Dogen Zenji's Zazen

This is indeed an auspicious occasion. That all of us are gathered here, Japanese and American, men and women, householders and home leavers, scholars and practitioners, all of us are here at this great American university to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of a great Japanese monk, Dogen Zenji .

What I want to talk about today is Dogen Zenji's zazen. The heart of our practice. The heart of Dogen Zenji's teaching and the heart of our life together at every Soto Zen practice community. I don't want to talk about the meaning or the experience of zazen. As with any activity, the meaning is in the doing of it, and the experience of it only comes to life by fully engaging body and mind in the wholehearted practice of upright sitting. I want to talk about it because at a time in my life when my best friend suddenly had a headache, went into a coma and died with no warning, from a brain tumor, I was thrown into a state of great confusion because she was my age , my friend, and had children the same age as mine. I identified with her a great deal and suddenly my own impermanence became very clear to me. I was floundering about in a sea of confusion and in the midst of this sea of confusion and searching I was, as Master Mumon said, "scrambling about with all eight arms and legs like a crab in a boiling pot" to get away from this impermanence. Someone threw me a life preserver - it was zazen. Dogen Zenji's zazen. So, I have always thought of it as the most compassionate gift I've ever received.

A particular phrase comes to mind from a Soto Zen teacher in New York, whom I've never met, named Nakajima Sensei. But I met him through one of his students. This student told me that the general dedication of merit, that we sometimes chant and that he chanted at the end of service, the one in Japanese that goes "Negawa kuwa kono kudoku o motte amaneku..." which we translate at San Francisco Zen Center as "May our intention equally penetrate every being and place..." he translated as "May this compassionate gift be extended to all beings...". "May this compassionate gift be extended to all beings" is the essential thread of Dogen Zenji's teaching when he returned to Japan from China. It is also the spirit of all of the Japanese teachers who have come here to America to share the Buddha Dharma with us. They present the Dharma as a compassionate gift which they want, out of their own feeling of compassion, to share with us, out of their own vow. They want to share this gift of Dogen Zenji's zazen, of Dogen Zenji's teaching of a practice which can show us, or through which we can learn, how to live our life in this world where all things are impermanent.

There is a Pali chant which I like very much. I don't know if I have the tune quite right but it goes something like "All things are impermanent, they arise and they pass away. To live in harmony with this truth brings great happiness." How do we learn to live in harmony with this truth of impermanence? When we first meet it we think of it only as: "our life will end." But impermanence is in each moment. Each instant. All things are impermanent - all the time. Everything arises and passes away. And in the practice of zazen we see this. It becomes less terrifying and more natural. Dogen Zenji himself when he discovered zazen practiced diligently with his teacher in Japan and went with his teacher to China to learn the true Buddha Dharma. In China he settled the great matter and he returned to Japan; and the first thing he wrote as soon as he returned, the year that he returned, was Fukanzazengi "The universal recommendation for the practice of zazen" or "Recommending zazen to all people." A universal recommendation . Not limited to monks. It was for monks and lay people, for men and for women, for young and for old, for rich and for poor; for anyone, everyone. This practice is appropriate for all people. So the first thing he wrote was "A universal recommendation of zazen" for all people.

In it he expresses his great faith in zazen and in innumerable writings afterwards. I want to share with you some of the ways in which he stated his great faith in zazen. If I wanted to just spend this whole time quoting from all the passages in all of his writings, in which Dogen Zenji extols the virtue of zazen as the true Buddha Dharma, as the complete teaching of the Buddha, as the actualizing of the Buddha Dharma, I could. There are so many quotations, many of them have been compiled in a little book called Shikantanza by Shohaku Okamura Sensei. Shikantanza is the first of several small books that Shohaku translated and Sotoshu published. It has detailed instructions for zazen and then quotation after quotation from Dogen Zenji on the great merits of zazen. I think the second thing that Dogen Zenji wrote was Bendô wa, "A Talk on Whole Hearted Practice of the Way", and I think of that as almost a kind of love letter to zazen. It's just an outpouring of his complete faith and devotion to zazen. It begins "All buddha-tathagathas together have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma and actualizing incomparable awareness for which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated wondrous method. This wondrous dharma, which has been transmitted only from buddha to buddha without deviation has as its criterion jijuyû zanmai. "

"For dwelling and disporting oneself freely in this samadhi practicing zazen in the upright posture is the true gate. Although this dharma is abundantly apparent in each person, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization." (Bendô wa, 1st paragraph)

And later in Bendô wa "To spread this dharma and to free living beings became my vow". (Bendp wa, 5th paragraph) These two themes are clear in Bendô wa, complete faith in zazen and devotion to zazen and to spreading this Dharma. His life long practice became a vow to make zazen available to everyone who wanted to practice and to make known to people the value or the joy of zazen. He totally devoted his life to teaching and spreading appreciation for zazen as immovable upright sitting and for zazen as a gate to how to live our life. How to live our life with whole-hearted engagement of body and mind in everything that we do. It is a true gate to Genjo Koan. A true gate to manifesting our life fully in each moment.

I would like to share a few more of these quotation because they are wonderful. "The whole hearted practice of the way, which I am talking about, allows all things to exist in enlightenment and enables us to live out oneness in the path of emancipation. When we break through the barrier and drop off all limitations we are no longer concerned with conceptual distinctions." (Bendô wa, 3rd paragraph)

"For all ancestors and buddhas who have been dwelling in and maintaining buddha-dharma, practicing upright sitting in jijuyû zanmai is the true path for opening up enlightenment."

"According to the unmistakenly handed down tradition, the straightforward buddha-dharma that has been simply transmitted is supreme among the supreme. From the time you begin practicing with a teacher, the practices of incense burning, bowing, nembutsu, repentance, and reading sutras are not at all essential; just sit dropping off body and mind."

"When one displays the buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in this samadhi even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world becomes buddha mudra and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. Therefore, it enables buddha-tathagathas to increase the dharma joy of their own original grounds and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. Simultaneously, all living beings of the dharma world in the ten directions and six realms become clear and pure in body and mind, realize great emaciation, and their own original face appears. At that time, all things together awaken to supreme enlightenment and utilize buddha-body, immediately go beyond the culmination of awakening, and sit upright under the kingly bodhi tree. At the same time, they turn the incomparable, great dharma wheel, and begin expressing ultimate and unfabricated profound prajna." (Bendô wa, 10th--12th paragraph)

This is Bendô wa, the one I referred to as a love letter to zazen. It closes "The realm of self-awakening and awakening others is fundamentally endowed with the quality of enlightenment lacking nothing, and allows the standard of enlightenment to be actualized ceaselessly."

"Therefore even if only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all time, it performs everlasting buddha guidance within the inexhaustible dharma world in the past, present, and future. Zazen is equally the same practice and same enlightenment for both the person sitting and all dharmas." (Bendô wa, end 14th -- 15th paragraph)

"You should know that even if all the buddhas in the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, together engage the full power of their buddha wisdom, they could never reach the limit or measure or comprehension or virtue of one person's zazen." (Bendô wa, 17th paragraph)

Then we have some questions and answers. The first question is "Now we have perceived that the virtue of zazen is immense. Certain people may question this by asking 'there are many gates to the buddha-dharma why do you solely recommend zazen?'" Dogen's reply is "Because this is the true gate to buddha-dharma." 'Why is this alone the true gate?' 'Great Teacher Shakyamuni correctly transmitted the wondrous method for attaining the Way and also tathagathas of the three times, ( past, present and future) all attain the way through zazen. For this reason zazen has been conveyed from one person to another as the true gate. Not only that, but all the ancestors of India and China attained the way through zazen. Therefore now I am showing the true gate to human and celestial beings." (Bendô wa, questions 1 and 2)

When I read or saw in Bendô wa these two aspects of faith and devotion, of his complete faith in zazen as the gate to the buddha-dharma as the buddha-dharma itself; and his vow (devotion means "of vow") his vow to give his life to spreading this dharma, I felt a great affinity with Dogen Zenji, because my own practice has been almost completely supported by faith and vow. I've never been a scholar. I've not had, I think even now, I haven't a very clear intellectual grasp of the buddha-dharma, so I'm very heartened when I read in Fukanzazengi "still if you are wandering about in your head, you may miss the vital path of letting your body leap". "If you are wandering about in your head, you may miss the vital path of letting you body leap" this of course doesn't mean that you shouldn't study or you shouldn't read, after all I'm reading rather a great deal today. But the actual practice with your whole body, breath, and mind, of sitting upright in each moment, fully expresses the wholeness of who you are.

It is practice-realization. This was Dogen Zenji's great question. When he first began to practice his question was, "If we are Buddha from the beginning, if we are enlightened from the beginning, why is it necessary to practice?" This is the way he opens Fukanzazengi. But he pursued that question relentlessly through practice. His great realization that confirmed his faith in zazen, was in sitting zazen and, as he said, '"Dropping off body and mind" in sitting and losing this clinging to body and mind and allowing the boundaries of whatever this is, to fly free, to include the whole universe. To see that we and the whole universe are not two. To see that practice and awakening are not two. To see it directly, directly...

In giving talks to the students, the monks who first came to practice with him, (these talks were recorded by his dharma successor Koun Ejo in a book called Shô bô genzô Zuimonki) he said "Since being the Buddha child is following the Buddha's teachings and reaching Buddhahood directly, we must devote ourselves to following the teaching and put all our efforts into the practice of the way. The true practice which is in accordance with the teaching is nothing but shikantanza, which is the essence of the life in this community. Think this over deeply." (Shô bô genzô Zuimonki, 1-1)

Now Dogen Zenji wrote many other rules for practice in his monastic community which are in Eiheishingi, the rules for practice at Eiheiji. These teach how to take the mind of zazen into administrating to the needs of the monks, into preparing food for the monks, into cleaning the temple, into all of the everyday activities that we are engaged in. How to take this mind, which includes everything into each activity. To be completely one with each activity. We develop this capacity in zazen; in being completely one with this body and this breath, with this posture and this breath, moment after moment in zazen. We develop the capacity of being completely present with each activity. Of course as we practice zazen our mind wanders away. Then we notice it and then we come back. This is zazen. This is life. In those moments when we are totally engaged in what we are doing we really feel alive. We don't feel separation between ourselves and some object. It's all one thing and when we separate into subject and object we notice it. Then we return to whole hearted engagement. This is the practice of zazen in our everyday life.

Finding your place where you are in each moment, finding your way at this moment wherever you are. This is taking zazen into everyday life. Our life together as we practice with one another gives us opportunity after opportunity to return to where we are; to drop the separation of self and other; to be whole heartedly in this moment with whatever it is you're doing; to be completely this one. This, of course, as you drop the separation between self and other, this is the natural arising of compassion. Naturally you take care of whoever you meet in the same way that you take care of yourself because you are not different.

Of course this means that you have to learn to take care of yourself. You know, if you are not taking care of yourself, it's hard to take care of others. Often we try very hard to take care of others but we haven't learned how to take care of ourselves, so we find it doesn't work very well. We get impatient, or we get burnt out. So we have to learn to take care of our self in order to be able to take care of all beings. In order to be able to recognize our oneness with all beings we have to recognize the wholeness of this one. This is also the practice of zazen. Recognizing that this is Buddha, from the beginning. How do we manifest Buddha here? How do we manifest the fullness and completeness of this one? In this moment? This is always our question. How do we live this life? This question becomes more urgent when we recognize impermanence.

That's why, Dogen Zenji quotes Nargarjuna saying "To see into impermanence is itself Bodhicitta". To see into impermanence is the mind of awakening, is the mind which aspires to awakening for the benefit of all beings. This is the altruistic mind of awakening which begins with seeing into impermanence.

You know it may not feel like it, the moment you see into impermanence, at least my deep experience with impermanence was totally unsettling. But the fact is that in all of my scrambling about trying to find out what to do, when I met zazen, I really didn't know why I kept coming back to the zendo; but the fact is that when I met zazen, something in me recognized a response to my question about what to do when faced with the reality of impermanence. Something in me, as I discovered zazen, went to the zendo every day and has never stopped.

This was not any kind of mental decision. This was something which came from somewhere other than my head, I can't say, I could say my gut. It came from somewhere, like something being attracted to a magnet. And even though I couldn't name what it was, there it was. Of course I struggle with zazen. Of course, there are days when I don't like it and I want to get up and walk out. I mean, meeting myself sometimes is not always fun. Seeing myself every now and then, I see things that I don't want to see. And yet there is something undeniably supportive of my life in zazen. This faith and devotion that I speak of with respect to Dogen Zenji I saw in all of the teachers who came here to share zazen with us. Suzuki Roshi says "Strictly speaking this is the only practice for a true human being" and at another time he said "A true human being, practicing true human nature, is our zazen". And Kobun Chino roshi, who came to help him when Tassajara was founded, said "Zazen is the first formulation of Buddha appearing in the world". Katigiri Roshi said in zazen instruction, actually the first time I had zazen instruction was with Katigiri Roshi who had come to help Suzuki Roshi, he said "We sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of the life force bloom". Which is kind of a wonderful one line presentation of Genjo Koan.

Again in Shô bô genzô Zuimonki Dogen Zenji said "For true attainment of the way, devoting all effort to zazen alone has been transmitted among buddhas and ancestors". (Shô bô genzô Zuimonki, 1-2) In response to a question about following all the monastic rules he said "Certainly practitioners of the way ought to maintain Hyakujo's regulations. The form of maintaining the regulations is receiving and observing the precepts and practicing zazen. The meaning of reciting the precept sutra day and night and observing the precepts single mindedly is nothing other than practicing shikantanza. Following the activities of the ancient masters, when we sit zazen what precept is not observed? What merit is not actualized?" (Shô bô genzÜ Zuimonki, 1-2)

"For a Zen monk the primary attitude of self improvement is the practice of shikantanza. Without consideration as to whether you are clever or stupid. You will naturally improve if you practice zazen." (Shô bô genzô Zuimonki, 1-4)

When Dogen Zenji talked about concentrating on one thing, Ejo said "What thing or what practice should we choose to devote ourselves to among the various ways of practicing the Buddha Dharma?" and Dogen replied "It depends upon one's character or capability, however, up to now, it is zazen which has been handed down and concentrated on in the communities of the ancestors. This practice is suitable for all people and can be practiced by those of superior, mediocre, or inferior capabilities. When I was in China in the assembly of my late master TendÜ NyojÜ , I sat zazen day and night after I heard this truth." (Shô bô genzô Zuimonki, 1-14)

"Through Nangaku polishing a tile to make a mirror, he was admonishing Basho's seeking to become a buddha. Still he did not restrain Basho from sitting zazen. Sitting itself is the practice of the Buddha. Sitting itself is non-doing, it is nothing but the true form of the self. Apart from sitting there is nothing to seek as the buddha-dharma." (Shô bô genzô Zuimonki, 2-22)

Because of this great gift, this great compassionate gift of zazen, we are all here today. And we sit together in various zendos and support one another and help each other to discover the vastness of just this. The all inclusiveness of just this one, as-it-is. And in that discovery, we can drop our clinging and share the Dharma joy of this practice with each other and with all beings. This is my great faith and my great hope for all of you. For everyone. That everyone find a way to fully express the wonder of their particular Buddha, to find the wonder of their particular Buddha and to share it with all beings. And to see the wonder of Buddha in all beings in each moment. This vision I feel is the compassionate gift which we have received from Dogen Zenji and from all of the monks who have come here to share this practice with us. Thank you.