Please forgive me. This morning, in this valley, we did a full moon bodhisattva precept ceremony. And as part of that ceremony, we did a 21 prostration salute. Salute has a Latin root.

[01:06]

Salus, or salute, means health, welfare, and greeting. We did 21 prostrations to many Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Later, in Latin, it became salutare, which means pay one's respect to. So we wished help and welfare, and we greeted them by prostrating, and we paid homage to them by prostration. Right? Yeah. Yeah. People can say various things about what we did there. But as Abraham Lincoln said, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here about those 21 frustrations.

[02:16]

But the world will never forget them. They transformed the world. You know, so... I mentioned to you before that one of the fascicles in the Shobo Genzo, Shobo Dharma Gen Izo treasury, in the treasury of true Dharma eyes, which is collection about the treasury of true dharma eyes. So the book is a kind of treasury of true dharma eyes. All the verses, all the essays have dharma eyes in them, supposedly, or hopefully. But all the chapters are about the treasury of true dharma eyes, which in this school we nickname Zazen.

[03:25]

Our practice is the treasury of true dharma eyes, which is the entirety of Buddhist teaching, and Buddhist teaching is Buddha's realization. The teaching and the realization are one thing. So in our Zen history, the first meeting between the historical Shakyamuni and Mahakasyapa, the first disciple to inherit the Dharma, Buddha gave Mahakasyapa the Shobo Genzo, gave him the entire treasury of true Dharma eyes. In this book, The Treasuring of True Dharma Eyes, there's a chapter, and the chapter is called... the Sino-Japanese way of saying the chapter is Dharani.

[04:32]

The Sanskrit is Dharani. It has an H in it. And what's being said in this chapter is that... The presentation of prostration, paying homage, is the Shinobu Genzo. So this morning, we did 21 formal prostrations. to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And those prostrations, according to the ancestor, those prostrations are the shogogenzo. We bowers, we prostrators, and all of us are prostrating together.

[05:42]

Because the prostration isn't just our doing the prostrations, it's who we're doing the prostrations to. It's that interaction. It's not just our prostrations. Prostrations mean prostrations and prostrated too. It is the treasury of true dharma eyes. And the treasury of true dharma eyes in this classical is called the great Dharani. So the Shobo Genso is is prostrations. And prostration is a relationship. It is the great dharani.

[06:49]

Adrani is a Sanskrit word. I don't know what it is in Pali. If you look up the book, it says adrani is like a spell, an incantation. And what's an incantation? It's usually defined as the word You could say, believe to have a magical effect. So my understanding that is, in our school, they are words to have an imperceptible effect. Incantation are words that have an imperceptible response.

[08:00]

They're like, we say, I take refuge in Buddha. That's also an incantation, which has an imperceptible response. Also, instead of effect, I would say imperceptible response. there's an imperceptible response. In that sense, our frustrations are Dharani's. In that sense, our frustrations are the Shobha Genzo, which is, Shobha Genzo is, also Shobha Genzo is menacing. Menju, again, face giving. Direct transmission, face-to-face. Face-to-face transmission isn't just this treasury.

[09:03]

The treasury is a face-to-face relationship between all sentient beings and all Buddhas, and all Buddhas and all Buddhas. and all sentient beings. That's the Shilpa Ganso, that's Manju, that's prostration, that's the great Dharani. The word, choosing the word Dharani, you know, kind of like, excuse me, I was kind of mystified by it for a long time. Not that my mystification is over, but why Dharani? Because we chant the Daishin Dharani. How is prostration with the Daishin Dharani? It is in the sense that our frustrations are like a call. They're like an invitation. They're like a request. May I have a meeting with you guys? Can we have a meeting?

[10:05]

Could this be a meeting? Could we do this face-to-face transmission now by me bowing? And of course... In so many stories, and also in the rich transmission in the Zen school, lots of bowing going on. The person who does it does, like when I did it, I did 270 bows a day. At least a few more. is prostration is a big part of face-to-face transmission. And face-to-face transmission is a big part of prostration. So this morning, the people in the valley were doing these prostrations, and imperceptibly, there was a response to them. I don't know what it was. I couldn't perceive it. I kind of felt it.

[11:07]

How did you feel? Well, there was a lot of beauty. Of course, we were all dressed up. Had our white socks on. It was... Extra candles and extra flowers. Yeah, it was... But again, it wasn't a beauty we could see, but it was a beauty that was us. And that is... but the great Dharani. That is Zazen. And when we said Zazen, as I told you, we can sit and we can understand that this sitting is the great Dharani. The sitting is the treasury of true dharma eyes. Each one of us, out of sitting, there's no other shobo genzo than us sitting. It's not like the people next door are sitting and we're not, or vice versa.

[12:10]

Everybody is the shobo genzo in this practice. And bringing up these words and incantation and prostration. This is just to fill out, you know, to let you know that it's kind of like a boundless practice. It's not just my idea of sitting or bowing or whatever. Ki hin. Ki hin is the shobo genzo. Ki hin is face-to-face transformation. It's kind of face, front of the face to the back of the face. What does S-B-G-Z mean again? I know, but what does that mean again? I show. You mean S-B-G-Z? Yeah. Show. Bo. Genzo. Show. True or authentic. Bo is true.

[13:11]

It's really a hole, but it's hard to say. Sho-hole. It turns into sho-bow. Gen is eye, and zo is treasure, or storehouse, or storage unit. The tree being sunk in or attached to our discriminations withers in the treasury of the true Dharma. It withers and the flower blooms. It withers in face-to-face transmission. It withers in prostrations.

[14:12]

It withers in great invocations. Also, invocation is sometimes translated into English, or defined, I should say, as chant. The origins of the Latin word, from where incantation comes from, is chant, or invocation. Chanting, again, when we're chanting, maybe that's easier to see that we're chanting our words. But they aren't just reciting a text. We're reciting the text as an offering, and there's an inconceivable, imperceptible response to our change. And that relationship is immeasurable merit, and then we give that merit away after we change to the welfare of all beings.

[15:13]

We give it away to the buddhas and then give that away to all beings. merit to Buddhas enhances the merit, and then we give it to all living beings. Now, the flower that blooms is a flower of non-discriminating wisdom. So part of what's going on here is... I don't know what to say first, but anyway, I'll just say... that we're trying to not have a hair's breadth difference between our mind, not we're trying to have, we're trying to realize no separation, no difference between our mind and the perfectly awakened mind.

[16:15]

There already is no difference. That's the word from the awakened mind. The awakened mind has sent the message. There's no difference between ordinary human consciousness, you know, like wholesome human consciousnesses, unwholesome human consciousnesses, human consciousnesses. There's no difference between them. and complete, perfect, unsurpassed awakening. That's the word from awakening. But in the case that there might be a discrimination between our sometimes petty human consciousness, and the non-petty Buddha's awakening. There might be some discrimination between them. And again, there's no difference between the mind which is free from discrimination and the mind which is making discriminations.

[17:32]

In order to realize that there's not the slightest discrepancy between whatever body and mind we have, and the body and mind of the completely awakened ones, in order to realize there's no separation, we have to pay respect. We have to be respectful. We have to invite that realization. And that means there's no exceptions to our respect. It's got to be wholehearted, respecting everything. Respecting Buddhas and all beings is a Shobha Genso. Respecting all teachings is a Shobha Genso. Respecting all anti-teachings is a Shobha Genso.

[18:41]

Respecting all the dharma and respecting the not-dharma. In a way, some people think respecting the not-dharma is more, you know, than respecting what we think is the dharma. But even more so, not the dharma, in a way. And again, Manjir, Shogho Genzo, prostration, Great Dharani, Zazen, Tini, working in the kitchen. All these things, when done, can't be done as paying respect, as paying homage to Buddha.

[19:45]

And as I pointed out over and over, that's the way the great Bodhisattva Samantabhadra practices. No matter what she's doing, it's paying homage. No matter what she's doing, it's the Shilpa Genzo. It's Zazen, and so on. So it's an amazing chapter, the Dharana chapter. In Japanese originally, kind of a hybrid Japanese. And it's been translated into English quite a few times. And so one English translation is, to exhibit the presence of Shobo Genzo. To exhibit the presence of Shobo Genzo. we offer three prostrations.

[20:48]

Or four. Or twenty-one. When we offer prostrations, we are exhibiting the shogunate. Also, I wanted to mention that in the introduction to this chapter, the translator said, I can't read it, but I think it says something like, Buddhism is not mystical, something or other. Could you come up here and read this? Did you say Buddhism is not mystical, something? What? Buddhism is not Chinese characters pronounced Da-ra-ni represent the Sanskrit Dharani, which originally means a spell or incantation that is believed to have mystical omnipotence.

[21:54]

But Master Dogen's interpretation was more concrete, and especially he esteemed the prostrations as Dharani. In this chapter he explains the meaning of prostrations as Dharani. I mean, it's in the footnote. Anyway, he says, Buddhism is not mystical. And I agree. But it's also not mystical. Buddhism is not the imperceptible response of the Buddhas to our prostration. But of course, it is the imperceptible response of the Buddhas. It's not just the imperceptible. It's the relationship between the imperceptible response of Buddhas.

[22:57]

It's the relationship between the Buddhas saying, Thank you. Thank you, kids. Thank you, my dear offspring. It's a relationship between the imperceptible, invisible, unlimited Buddha mind, which we can't see. It's a little bit sort of beyond our perception. It's the relationship between that and our perceptible effort. Our perceptible effort isn't Buddhism either, by itself. It's a relationship. This class, by the way, is the Shobo Genzo. If this class is paying homage to the Buddhists, it's the Shobo Genzo. If this class is Shobo Genzo.

[24:01]

If this class is Shobo Genzo, it's Zazen. So I think you kind of got it, and it's not a matter of just keep turning this wheel ceaselessly. And maybe that's enough from me now for a while. Yes? Do you see a difference between the invocation of doing prostrations or chanting Dharani For example, going into a church and genuflecting and chanting the Mass, or praying to the saints? If I was in a church and I was genuflecting, if I was there, I would feel that I was paying homage to the Buddhists.

[25:04]

And that wouldn't exclude Jesus, or God, or whatever. I would feel a lot of similarity like receiving the host, right? So in Zen we have host and guest too. So receiving the host for the guest to receive the host in some Christian traditions, that's like menju. It's the same thing. There's no separation between Christian minds, Christian human consciousnesses, got the Christian consciousnesses, and all the different types of Christian consciousnesses, all those consciousnesses are not the slightest bit separate from Buddha mind. So no matter what religious form we're using, there's not any difference between that form and that effort and Buddha mind.

[26:09]

No. For me. And that's what I understand the tradition is saying. So, look down on any living being as being separate from the Buddha mind, including us. But our mind makes a distinction And that's what we're training at. And that distinction is going to keep being made. It's not going to stop. I don't know. It'll come back. Or other people will bring you distinctions. But when we practice with those distinctions in this way, we don't get stuck in them. They just go beep. They turn into flowers. They're lovely when you don't get stuck in them. And even the nicest distinctions are painful and stressful and disharmonious when we attach to them.

[27:12]

And we attach to them when we're not wholehearted. we have to make our prostration whole-hearted in order to realize the whole-hearted prostration, the whole-hearted Shobho Genzo. So that's what we're training at, is to, like, you know, you know, genuflect whole-heartedly. Wail at the wall and do wisdom whole-heartedly. Yes, yes? So this morning when I did my, this morning when I did the prostration, for breakfast, and I sometimes thought to myself, it's getting really long, it's time for me to do my assigned morning surgery, I hope it ends soon. So I wasn't being wholehearted.

[28:14]

She said she wasn't being wholehearted. It's not too late. That is not supposed to be. Pardon? So if I'm not, I was not being cold-hearted. You say you're not being cold-hearted, okay? And I'm saying it's not too late. If you're prostrated and you think, I am prostrated, okay? you could think, I am prostrating wholeheartedly. Really, like I told you last week, this German woman who's studying in Japan, part of her was thinking, I don't want to do these prostrations. Or, you know, I'd rather think about breakfast than doing these prostrations. She was thinking that. But she noticed that while she was thinking, this is stupid, this is, I don't know what.

[29:19]

Soji is more interested. Who knows what she was thinking? But she was resisting. Yeah, I just don't want to do these prostrations. I don't want to do prostrations. Okay? And she noticed, oh, there was somebody else. Not somebody else. Who was really doing the prostrations. So while you're doing the prostration and you're thinking, what, for breakfast? You can wholeheartedly do prostrations and think, what is for breakfast? Just like you can wholeheartedly do it when you're thinking, I'm prostrating. The thought, I'm prostrating, is no less inseparable from Buddha than the thought I'm not prostrating. What's going on with you? How are you bowing?

[30:24]

Like you could also say, my bow is not very good. But that thought is not separate from what you're bowing to. And if you bow... I'm laughing because I'm imagining somebody who bows... over and over for many years, and every bow that she does, she's thinking of breakfast. For many years, she does the prostrations and she thinks. And then finally she realizes, it doesn't switch necessarily from thinking of breakfast to thinking of bowing, she realizes that all the time she was thinking of breakfast, That thought of breakfast was not the slightest bit separate from the Buddha mind. Or she wasn't thinking of breakfast.

[31:25]

She was thinking, my frustrations are not wholehearted. My frustrations are not wholehearted. My frustrations are not wholehearted. Look at the picture. Fast forward 10 years, 20 years. My frustrations are not wholehearted. 20 more years, my frustrations are not wholehearted. And then suddenly, oh, all those thoughts that it wasn't wholehearted, they were thoughts that it wasn't wholehearted, but they're not the slightest bit separate from what I'm bowing to. What we're bowing to is not the slightest bit different from our bowing and our bowing can be. This is pretty good bowing going on here. This is below every bowing. After breakfast, How many more are there to think? I think I'm at number seven. The people next to me are good at me. I hate bawling. I hate the people bawling.

[32:27]

I hate them. Such things do occur in human minds, if you notice. Every one of those minds I'm not wholehearted, I am wholehearted. Every one of those minds, this practice is saying, the one who's bowing is not the slightest bit separate from the one bowed to. And if you're resisting and doing low quality bowing, you keep doing it, keep doing it, you will realize that all of your low quality bowings were never the slightest bit different from the shogunate, from the Buddha. the Shobo Genzo, it's not just the Buddha, it's low-quality people following the Buddha. It's not just the Buddha, it's slightly below average people following the Buddha. But we have to do the practice. We have to do the practice so we can say, this practice is boring, what's for breakfast, I'm not too good, or I am good, I'm great.

[33:36]

Even I'm the best bowler on the planet. It's such an arrogant thought. which maybe nobody has here. But somebody said, well, I don't think I'm the best on the planet, but I'm certainly the best at DreamNote. No matter who you are, this teaching is saying, you practice it. It's not the slightest bit. But if you don't practice, it's the same. However, if you don't practice, you won't realize it. And the one who isn't practicing is not separate from Buddha. And the one who is practicing is not separate from Buddha. And the one who is practicing is it, and the other one doesn't. But they're both inseparable from Buddha. You cannot get away from Buddha. But Buddha is who we really are. However, if we don't practice being who we are, which it is, for example, going to ceremony this morning, bowing and making a prayer,

[34:39]

In my case, I was bowing and I was thinking about some other things. Basically, I was thinking about how to bow, how to move my legs, because I've got all these robes to deal with. It's really a mess. And I'm working on that. My human consciousness is trying to deal with this body going up and down, robes, and that effort, my effort, is different from the people around me. They have their thing that they're working on. Each one of us, none of us, is separate from the Buddha. That's great. That sounds it. So it's not too late. You can wake up to that. Really, you were wholehearted. And you were so wholehearted, you thought of what to breakfast. Just so you can bring that up now. Thank you. Now here's a Zen story, just for your entertainment or for your viewing, for your listening pleasure.

[35:49]

Once upon a time, there were some Buddhist monks living in China. One of them's name was Fa Yan, which means Dharma Eye. Fa Yan. Bōjī. [...] And so and so was my name. B-I-N-G-O. [...] That was his name. Sorry, that was his name.

[36:56]

And he had a friend whose name was Shushan. which sounds like shoe shine, but it's different. Shoe shine means shoe is master. Mountain is mountain. His dharma name was Master of the Mountain. I think Fa Yen said to... Dharma Ai said to Master of the Mountain, If there's a hair's breadth difference, you know what the difference is about, right? If there's a hair's breadth difference between your mind and Buddha's mind, if there's a hair's breadth difference,

[37:59]

between the way you are and what you aspire to, etc. If there's a hair's breadth difference between you and Buddha-man, it's like the distance from heaven to earth. Just a little bit difference. Good as a mile. Missing by a hair's breadth is as good as a mile. We've got to get up, completely get over the separation. If there's a hair's breadth difference, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. Thayen said, Dharmai said, how would you demonstrate that? And Shishan says, if there's a hair's breadth difference, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. my comment, which is not, was not made in the time dynasty.

[39:03]

It was made tonight. My comment is, that's a pretty good answer. A pretty good demonstration. Did you get it? If there's a Harris-Pratt difference, how would you demonstrate that? If there's a Harris-Pratt difference, how would you demonstrate that? Pretty good. And then Falyan said, that's pretty good. But you only got 80%. And Shishan said, well, how about you, your teacher? And Falyan said, if there's a hair's breadth difference, it's like the distance from heaven to earth. And Xisheng, I forgot what he did, but anyway. He might have bowed. He might have thought of breakfast. He might have said, aw, you, you silly boy.

[40:06]

I don't know what, anyway. People working at looking at the discrimination and not falling into it. We're trying to do that together. That was one of his main styles. To say something, you'd have somebody else say it, or somebody else says it and he says it, and to say the same thing until finally there was no difference between the same things. Because even saying the same thing, like I said it or he said it, that was a little bit better than me, a little bit nuts.

[41:09]

And it doesn't mean you get rid of that if you don't get caught by it. So they're testing each other to see if they're not. Yes, Nina. I'm thinking about the physical expression of a prostration, putting yourself down, unwrapping yourself. the effect of doing that in a hierarchical tradition where we do that to people who are above us in status is not to melt away the discrimination between oneself and the Buddhas, but is to put that above you and to create a separation and to create a feeling of being lower or apart from?

[42:12]

Well, that's often the way it starts, is that it's already there. You already do feel that compassion are a little bit better than your, for example, normal human pettiness. You already feel that way, probably. If you don't, let's hear about it. But most people start that way, that they aspire to something that they think maybe is better than them or different from them. But, you know, a little girl might want to be like her mom. And she knows she's not her mom. And she kind of looks up to her mom and thinks her mom's great and she wants to be a mom. And she knows she's not. And she aspires to be a mom someday. So that's the way it starts. I didn't actually think Suzuki Roshi was better than me.

[43:16]

I just thought he was more experienced and he was playing the role of teacher. But I could have thought he was better than me. That would have been okay. Maybe I did think he was better than me, but I just didn't admit that I thought he But you could say he was... That's something you could say. He's in a higher position than me. But I didn't feel so much like he was. But if we do, that's immediately how we start. It really isn't that... It could be that you start by thinking that. You come in and you think you're above everyone in the organization, like my grandson probably thinks that. You wouldn't have to start that way. But even if you didn't start that way of thinking that the senior people were above you, you might slip into that for some reason.

[44:19]

Or you might come and think that they're not above you, and then as you practice more, you think, they're actually below me. That happens here too sometimes, and that's kind of hard on people. You know, are you following? Some people come here and they... In the early days of Tathārā, he said, I went to Tathārā, and I thought that these people at Tathārā were like, what do you call, beep, in nirvana. Okay? Oh, no, he said, in beep-beep nirvana. I thought they were deep feet in their body, as they thought. And he said, I watched them, and I just kind of like got more and more confused, because they were acting in these kind of like normal human ways.

[45:21]

So this guy came and talked to the senior people, and he was quite surprised by the way they behaved. And again, I've also told you the story of one of the early talks I heard, he said he wasn't enlightened, and I wish I could hear him say that, but it didn't discourage me. But anyway, some people come in and think that people are higher, and then they see they're not. Some people come in thinking they're not higher than they think they do. Some people think they're higher, and then when they practice, they keep thinking they're higher for a long time. But the point of the practice is to not fall into that view that people are higher than us, or lower. The teacher has to... Well, like the student, if the student finally becomes a teacher, then when the student becomes a teacher, the teacher has to watch out not to fall into the idea that they're better than the student.

[46:27]

Like a lot of students say, oh, the teachers know more than the students. That's a kind of understandable thing that a student would think. However, teachers don't think that. I mean, they might think that, but they don't fall into it. So the teacher does not fall into believing that they know more than the student. Now, they don't even fall into that they don't fall into thinking that. Students also, if they think they're below the teachers, above the teachers, equal to the teachers, those are discriminations. And practice, the point of the practice is to not get stuck in the discriminations. The point of practice is not to get rid of the discrimination. Okay. What are you doing? Right now? Yeah, right now. Warm is good.

[47:32]

Sleepy is nice. Confused is great. You're doing great. I thought that was a possibility, but I wasn't sure I wanted to check out. You could have also, as I mentioned the other day, one of the nice things about practicing together, particularly like, during Zadazam we can't see each other's faces. If we could, then it would be something kind of like when we can see people's faces. But during service, we can see people's faces. Some people are saying, you're not supposed to be looking at them. But anyway, I'm walking around. If I'm the doshie, I do see people's faces. And also, when I'm not doshie, I see people's faces. If I'm not supposed to be seeing them, don't tell me. But I do see people's faces. And from the early days of Zen Center, I thought, I really had no idea what these people were feeling. They could be totally depressed.

[48:36]

They could be full of rage, totally blissed out. They could be full of gratitude. I can't tell what's going on with them. And then I found out over the years that, in fact, those spaces which I thought could be any of those things, they were any of those things. I found out that the person who looked like they were depressed was full of gratitude, and the person who looked like they were full of gratitude was enraged. Because our faces are kind of like this. Of course, they're sometimes like this. And even if people are going like this, you don't know. You do not, I do not know. Maybe they know, but I don't think they know either. You ask them, you find out, we don't know what's going on. We just have our little thought construct.

[49:40]

And we allow people to have a face like this. In Zazen, you know, nobody's checking your face. Ting-hing, again, ting-hing, mostly watching people not to bump into them and trying to balance. In service, we get to see the faces. And also serving, but even serving, we started, like, paying attention to, like, holding the pots and, you know, holding our bowl. So we really don't look at people's faces too much when serving. And sometimes we actually, like, do meet face-to-face, and then we can see. But even then, we don't know. So that's nice. Although you're doing great, I didn't know it before you told me what's going on. It's probably because of confusion. Maybe so. And if there's confusion, it's not the hair's breadth difference from the Buddha.

[50:41]

The Buddha mind is telling us that. And the other minds, some of the other minds are telling us that too, but some of them say, no, your mind is different from Buddha's. Mine isn't, but yours is. Mine is actually mine. Mine is Buddha mind. Well, yeah, maybe so. I was thinking today... And that was not the Harris-Brett difference. From a withered tree, a flower blooms, then another one came to me, which is Burning Hut, the moon appears. Burning Hut, the moon appears. It's like similar, isn't it? Yes, similar. And here's another one. This is by Saigyo.

[51:43]

This leaky, tumble down, grass hut. Left opening for the moon. I don't know why he gave me that. All the while, it was reflected in the teardrops falling on my sleeves. That's nice. It's so nice. So we got to leave, and we're crying sometimes, but the moon's shining in our tears. But sometimes we don't get it. And then we look at the moon, and we realize, oh my God, it was always here. We have to be respectful of our leaky, tumble-down grass hut. And we won't realize this, but we're going to.

[52:47]

You can practice the great Dharani Manjusasana prostration. In reality, it's really what we're doing. But practice it to realize it. And we are doing these practices And we will continue. And it's so wonderful. Thank you very much. May your good health continue. Thank you.

[53:32]

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