Dogen zenji's presentation of the Dharma playfully penetrates the past, the present and the future. What was true in 1227 is still true now and will be true for future generations. But what is also remarkable is that each sentence of the Fukanzazengi is true, true of what came before it and what comes after. The truths expressed in the beginning, middle and ending are so interwoven that you could actually start anywhere and loop back to complete the circle because it is like an enso, a circle brushed as an expression of the truth of this moment and thus is always true. But there is always a starting point, even when brushing a sho and so we will follow the circle as he brushed it, to its completion. The translation was made many years ago by Anzan Hoshin roshi with his own Teacher, Joshu Dainen zenji and most of the text is used in our chanting practice.
from The Fukanzazengi:
How Everyone Can Sit
by Eihei Dogen Kigen zenji
The text begins:
"Primordial Awareness is in essence perfect and pervades everywhere. How could it be dependent upon what anyone does to practise or realize it? "
Do you know what a context error is? A context error is muddling one context with another context. This is an error that I think all students make when they begin practice. We all go about learning to practice as though it were dependent on what we already know. We want to know up front what it is, what the rules are, how it works, so we can get comfortable with it. In short, we want to practice on our own terms. That's our context. But the context we walk into when we enter the monastery to attend a sitting is the context of practice, which is vast. It's much bigger than you could possibly imagine. Dainen-ji is a place you come to in order to learn, and to begin with you need to let go of your own ideas about practice, be willing to receive instruction and follow through.
Our root practice is shikan-taza, or just sitting. But to be able to do that we need to be able to practise with open attention. Attention is so fragmented that we are unable to just sit without falling into habitual patterns of thought and feeling. So we are given practices to do, beginning with basic mindfulness practice. As our practice deepens we begin to practice the forms more thoroughly, are given bowing and chanting practice to do, oryoki practice, and later still, deshi do koan practice, receive the Bodhisattva Precepts, do Mikkyo practices, Zen art practices and so on. All of these are done for the purpose of seeing how our attention is as we do them, as it is through seeing the fragmentation of attention that we can do something about it. So we spend a long time gazing at the wall, watching our minds run down it, seeing how attention opens and how it folds down and then opens again. The practice is a process and the seeing of all of this is an essential part of the process.
Sometimes students think that zazen is what Zen is. No single practice is what Zen is. Zen is a whole continuum of training which requires many years of study and practice to understand. Zazen is the basis of our practice, but there is much more to it than that. This is why it is important for you to come to the monastery to attend sittings, Dharma Assemblies and other events. This is why it is important for you to receive ongoing instruction.
The text continues:
"The movement of Reality does not need us to give it a push."
This does not mean that there is no point in practising. It means that
Awareness is the only condition
All that is arises as the display of Awareness
This is the seamless expanse of all that is.
It means that we are not, have never been, separate from Awareness. But, of course, we tend not to know this because we are so preoccupied with what Dogen zenji referred to as our "circles of self-concern". When we are practising we are not "inventing" Awareness, "creating" Awareness, making Awareness "happen". Basic mindfulness is the means by which we can begin to open attention to the Suchness of things as they are. You are already breathing, so feel this breath; you are already seeing, so open and pay attention to the seeing; you are already hearing, so open and pay attention to hearing.
Dogen zenji says,
"Do I need to say that it is free from delusion? The vast expanse of Reality can never be darkened by the dust of presumptions."
Right now you are seeing the white of the wall. It doesn't matter what you think about yourself or about anyone else or about the world. It doesn't matter whether you are happy or unhappy, interested or disinterested. The wall, the colour white, present themselves as they are. You cannot make the wall hate you or like you. You cannot make the colour white hate you or like you. You cannot make the wall or the colour white agree or disagree with any of your storylines. Reality is free of your delusions and anyone else's delusions. It is stainless.
The text continues:
"Who then could believe that it needs to cleaned of such dust to be what it is? It is never separate from where you are, so why scramble around in search of it?"
It is no further from you than the sensations of your fingertips, the taste in your mouth, the coolness of this breath.
And then Dogen zenji says,
"The thing is, if there is the slightest gap, sky and earth are ripped apart. If you give rise to even a flicker of like and dislike, you lose your mind in delusion. Just suppose you become puffed up about your understanding and inflate your little experiences: You think you have seen the truth, attained the Way, recognized the Luminosity of mind and can grasp at heaven. You might think that these initial jaunts about the borders are entering the realm of enlightenment but you've lost the Way of complete liberation."
Essentially, the practice of the Buddha was to practise open attention through just sitting. Sit without reacting to anything, releasing the narrowing and focusing of attention, moment after moment after moment. When attention focuses on something that is "liked" or something that is "disliked", you lose your way.
Sometimes students will lose their way because they become reactive over sensations. They may even stop practising altogether because their knees hurt. This despite being offered a stool to sit on. Or they may become reactive because they don't like being given instruction because it contradicts what they already think they know. Or it could be over something like seeing a bug in a practice room and feeling slighted because we won't kill everything in the building for them. The discomfort of your knees, the realization that you are not right about everything, reactivity over a bug...these are NOTHING compared to the pain people experience in their lives. So a word of advice about this kind of reactivity - grow up. Be a big person. Look for ways to work with the situation instead of freaking out.
On the other hand, there are those shiny moments that people really like. The ones they want to keep. Maybe one day you are sitting and everything opens far more than you have ever experienced. That fades, but you remember it and it becomes your "special secret". Often students don't want to talk about those kinds of experiences because they are afraid they will be told it isn't all they believe it to be.
Holding on to that kind of experience, hoping to somehow cultivate it, hoping you'll win the lottery and it will somehow happen again and this time you'll get to keep it --- this can become a real obstruction in one's practice. The reason that kind of experience stands out so much in memory is because...it stood out so much while it was happening. At the time it was happening, you were experiencing a double set of perceptions, so to speak. Things opened, and how you perceived yourself and the world was very different. But you could also simultaneously remember how you ordinarily experience things and so there was a contrast between these two sets of perceptions. It's the contrast that is so addictive about that kind of experience. What happens following that is that the experience fades. Why? Because whatever was understood was understood and became integrated. No more contrast. The reason that experience happened was because in that moment you were to some extent meeting your life as it is. It will never happen again in the same way because everything is now different. So if you get caught in that one, let go of it. Practise this moment as it actually is.
Dogen zenji then says,
"May I point out the one from Jetavana, the Buddha, who was himself Primordial Awareness and still sat for six years? And how about Bodhidharma transmitting the seal of Awareness through doing wall-gazing at Shao-lin temple for nine years?"
A couple of thoughts come to mind about this. Sometimes students really can't understand why they can't just sit at home, by themselves, without instruction. After all, the Buddha did that. Bodhidharma did that. May I point out that you are not the Buddha and you are not Bodhidharma. You're also not Einstein and you're not going to come up with anything like the theory of relativity - not without countless years of instruction and study and probably not even then. You're not Bach and so it is highly unlikely that you will write music like his, not without countless years of instruction and study. Sorry if this is the first time anyone's pointed this out, but things are not all equal, they're not all fair, we do not all have the same starting point and you are as you are, not as someone else is. Or was. Start from where you are and be willing to learn from others.
You might not like what I just said, but do you understand why I said it?
I once asked the Roshi about Teachers - if two people who had nothing in common Woke Up and became Teachers, would they somehow come to agree with each other about everything? He said "No, but they would understand why the other was saying or doing what he or she was saying or doing."
The text continues:
"The echo of those are heard even now. If this is how it was with the great ones and their diligence, then how about you in your own practice? You should stop chasing understanding through juggling words, allow the external seeking of your mind to collapse upon itself and light up your own nature. Doing this, the bodymind will drop through itself spontaneously revealing your Original Nature. If you wish to be realized in Suchness, immediately practice Suchness."
In the Roshi's translation notes of this text, he says,
"Shinjin datsuraku". Usually translated as "dropping off the body". Unfortunately, this translation distorts the meaning of the phrase as a technical term for practice into a statement which contradicts Dogen's nondualistic intention. Shinjin datsuraku means that body and mind have been revealed within experience to be aspects of each other and to each be modes of knowing. The field of the known and the bodymind are then uncovered as transparent to each other. In the release of fixations and contractions of attention, there is no longer anything to provide a reference point for locating the activity of knowing within the field of the known. The practitioner drops through the bodymind, through the field of the known, into the Knowing which is radiant as the bodymind and the field of present experience."
Sometimes students will experience the Openess of basic mindfulness practice and will ask me "Did I drop through bodymind?" So to clear up any misunderstanding concerning this: Dropping through bodymind doesn't mean dropping in and out. Once one drops through bodymind there is no coming back.
The text continues.
"Don't give rise to the mind's common concepts, the judging of thoughts and observations."
Looking at thoughts to judge them. What can you judge your own thoughts with, other than the closed circle of your own thoughts?
Dogen zenji then says,
"Don't sit to become Buddha because you can't fabricate a Buddha out of sitting or lying down."
Back to my earlier example: Can you become Einstein by scribbling numbers on bits of paper? Can you become anyone or anything by thinking about it, by hoping or wishing? In that, there is already a huge misunderstanding present. It implies that there is a some "one" inside of "you" who can become an idea "you" have. That's not just weird, it's insane. It's not how anything works or how anything happens.
The text continues:
"Once you have found your posture, breathe in and out deeply, sway left and right and then settle firmly and steadily."
In some traditions of Zen training, the form is to take one's seat and then sway left and right to balance and align the bodymind. In our training we don't do this because people tend to make a big deal out of wobbling around on the zafu. And so instead the process of aligning and balancing the body is done through the forms we all use to begin our sitting rounds.
Actually, at Hakukaze-ji where the Roshi trained with Joshu zenji, the form was originally to do a gassho-monjin standing bow to one's zafu and zabuton, take one's seat and do a seated gassho-monjin to the wall and then sway in a concentric circle until coming to a centred upright position. Then the kaishaku and gong strikes began the sitting round. But all of the bowing and wobbling tended to allow people to be self-indulgent and fussy and for them to wait until some noises were made to begin being mindful. Anzan roshi spoke to Joshu roshi about this after he had received Shiho. And so the forms were economized and stream-lined and mindfulness was built directly into the forms to begin and end sitting rounds.
Dogen zenji says,
"Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Be Before Thinking. These are the basics of zazen."
What is being spoken of here is being "Before Thinking" or "Hishiryo". The Roshi defines this term in the following way:
"This means: No opposites. Zen is not a matter of thinking (shiryo) or of shutting out thought (fushiryo) but of being Before Thinking (hishiryo). Before Thinking means to be prior to experiences in the same way that a mirror is always prior to what it shows even at the moment of showing it. We cannot be anything that we are aware of. We are always the context of whatever content arises. When we release all of our states and our avoidance and identification then we are always right there at the very moment that the world arises, right at this pointless point. Bring together every aspect of mind, everything hidden and everything obvious, and allow each to resolve itself into the knowing of it. This is zazen, the shikan-taza of all Awakened Ones."
The text continues:
"What I call zazen is not developing concentration by stages and so on."
The impulse to narrow and focus attention in order to control or calm the mind is not what zazen is. It is not the scattering of the mind that is the problem; it is the focusing. If you practise labelling thoughts or focusing attention on counting the breath, for example, all that you are doing is swapping one set of thoughts for another set of thoughts and in the process you will not have learned anything about releasing the movements of attention that give rise to habitual patterns of thought or feeling in the first place. What may come as a surprise to you is that Dogen zenji did not tell his students to count the breath. In fact, he said they shouldn't. For more detail on this, you should listen to the teisho series "Sitting up Straight".
Dogen zenji then says,
"It is simply the Buddha's own easy and joyful practice,"
Once in a while, a student will comment on this, but the tone is more like "The Buddha's own easy and joyful practice. Yeah, right."
Yes! That is right! It is the Buddha's own easy and joyful practice and it is a very powerful practice. But you have to actually do it to understand this. The Roshi has an expression that goes,
"That which seems difficult is the same thing that is making it difficult." What you see when you are sitting is your own deluded patterns, your reactivity, your fear, and all of the ways in which you make things difficult for yourself. The instructions are to release all of "you" into the open space of experiencing. Not just the bits you think you don't like or would like to change. All of it. Right now, are you doing that? Are you releasing by ending your fascination with "ME ME ME" by paying attention to the details of present experiencing? Do it now.
Now you have the opportunity to do it now. And now. And now. It's easy. It's just reality. So let us all sit up straight without wobbling.
Zazen in the Hatto begins and ends with strikes on the kaishaku and on the rin gong. But true practise is not contained by signals, or times, or events, or actions. True practice is continuous practice. But continuous practice depends upon strong and clear zazen. Speaking to us of strong and clear zazen, Dogen zenji continues his text and says,
"It is realized-practice within already manifest enlightenment. It is the display of complete Reality."
When we first start practising, as much as we would sometimes like to think that we "do" the practice, that really isn't what's going on. It's true that we do "do" something, in that we (often grudgingly) give up 30 minutes to sit. In truth, we spend far more time than that in the course of a single day wasting time, getting lost in thought, roiling around in contraction and reactivity and redoing tasks that weren't done properly the first time around because we weren't paying attention. But somehow, deliberately spending 30 minutes doing the most important thing we will ever do seems such an imposition.
Why should just sitting still for half an hour seem such a chore? Why should we not be able to sit with our experiencing as it actually is and experience that as being all right? Why is it, or rather "how is it" that our experience of sitting can often be so unsatisfactory? Quite simply, it is because we have the sense that practice is something that "we" are doing and so we will do it as we do anything else. And because, as the Buddha pointed out, anything associated with the self is dukkha or unsatisfactory it's not surprising at all. Especially since true practice is releasing and moving beyond the presumption and illusion of a self that "does" anything when all it really does is interfere with and make anything that "we do" (unsatisfactory).
We come to the practice with all kinds of contraction, but we also have an assortment of ideas about what it is that we are trying to achieve by practising, ideas about what enlightenment would 'feel' like. Often, our experience of sitting on a zafu, seeing how we wind ourselves up with contraction and set ourselves spinning off into storylines doesn't seem to match up at all with our ideas of "realized practice", "manifest enlightenment" or "complete reality".
We want instant gratification. I remember what that was like - "I sat for 30 minutes, so where's my damn cookie?"
It's a bit like this: Let's say you and I walk into a very, very messy room that obviously needs to be cleaned up and you look around at all this mess and ask me, "What would this room look like if it were cleaned up?"
So I say, "Shut up and start cleaning."
And you ask, "But what would it feel like to be in a clean room?"
And I say "shut up and clean."
And you say, "But I don't like being in a messy room."
So I say, "Look, it's your room. You made the mess. Start cleaning. When the room is clean, you'll know it's clean because you will be standing in a nice clean room. Until then, stop thinking about it, stop talking about it, just do what needs to be done."
In the context of practice, doing what needs to be done is following through with the instructions you have been given and actually doing the practice.
These phrases, "realized practice" or "manifest enlightenment" are literal. But what they really mean is experiential and you cannot experience them unless you do the practice. How long will that take? Well, how long does it take to clean up a room? Not very long if you apply yourself; a really long time if you waste time spacing out, talking to yourself, whining and complaining, or sneaking in a nap in the corner when you think no one's looking.
The Roshi says in the "Jijiyu Zanmai Doka":
"Samadhi" does not mean any state
of bringing together one thing
with another thing
until there is a wholeness.
It means originally complete.
It means always so.
It means that the Path
and the beginning and end of the Path
are the Path.
It means that there is nothing
outside of the Path.
It means that there are no obstacles
to overcome within this realized-practice.
It means that practice is the realization
of whatever arises as non-arising.
It is unconditional freedom."
Dogen zenji then says,
"Traps and cages spring open."
In one moment you can be tormenting yourself in ways that only you could torment yourself because you know how to do that better than anyone else. In the next moment, if you actually practice, the state can shift and you can see that there was nothing binding you to that state. Self-image is a process of contraction. It's not your evil twin, and it's not out to get you. It's not that intelligent. It is simply a kind of clenching.
Sometimes we describe this clenching as being much like clenching your hand. If you clench your hand very, very tightly, so tightly that the knuckles turn white, and hold it like that for a minute or so, it will feel very defined. If you release your grip and let the hand fall open and relax, the sensations will feel lighter and more open, more effervescent. It is the same hand, but you can tighten it to the point of being painful or you can let go. Letting go is not hard. It just requires letting go.
When you are contracted, you are clenching. This clenching creates the sense of there being a some "one" at the centre of experiencing - some "one" who is experiencing difficulty or anger or confusion. Usually we get so caught up in the feeling tone or storyline that is going on that we don't notice at all how coarse these movements of attention are, or that they are serving another purpose - they are propping up the notion of an "I" who is separate from everything and everyone around it. And so although we say we would like to free ourselves from contraction, the truth of the matter is that we are quite reluctant to really do this because, well...."It's my cage and I like my cage. I'm comfortable in my cage. I know my cage. So go away and don't bug me."
Even the most densely contracted habitual states can open. In each moment of choosing to open to reality, the door of the cage swings open.
Of course, as the Roshi says in the "Jijiyu Zanmai doka",
"Self-image will conceive of this
easy and Perfect Path 1
as an ordeal and journey.
In truth,
it is easier than snapping your fingers or opening your eyes"
Eihei Dogen zenji goes on to say,
"Grasping the heart of this, you are the dragon who has reached his waters, the tiger resting in her mountains."
For a long time students will do what they usually do with just about everything: struggle, flail about, re-work instructions to make them fit into what they already assume they understand, and make up their own version of the practice. Simply let go. Release thoughts, feelingtones, and storylines. Release them as soon as they begin to form by opening attention to this moment of present experiencing. If you start talking to yourself, let go of the thought and don't even bother completing the sentence. If you are picturing other people or situations, this too is a form of thinking. Let go of it by coming back to the breath and open attention to what you are seeing with your eyes. If you are getting caught up in feeling tones, don't "feel" the feeling tones. Release it by feeling into the sensations of the bodymind sitting. It is through this releasing that the dragon reaches his waters, the tiger rests in her mountains.
Dogen Zenji explains:
"Understand that right here is the display of Vast Reality and then dullness and mental wandering have no place to arise."
When your practice is very open, when you are allowing yourself to feel into the sensations of the whole bodymind sitting, opening to seeing and hearing, you and what is being experienced are not separate. Experiencing is spacious and open and in that openness, one is not moving attention towards or away from anything that is noticed. There is just this coming and going of details and any movement of attention is part of the coming and going. There is nothing to "catch", to get caught in or struggle with; there is nowhere for dullness and mental wandering to arise.
The text continues:
"Looking at the past, we see that transcending common and sacred, or being able to die while in zazen or standing are all rooted in the power of this practice."
Looking at the past - the Teachings. The countless records of Teachers and students who have come and gone and have left behind a record of what was recognized and practices for the benefit of those who followed. Transcending common and sacred is part of those Teachings as the practice is vast and endless. "Common" and "sacred" are categories people assign to certain kinds of experiences, but any kind of experience you have is arising within awareness of it. What is this Awareness? This is what the practice of Zen is about.
Being able to die while in zazen or standing are all rooted in the power of this practice - the practice of Zen is not limited to the waking state. As practice deepens it is possible to learn to practice with the waking state, the sleeping state, the dreaming state and the states that are experienced during the process of death. If that were not the case it would be a very limited practice, so of course, there are Teachings that address all of these conditions.
The text continues:
"It is impossible for words or thinking to grasp how the old masters could seize the moment for disciples with a finger, pole, needle or mallet, display Actuality with a whisk, a fist, a staff or a shout."
A Teacher Teaches continuously, but is the student's attention open enough to receive what is being offered? The best Teacher in the world can do little with a student who does not make him or herself available to the Teachings.
Dogen zenji says,
"Practising mystical powers or thinking dualistically about practice and realization don't help in this either."
When self-image practices itself, what you end up with is self- image.
The text continues,
"Practice and realization are the deportment of this very bodymind, beyond sight and sound, before thinking and analyzing."
The bodymind and the practice are not separate. The deportment of the bodymind expresses how your attention is moment after moment. This is why there is such emphasis on the forms in our practice. The forms are how we embody the practice.
Dogen zenji says,
"Since this is as it is, it doesn't matter if you're clever or stupid;"
If you believe yourself to be quick-thinking, a fast study, have read a lot of books, know a lot of stuff, that's nice, but won't necessarily be an advantage to you when it comes to learning to practice. What does any of that have to do with hearing this sound in this moment? What does it have to do with what is actually recognized in this moment? This moment is alive, constantly changing, so set aside your clutter and pay attention to things as they are. Drop cleverness as it simply gets in your way. You may have learned the ten boomies by heart, but I don't want to discuss them with you in daisan. What I want to know is whether or not you are opening past habitual structures of attention.
If you believe yourself to be stupid, slow, unable to remember much of what you read after you read it, none of this will be a disadvantage when it comes to learning to practice. Can you feel this breath? Do you hear these sounds? What does this have to do with your IQ? Drop thoughts of stupidity as they simply get in your way. Have you ever heard a wonderful piece of music and while hearing it, appreciated it fully. And then following that, could recall nothing about it? In this practice of recognition, there will be moments in which you understand the vastness, the timelessness, the beauty of this practice and then a moment later, understand nothing. That does not mean that you are stupid. It means that you are learning.
Dogen zenji then says,
…"the distinctions distinguish nothing. Whole-hearted practice is the Way."
It does not matter in the least what you think you know about yourself or anyone else. Thinking that you are clever, thinking that you are stupid - none of your storylines and opinions matter. Whoever you think yourself to be is only how you see yourself when you are seeing things in that way. Opening attention past habitual structures of attention, they become transparent to reality. Traps and cages spring open.
The text continues:
"Since realized-practice cannot be stained, progress into theOrdinary."
In the Roshi's translation notes, he quotes this exchange between Zhaozhou and Nanchuan:
"Zhaozhou asked Nanchuan, "What is Awareness?"
Nanchuan said, "Ordinary mind is the Way."
Zhaozhou asked, "Well, should I move along with it or not?"
Nanchuan said, "Once you intend to move forward you have already gone astray."
Awareness does not move, nor is it still. Such categories simply do not apply. You and all beings and all experiences come and go as the display of Awareness. You cannot be separate from it. All that you can do is get out of the way. Drop all of your strategies and open attention right now to what is already the case. Feel into the sensation of this breath; feel the tanden, the sensations of the whole bodymind sitting on the zafu and open to seeing and hearing. Practise this moment with the whole bodymind.
This morning we come to the Hatto to practice. Although it might seem that practice is something we "do" or that we go some "where" to do, what it is that we are practising is not bound by time or place. As Eihei Dogen zenji says in the "Fukanzazengi",
"In this and all other worlds, in India or in China, every place is marked by the seal of Awake Awareness."
The metaphor here is that of a seal that is used to authenticate a document or a sho. So everything is marked by and is authentically and really Awake Awareness. Awake Awareness is everything, everywhere. It has no borders or boundaries, no nationality, no political affiliation, no "religion". Awareness in itself, as itself, is indivisible even into knowing and known. The instruction is to recognize this in each moment. Whatever is known is the presencing of Knowing. Sit up straight in this.
Dogen zenji continues,
"Upholding the essence of this Way, devote yourself to zazen, completely do zazen."
As Anzan Hoshin roshi has said, "If you want to know why you should sit, look at your mind. If you want to know how to sit, look at your mind."
"Devote yourself to zazen" is an instruction to practice sincerely. Sincerity is not a feeling, nor is it a tangible some "thing" that can be felt. It is much simpler, and yet much subtler than we imagine it to be. It is simply following through, moment after moment after moment.
The text continues:
"You might hear about ten thousand ways to practise but just be complete and sit."
I think Dogen zenji would be quite horrified if he could see how we are bombarded with spam about the ten thousand ways to practice and I could spend a lot of time going into all of that but his instruction is as simple, direct true now as it was then. What he is saying is that you should just be complete and sit.
Sakyamuni Buddha engaged in all kinds of practices that involved yogic exploitation and manipulation of every area of human experience, from states of intense concentration, to states of intense hunger and states of intense exertion and exhaustion. While he found out that many of these states could produce a change in how he felt, in the end, all they could do was produce various other states. He found that they revealed no insight into this fundamental question of existence. There was no freedom from the round of conditioned experience and falling into the birth and death of the various selves we believe that we are in various situations. The commerce of spirituality is selling states with the currency of hope and fear. Sitting up straight and being complete is being situated in reality.
Dogen Zenji asks us to consider this:
"What's the point of giving up your seat to go wandering around in dusty lands and countries? Take a wrong step and you'll miss what's there."
Wandering in dusty lands and countries could be taken to mean literally wandering from place to place, but of course, it is also a wonderful description of the "dusty" landscapes we wander through when lost in thought. The "red dusts" is often a way of speaking of samsara and its lifelessness. When you allow yourself to follow states and storylines you are "giving up your seat" because you are no longer even noticing that you are, in fact, not inside any of the states or storylines you fabricate. You are right here, right now, alive, breathing, seeing and hearing, sitting on a cushion, in a room and this is what is going on. Practise THIS moment of present experiencing instead of following dusty habitual patterns of thought and feeling. Heed Dogen zenji's warning. He says, "take a wrong step and you'll miss what's there. You "take a wrong step" when you stop paying attention to what is most true of your life.
The text continues,
"You've got what you need, the treasure of this body and birth, so don't waste your time."
The "treasure of this body and birth" is the fact of life - that you are breathing and seeing and hearing and tasting, smelling, thinking and feeling and that you can Wake Up by practising in, as, and through the bodymind.
Dogen zenji then says,
"Keep to this as the basis of the Way of Awake Awareness."
If you are not practising whole-bodily, you are not practising.
And then he says:
"Don't be attracted by just a spark from the flint.'
People really like sparks. A "spark" might take the form of a moment of opening, a feeling of euphoria, a state of calmness not previously experienced, perhaps a moment of clarity or 'quiet'. These fade quickly, but the memory remains of that "spark", that 'special moment' that was experienced and people can become quite obsessed with trying to get "back" to it, trying to recreate it. Sometimes the obsession with the spark becomes so strong that it becomes the only thing of meaning in one's life. This can wreak havoc in one's life because there is no possible way that you can recreate the spark or get 'back' to it even if you spend a whole lifetime trying. Why? Because it was a state. How can you know that? Because it rose and fell. That is the hallmark of all states - they rise and fall. They are not permanent.
Sometimes a student will begin practising at the monastery who has one of these 'sparks' secreted away in memory and they will tend to view their 'special experience' as a kind of credential, something that they think should allow them to skip all the tedious mindfulness stuff. But if you enshrine some moment of clarity that you have and try to live up to it, then you also condemn yourself. Beyond confusion, beyond clarity, what is it that all of these states are rising and falling within? What is it that is aware of anything at all? This is what all of this "mindfulness stuff" is pointing to. This is why you need to practise the forms, sit zazen, and receive instruction.
Striking the flint of this moment with the whole bodymind, don't stop at the sparks. Keep going and start a fire.
Dogen zenji says,
"Anyway, your body is like dew on the grass, your life a flash of lightning; vain for a moment and then vanished in an instant."
You are the next in line for the end of your generation. How many generations have come and gone since human beings began to walk upright before falling over dead? How many births and deaths just in the past 100 years? In the past 50 years? More than you can possibly think about. All of these people who thought what they were doing was so important - all gone. And you will be gone sooner than you think, along with everything you thought "special" about you, and all the stuff you thought important - all gone. "Vain for a moment and then vanished in an instant".
The text continues,
"You who are in this excellent Lineage of Zen, don't blindly grope only a part of the elephant or fear the true dragon."
I doubt that anyone in this room has ever groped at an elephant so we need to use a little imagination here. Blinded by the constraints of self-image, you stretch out your hands before you, groping in the dark, guessing what might be ahead, and all of a sudden your hand contacts something. What is that? You have no idea at all what it is that you are holding in your hand. You simply cannot come up with a file match for it, so you start guessing, theorizing about what it might be. This discovery seems really big to you so you come up with all kinds of stories about this thing. But the elephant is not its tail, not its trunk, not its legs. It's larger than any part of it that you can grasp. And in reality, all you are feeling with your hand is the tail of the elephant.
As to fearing the true dragon: The Roshi mentions in his translation notes for the "Fukanzazengi" that there is a wonderful story in the Shenzi lueh or Shinshi ryaku about Ye Gongzi, a man who
was fascinated by dragons. He had pictures and statues of dragons all over his house. One day, a dragon who had heard tales of this man's love of dragons decided to visit him. He went to the man's house and peeked through a window. The man was absolutely terrified. The true dragon is your own nature. Self-image is a fearful recoil from the vastness of this into its collection of petty images and stories and habits. The Lineage of Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors have given you the means to release the dragon.
The text continues,
"Put all of yourself into this Way which directly presents your own nature."
You have this time to practice, you have everything you need to practice. So why hold anything back? Release yourself into sensations, colours, forms, sounds.
"Be grateful to those who have come before and have done what was to be done."
This is not instructing you to conjure up stories about what others might have done or pump up a syrupy feeling of gratitude. It points out the obvious - that these Teachings have been preserved and carried forward by countless men and women and very often through extremely difficult circumstances and that without these efforts you would not be receiving these Teachings offered to you out of gratitude for the compassionate activity of the Buddhas.
"Align yourself with the enlightenment of the Awakened Ones and take your place in this Samadhi-Lineage. Practice in this way and you'll be what they are. The doors of the treasure house will fall open for you to do with as you will."
The treasure house is not closed to you unless you close yourself off from it. It is the vividness, the wakefulness, the richness inherent to experiences and the nature of experiencing. The doors fall open when you allow attention to fall open.
In "Buddhas Loose in the World" from the series, "The Primordially Awakened Way", the Roshi says:
"All the old Buddhas have realized that which is long past, never passing and unsurpassed. And so, we now have the precious opportunity to study, practice, realize and embody "the Way" of the old Buddhas.
"There are Buddhas loose in the world, you can hide from them, but there is no safe place in this world. Not only will ordinary old age, sickness and death inevitably have their way with you, but the earth itself is not a safe place. The only safe thing to do is to stop hiding, come out into the open moment and be as exposed to reality as the old Buddhas have done. When you do what you do out of a sense of richness instead of poverty, then you do the work of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors."
We have now come to the end of this text, the "Fukanzazengi". The text is like an enso with no beginning and no end because the spaciousness and wakefulness it points to has no beginning and no end. The entire text of the Fukanzazengi is marked with the seal of Dogen zenji's realized practice and has been given to you by Eihei Dogen zenji so that you might practice the instructions it contains and yourself open to the richness and vividness of Awake Awareness.
So now, since we have turned and faced the wall, it is time to sit up straight in this moment. It is always this moment and it is always time to sit up straight, to stand up straight, to take each step with the whole bodymind and the whole world.