Tonight I'd like to talk with you about the verses we just chanted. They're verses written by the great founder of our tradition in Japan, Heihei Dogen Daisho. These are his own personal vows that he wrote. He wrote some other ones too, but this one is the one we chant on a regular basis. When I became abbot 33 years ago, Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, suggested to me that before I offer Dharma talks, that we might chant something different than what we do for other Dharma talks.

[01:01]

So like on Sunday here we say, an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. So that chant is often given before opening, that's actually called the sutra opening verse. So when we read, traditionally when we read a scripture, we chant that verse three times and then read the scripture, or recite the scripture, or give a talk on the scripture. But he suggested that for my talks as abbot, I have a different chant before the talk. And he suggested, Ehe koso ho tsegamon. And so... we somehow, I forgot exactly how it happened, but we made a translation, which is pretty much the translation that we're trying to hear. Did you guys pass the cards back?

[02:04]

Nice work. Would you pass them on? So at that time, before some people's talk, not before all the talks, like we don't do it before Sunday talks, but in more formal settings, sometimes we do that chant. And I do it a lot because I feel like, you know, before Hoito Roshi made that suggestion. I hadn't even seen this verse. So, in the process of translating it, and then over the years, 33 years of chanting it, it's become very dear to me. And it just gets deeper and deeper, this chant, which is a chant of a vow. And so the thought arose that it might be good to go through it, especially under the circumstances of this practice period where we're talking about Buddha activity.

[03:16]

Because this vow, and the way Dogen Zenji talks about this vow, I see this in the context of Buddha activity. This inconceivably amazing and wonderful activity of Buddha's is the activity in which this vow is offered. And the vow is also speaking of this activity. It's speaking of a Buddha activity. And again, one of the ways that we've been talking about Buddha activity is the way each of us is included in everything else in the universe, and the way the whole universe is included in each of us.

[04:24]

That reciprocal relationship of mutual pervasion and pervading, that is Buddha activity. And that activity is also, and maybe if we have time during this practice period we'll also talk about it, this mutual reciprocal support is also spoken of as light and as an all-pervading illumination. And another connector, which we also may get into, is that we have this chant which we do at noon service, and we'll also probably do it during sesshin at noon service, or maybe even more.

[05:28]

We translate it as Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi, which is a literal translation of those characters which speak of this awareness, this samadhi. But that translation is actually speaking of one side of this Buddha activity, which is the side of inner illumination, by the Buddha's wisdom. And there's an outer illumination too. So both the inner illumination and outer illumination, how we are illumined and how we illumine, those two together, are this Buddha activity, which is this light of Buddha's wisdom, which again I'm just sort of telling you ahead of time a little bit. That chant also describes this Buddha activity.

[06:35]

In the chant it says, I think three times, earth, basically it says three times, all things are involved in Buddha activity. All phenomena are doing Buddha work. So it says that, I think, three times in there. And it describes this resonance between all things, the way that everything's doing Buddha's work of liberating beings from delusions. And that text is describing this Buddha Samadhi, the Buddha's awareness. And this awareness is sometimes called the touchstone or the criterion of our practice. So that text is talking about Buddha activity, and this text, which we're going to look at tonight, is describing and is and is discussing making vows and making confession and repentance in the context of this inconceivable mutual assistance between all of us and all things.

[07:56]

And I don't know when Dogen wrote this verse, but anyway, it has been transmitted to us, and it starts out in the original, it starts out with I, not we. I changed it to we for group chanting, because I thought some people can go, wait a minute, I'm not following that. But in the original it says, I vow. And I believe that the Chinese character that's used is this one, which is the Japanese reading of it is gone. The Chinese reading is yuren. It means vow. But it also means prayer or request. Request. So it means vow, promise, request, prayer. So one translation could be, I vow.

[09:04]

Another translation could be, may I. Another translation is, I beg that I. I request that I. So anyway, that's the character gone. When we do our bodhisattva vows, some of you have done it, in Chinese it's shuzhou muhen, which means sentient beings don't have a boundary. And then it says seigan dou, which means seigan. This character also means vow. So you put the two together and it's Baal. So they both mean Baal, put them together, they mean Baal. In this text regard here, it just uses a second character. sentient beings are numberless, vowing to take them across to freedom, to take them to nirvana.

[10:14]

Sega. So in this text it says, I, God. It actually, in the bodhisattva vows that we chant, it says, sentient beings are numberless, There's no boundary to them. And then it just says, vowing to save them. It doesn't have the character I in the Chinese of that verse. But this verse does say, I vow with all beings to hear the true Dharma. I vow, and then it actually says, I vow with all beings, from this life on, throughout countless lives, to hear the true Dharma." Now, the part about the countless lives often gets people kind of excited. And I'm not trying to stop you from getting excited.

[11:19]

But I guess I'd like to start out with to offer another way to understand what might be meant here, at least by me. I, I don't know what that is, vow with all beings. Now, from this life on throughout countless lives, for me, that means not that I'm going to be Reborn or not reborn, or how does that happen? For me it means I now am vowing with everybody to hear the true Dharma. And there's no limit to this vow. I'm not doing it for tonight and tomorrow. I'm doing it without limit. No end to it.

[12:21]

I'm never going to be done, kind of thing. Also, I think usually it's translated as I vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives. But I would suggest, for me, I like to think of it as It's not just from now into the endless future, it's also into the past. This is like, again, in the context of Buddha activity, I vow with all beings Buddha activity, which doesn't have a beginning. I vow something that doesn't have a beginning. So you can say from from now on, but also from now thence, from now backwards too, with no beginning or end. For me, that's what this vow is about. It's about an infinite time and space Buddha activity vow.

[13:27]

And in that context, I beg, I wish, I want the hearing of the true Dharma. So I'm kind of saying I don't particularly feel like I don't need to talk about how does rebirth work. I don't think we need to get into that. But I do think we need to get into infinite practice. Because it says, I mean, to understand this, because it says, I vow with all beings. And again, all beings doesn't just mean the ones that are living now. It means the ones who have lived and will live. It means all beings throughout time and space. That's the way I understand this vow. The vow of Buddha activity. And someone asked me on Saturday if I would talk about this vow.

[14:46]

And I said, OK. And I noted that Linda Budowski, who came here tonight, asked me a while ago if I'd talk about this. So I'm talking about it for you, too. But you weren't there Saturday, so I'm talking about it again for you. And the person who asked about it, when we started talking about it, she said something like, I don't want that I that has countless lives. I don't want that one. And I thought, okay. We can have one that doesn't have countless ones. There's a Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism called Amitayus, which means infinite life.

[15:52]

And another closely related Buddha is called Amitabha, which means infinite light. This is closely related. This infinite light and infinite life are kind of the same Buddha. activity. And I also might mention that if I think about, you know, just if I think about a kind of relationship or a kind of play between myself and all beings, if I think about it as finite, then there can be like winners and losers. Then there can be like the end of the play.

[16:59]

But if I think about it as infinite, it's not about winning and losing, it's about continuing to play. The name of the game is to continue the game. and also wake up to the game that doesn't have a beginning and doesn't have an end. Infinity is not just in the forward direction, it's backwards too. That kind of game is the game of Buddha activity. Now one of the nice things about that kind of game is that in this unpredictable world that we have decided to come and live in to help people, we get surprised. But if you're here to play forever and you're not trying to win, when you get surprised, yeah, it's like you don't lose.

[18:07]

If you're in a finite play and you get surprised, often that means you lose and you're not happy. When you play a finite play, when you're playing in a finite way and you get surprised, the past wins over the present and future. When you play infinite game and you get surprised, the future wins over the past. In other words, your ongoing practice can free you of your past karma. If you play finitely, your past karma keeps winning. So every time things don't go the way you want them to,

[19:10]

But when you're playing infinite game, when things don't go the way you want them to, or also don't go the way you don't want them to, they really surprise you. You're liberated from your past by your present and future. That's why I think it's necessary in this Buddha activity to play it on an infinite scale. With everybody. Not eliminating the idea of past, of beginnings and ends. In infinite play, past and future, beginnings and ends are welcome. They just aren't the game. They aren't the play. So, it's all beings and it's infinite lives. Infinite lives now, with all beings, and infinite lives in terms of past and future.

[20:15]

That's the scale at the beginning. And we don't need to get into how does rebirth work. We can do that some other day. And we could talk about this the rest of the time, but I just want to say a little bit more on that is vow with all beings in infinite time and space, to hear the true Dharma. And then, again, it's, I vow to hear it, but the other one is, may I hear it. May I hear it. I beg to hear it. So then it says, and about to hear the true Dharma. Upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in me, nor will I lack in faith. Now, one way to read that is, that when I hear the true Dharma, that won't happen. Another way to hear it is, when I hear the true Dharma, I beg that that won't happen.

[21:20]

If I have a chance, I beg that I don't lack faith in it. And I beg that I become free of doubt. Not predictions. Prediction's okay, but anyway, I would myself feel more comfortable with, I want to hear the true Dharma, I pray for the true Dharma, I wish for the true Dharma, I vow to be dedicated to the hearing of the true Dharma, and I hope that when I hear it, that I can be there for it completely. Another way to hear it is that when you hear it, you will be there for it, and you won't lack in faith. It's not so much a prediction, but more like a statement of how things work. Now the other thing is that when, if it comes true that I don't lack faith and I have no doubt, then I have no doubt about what?

[22:27]

Well, I have no doubt about practicing the true Dharma. Which means, practicing true Dharma means that you give up worldly affairs. Worldly affairs are doing something, you know, miraculously doing something other than hearing and practicing the Dharma. It doesn't mean you don't go to Safeway or Good Earth or shop at some place that's owned by Amazon. You can go shopping But you're going to shopping to hear the true Dharma. That's why you're going there. And once you hear it, you won't be distracted from it into things other than basically all day long looking for, looking at the possibility of the true Dharma. Listening for the possibility of true Dharma by listening to the ordinary things of life.

[23:30]

and looking no place else from the ordinary things of life." Looking some place else from the ordinary things of life is a worldly affair. Okay, you can see the Dharma is at its center, but not at its safe point. That attitude, to follow that, is a worldly affair. And when you hear it through dharma, you'll stop looking someplace else at a better, a more Buddhist, dharma-infected area. You won't be doing that. That's looking for someplace else is a worldly affair. Not looking somewhere else, that's listening for the dharma. Now, again, I'm saying that I will get into more detail about the teaching that right in the giving up worldly affairs, in other words, right in the practice of not looking someplace else from here for the Dharma, not looking someplace else, not seeking outside this situation,

[24:54]

That's the way to go. That's not a worldly affair. However, right in that not-worldly affair, there's a worldly affair. So it's not like we get rid of the worldly affair. When we renounce worldly affairs, it's not like we get rid of them. Right in the middle of the renunciation of the worldly affair is the worldly affair. And I'll get into that more later. Like, for example, now. Right in light there is darkness. Right in darkness there is light. Right in the worldly affair is listening to the Dharma. Right in looking someplace else for the Dharma, worldly affair, is listening for the Dharma. Right in not looking for someplace else is looking for someplace else. It's right there. Now, just to finish this verse, kind of like a set of this little set.

[26:05]

When we renounce worldly affairs, when we stop looking someplace else for the Dharma, from this room, from Green Gulch, from these people, from this person, whoever it is that you're talking to, once you've renounced looking someplace else for the Dharma... once you've given up worldly affairs, then when you meet the Dharma, and you will meet the Dharma, when you give up looking for someplace else, you will meet it, because it happens to be right here. All you've got to do is stop looking someplace else, because it's right here. Then you'll be able to take care of it. And you take care of it by not looking someplace else for it, and taking care of whatever this is. But with, you know, confidence that this is what you have to take care of. And when you take care of it, again, because of this Buddha activity, everybody's included in your caregiving.

[27:12]

So then everybody gets to take care of it. Because they're with you, and you're with them. So it isn't just that you're cool taking care of the Dharma and not looking someplace else. Everybody's cool. And if you look someplace else to find out how that's true, that's a worldly affair. And the more you don't look someplace else for verification, the more verification. So the Great Earth and all living beings, together with that practice of taking care of the Dharma, which is taking care of not something else they're all included in it, and everybody together attains the Buddha way. That's the beginning of this verse. And so I can imagine that going through this whole verse would take quite a bit of time. But I just want to say as an overview comment that this first section, which I've just sort of like talked about briefly, to me it's very happy news.

[28:21]

I just get happier the more I meditate on this first part. And then comes But it's not exactly bad news, it's just the kind of other side of the story, which I already mentioned. That right in the... Although you have this wonderful story about when you hear the true Dharma and taking care of it and everybody enters the Buddha way, there's also this strong habit of seeking someplace else. And so it says, then it goes down to, although... but it could almost be like, and by the way, our karma has accumulated, so there's a lot of obstacles to us practicing the way. What way? Not looking for some place, the Dharma someplace else. We have a strong tendency to look someplace else. And then it goes on to tell us what to do with that. So we have a practice which is going to be talked about later in the text, which deals with our vulnerability, our fragility,

[29:36]

in our practice where we keep slipping back into worldly affairs because a past looking for someplace else, we have a tendency to continue that, which becomes an obstacle to what we just talked about. And then all these wonderful practices to deal with it. But for now I'll just stop there on what the first section of the vow And again, you can see this is a vow. This is what he's hoping for. He's hoping for it, and he's telling you what he's hoping for. He's hoping for it. the great earth and all living beings together, attaining the Buddha way, attaining the Buddha activity. That's what he's committing to, wishing for, requesting of the universe.

[30:46]

And when he died, he said, concerning this Buddhadharma, which I've been trying to maintain for quite a while, I'm adding that part, I have the joy of having right faith, and the right faith is what I just told you about. But in a way, he didn't actually completely master all aspects of this inconceivable, infinite Buddha Dharma. But he had the faith of being devoted to it and not looking for someplace else to find it. So he found it a lot, but there's no end to finding it. Or he realized it a lot, but there was no end to his realization. And as a matter of fact, there's a lot that he didn't realize, but he had faith in the process that he'd been going through, wherein a great deal of realization occurred from taking care of the Buddhadharma. He was very happy about

[31:57]

his practice, even though there was a great deal he couldn't reach, that his practice didn't have a chance to accomplish. Yes? In the first sentence of the last paragraph, it says, quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions. Does that mean study your karma? Yeah. Practice with your karma, I guess? It means study your karma, but it also means study confession and repentance, which means study... how when you do reveal and disclose your lack of faith and practice before the Buddha activity, to observe how that works. So it's revealing your karma, so by revealing your karma you can do a good job of giving a, what do you call it, a report on your karma to the class of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[33:12]

Hey, I can tell you all about it. Look at this. Come and see, please, concentrate your hearts on my confession. It's going to be a good one. I've been studying. And then watch how it is to invite them and how they come and meet you and how the meeting works with the confession and the karma and how surprising it is to meet them and how that frees you from your karma and lets you go ahead and confess some more and so on. In this endless process, explore this quietly. In stillness. In other words, be still and quiet and then talk about it. Be still and quiet and then speak. And be quiet while you speak so you can hear who you're inviting and you can see that they're responding simultaneously with your talking. That's the quiet exploration. And he also says, because this is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha, the Buddhas have transmitted this practice of revealing and disclosing and contemplating the farthest reaches of this relationship between your karma, my karma, our karma, and the Buddha's.

[34:30]

Buddhists are totally pervading our karma, our karma is totally pervading the Buddhists. We are working together to explore that quietly to the farthest reaches. And this is the practice that Buddhists transmit. They don't just transmit freedom from karma, they transmit revealing the karma, inviting witnesses, having conversation. This whole thing, which includes the enlightenment, but it includes the disclosure of our looking someplace else for our life, in our life. All that. That practice has been transmitted to us. And it wasn't like the Buddhas didn't go through that process.

[35:34]

They did. They do. They are going through it with us right now. And if we don't do that practice, we miss out on the practice, which is an exact transmission of a verified Buddha. But anyway, we're not missing out on it because we are doing it, right? We are revealing and disclosing our lack of faith in practice. We are noticing, Oop, I looked a little bit someplace else. Okay. And that is included in not looking someplace else. Looking someplace else is included in Not looking someplace else. So not looking someplace else isn't just not looking someplace else. It's also looking someplace else. This is Buddha activity.

[36:35]

So when we reveal and disclose our lack of faith and contemplate the farthest reaches of this kind of practice, both sides are included. Both but we're revealing our lack of faith And right in the middle of revealing the lack of faith is no lack of faith. Because we have the faith to do that difficult work. Which again, it helps to be quiet and still because we have plenty to talk about and go do other than that. And people don't usually get any money for confessions. Although I think some parents do pay their kids for confessing. Is that enough for tonight?

[37:42]

Yes? In the first paragraph it says, the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. Yeah. Is that different than saving all beings? It's the same thing, same old thing. Because saving them doesn't just mean taking away the pain, it means also introducing them into the practice, which is the joyful work of helping all beings do the same work. So it's not just saving them from suffering, it's also introducing them to this path. which is so joyful. It's not just absence of suffering, because on this joyful path you're not running away from the suffering. You say you're saved from trying to get away from suffering. And you can accept that it's omnipresent. Like the Buddhas can. Then you attend the Buddha way.

[38:44]

There's no escape. It's an opening to the fullness of life. The Buddha way. Like that song I sometimes sing you. Yes? What's the song? I'll do it later. So how do you play the infinite game while taking the finite game totally seriously? It seems so easy to slip into, like, coming or going or birth or death. Well, thank you. In an infinite game, you temporarily renounce the finite game. You actually give it up. And because you're playing an infinite game, you're able to give up the finite game. But you don't get rid of it. Trying to get rid of the finite game would be a finite game. So you're not trying to get rid of it, but you actually like to let go of it.

[39:47]

And you can let go of it taking it a little bit seriously or very seriously. Either way. If it's finite... It has winning and losing and beginning and end. And you can just let go of it. But not get rid of it. We call that dropping our body and mind. When we say dropping our body and mind, we usually mean drop off the body that has a beginning and an end. But it doesn't get rid of it, you just let go of it for a little bit. And then you get a little glimpse of Buddha activity, which includes that letting go of the body and mind. by taking good care of it. So, again, if you've got a body and mind and you don't look someplace else for the Dharma and take good care of it, you're not looking for someplace other than this, you're renouncing worldly affairs. So although you're taking care of this finite thing, you're renouncing Getting anything from it or going someplace else.

[40:50]

And then you give up the finite thing. It could also be taking care of a finite play. In the same way. And then you let go of it. Okay? I guess sometimes it seems just like that, even if it's just part of the finite game, like the suffering that's existing in the finite game seems pretty poignant or pretty urgent. If you take care of the poignant, urgent suffering, giving up worldly affairs means you give up looking for the Buddha way someplace other than taking care of the suffering. Got some suffering? We kind of can tell that it's calling us for some attention, right? Oftentimes we can say, the suffering is asking us to be here, right? I'm hurting, would you please listen to me? You've seen that, haven't you, that show? I'm suffering, would you please listen to me? Have you seen that one? No? You haven't seen it?

[41:52]

Oh, I thought it was a nice one, too. One, two, three, four. Please be compassionate to me. I'm not kidding. That's show. I'm suffering. I'm not perfect, but I still am worthy of compassion. And please give it to me. That's show. Okay, now... If you think that, if you happen to be like cruising along on the Buddha Way, you know, and I come by and say, hey, just a second, would you stop for a second and talk to me? I need your help. And you kind of think, hey, the Buddha Way is someplace else. I've been listening to you. See you later. That's a worldly affair. If you stop your vehicle and let me get on, you know, and pay attention to me and don't look someplace else for the Buddha Way, that's not a worldly affair.

[42:54]

I think of this story which again I told you before it's about this person who I think lived in India and she met a really great teacher and happily studied with him and so the teacher says we're going to do a big ceremony and it's on the other side of the Ganges River and so let's go And these ceremonies that this teacher offered used a lot of equipment. So this teacher had many students, and the students carried the equipment. And so they got to the edge of the river, and this new student was carrying some of the equipment. And the teacher came first, and the teacher came to the edge of the river, and there was an old woman there, and she was very ill. And her illness was very obvious and poignant.

[44:07]

And she asked the teacher for help. She asked the teacher to carry her across the river. And the teacher beneficently said, I have a lot of disciples that can help you. And the teacher went across. And every disciple came and they had lots of stuff that they were carrying for the ceremony so they couldn't carry the lady. across. The last one, the junior disciple, the hero of the story, put down the equipment and picked the lady up and started carrying across the river. But then he started to feel kind of funny, like his feet had gone off the ground and he felt like it was getting higher and higher in the air. Finally he realized that he was holding a great bodhisattva. He didn't skip over, you know, just go over to the big ceremony. He took care of this. Of course, he's showing us the way.

[45:13]

Okay, so can anybody guess what the song is? And if you can, can you sing it? Do you understand? Recently, a person who was here at Green Gulch and isn't here anymore, but has the same name as you, He said, at the end of one of these sessions, he said, I don't understand. I don't understand, I think, brackets, what you're saying, close brackets, and I also don't know why you're talking about this.

[46:18]

And I said, I don't know either, but I see that I'm doing it. The ultimate truth is not understood by people. People do not understand the ultimate truth. So if you don't understand the ultimate truth, you're not the only one. Who understands the ultimate truth? Buddhas, together with Buddha. And it isn't that the Buddha understands it by himself. The other Buddha by herself understands it. They understand it in conversation. The conversation understands it. So you don't understand what I'm talking about. I don't understand what I'm talking about. But what we're doing here does understand. So let's just donate our life to what does understand.

[47:30]

which is this conversation, which is going on all the time. So it's already going on. We need to perform the conversation in order to realize this conversation that's already going on. A Buddha activity is what we're doing together already. We have to tune in to what we're doing to wake up to what we're doing. And what we're doing together understands the teaching. But I don't. I could say I do, I could say I don't, but anyway, I don't. But there's something that does and I'm devoted to what does. I'm giving my life to the thing that understands, which is the Buddha, in conversation with the Buddha, the Buddha activity. We are part of it, let's get with it. Okay? All right? So now you had enough, right? Nobody's guessed what the song is?

[48:38]

I'll give you a hint. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. You've heard that one, haven't you? No? Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be all right alone. Don't need anybody else. Sound familiar? That's worldly activity. That's what doesn't understand Buddhadharma. I can do what I want I'm in complete control That's what I tell myself I got a mind of my own I'll be alright alone Don't need anybody else Gave myself a good talking to No more being a fool for you But then I see you And I remember How you make me wanna surrender

[49:56]

You're taking myself away, boot away. You're making me want to stay, boot away. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. OK. Thank you.

[50:35]

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