morning somebody's body and mind dropped away at the coffee machine.

[37:07]

I don't know if the other person's body and mind dropped away, too. I just laughed at a joke I thought of, which I'll spare you the joke. Although it's not fabricated, it's not without jokes. Although, you know, again, although it's not without jokes, offhand I don't remember that many jokes that Shakyamuni Buddha told.

[38:16]

And I don't remember that many jokes that Dogen Zenji told. But if I look more deeply, sometimes when I watch the way he wrote, I think maybe he told a few jokes with the way he was writing, the way he flipped words around in ways that never happened before in classical literature. But anyway, some Zen teachers, some Zen monks did joke, and it encouraged me. I thought it was encouraging. And sometimes they're joking and we don't notice. Suzuki Roshi told a story. When he was a young monk, a young man, Suzuki Roshi had to be a man. That was his lot in life.

[39:28]

He had to be a man. And then he went to Eheiji to practice there. And he was sitting there, and I think, I don't know what the position was, but the person who was giving a talk, his name was Kumazawa Roshi. Kumazawa means bear swamp. Kumazawa Roshi was giving a talk and he said, a tori landed on a tori. So tori means bird and tori means, you know, those gates, the Shinto gates. Right? Is that right? Tori is bird and tori is the gate. So a tori landed on a tori and broke and it broke.

[40:31]

Suzanne made a look of great surprise. Satsuki Roshi was sitting there listening to it. And many years later, he realized that Kumasara Roshi was telling a joke. But all the monks were sitting there, you know. Very Sesshin, I think it was. Very serious. And a great Zen teacher says, Tori, on Tori, Tori broke. Oh. Oh. Later, Suzuki Roshi realized that Kumazawa Roshi was doing his best to tell jokes. To help the monks be tender and relaxed. To help the monks be free of their doubtful minds and melt their cold, cold hearts.

[41:42]

I think the day did come. I don't know when, but I don't think it came when he was a young monk at Eheji. I don't think so. I think it came later, when he was older, that his cold, cold heart melted. I think even Suzuki Roshi had a cold, cold heart for a while, like us. But I think it melted I think he became free of his doubtful mind. I hope we can all become free of our doubtful mind and melt our cold, cold hearts and be very patient with this process and learn how to be upright through the freedom from doubt and the melting of the cold.

[42:53]

And after there's freedom and melting to continue to be upright to show the way to freedom. Sounds like it's raining. How auspicious. How auspicious. How auspicious. That's a quote.

[43:27]

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