As hot as it is now, it was way hotter in the agenda of the last couple of days. It was the teaching of, when it's hot, be hot. Oh, I'm sorry. It was the teaching of, you know, just this is really it. There was no getting away from it. It was really hot. And we also had fire alarms to wake, help wake us up. That was the teaching of fire alarms helping to wake us up. Of course, it could have been the teaching of resistance. That's okay. It's all okay. It's all okay. When we get to the place where truly it really is all okay,

[01:14]

it'll be okay. And that is the summary of the Buddhadharma. It's the teaching of it really is okay. Not that, you know, we want it to be that way or it should be that way, or, you know, that is the best way, but it is that way, isn't it? It was really hot. It was not comfortable. I was sitting there and I could feel the little bead, you know, of perspiration, form, actually, and kind of come out of the pore right underneath my arm

[02:17]

and begin slowly making its way down. Sometimes we were friends and sometimes we were not. And that's the way it was. I don't know if you call that zazen, but also it is zazen. Our zazen is not about picking and choosing, and it's not about pushing and pulling and wanting and not wanting and so on and so forth. Our zazen is being able to be life as it is happening right then. That's all it is. Life, hi, I'm Surya Narottam. That's all it is, life happening, period.

[03:22]

And Dogen Zenji calls it zenki. He has a fascicle in his Shobogenzo called zenki, total dynamic working. But I want to read you a poem first. Well, there's a lot in here. I have to reach around for the right thing. Once I had a duck in there. People couldn't believe it when I took it out. It was a rubber duck. We were talking about Vasubandhu. This is Rilke.

[04:28]

If I had grown in some generous place, if my hours had opened in ease, I would make you a lavish banquet. My hands wouldn't clutch at you like this, so needy and tight. Then I'd have dared to squander you, you limitless now. I'd have tossed you into the ringing air like a ball that someone leaps for and catches with hands outstretched. I would have painted you, not on the wall, but in one broad sweep across heaven. I'd have portrayed you brashly, as mountain, as fire, as a wind howling from the desert's vastness. So, Dogen,

[05:38]

in his fascicle zenki, Total Dynamic Working, paints this total vastness for us. We are that vastness, each of us individually. Originally, there was a sentence in the Prajnavana Sutra, I think, that said, all dharmas have Buddha nature. And Dogen changed that to, all dharmas are the Buddha nature. We're dharmas. Everything you can see and hear and taste and touch is a dharma. All dharmas are the Buddha nature, each as individual and as the totality itself. We are this total dynamic working. That's all there is. Zen, in this case, means total or complete or thorough.

[06:41]

And ki, ki means dynamic, moving, working. Total dynamic working. So I'm going to read you some of it. And the reason I'm going to read you some of it is because, you know, a lot of what we did in the intensive is words. Yada, yada, yada, yada, words, words, words. And then all of a sudden the words stop. And what we do is we go and sit. And we go and sit because what we are interested in in Buddhism is not some intellectual understanding, although that's helpful, very helpful and very useful. But what we are really after is a direct experience of life just as it is. And we don't have to go reaching somewhere for it. We are that life happening completely just as it is right now.

[07:46]

Now, why is it that we resist so mightily? Is it because the truth of what we are is so close that we just don't see it? Or is it because for some reason or another the way we've come to be we're more interested in the stories and the dramas and the advertisements and things of our culture? I was going to say civilization but I have my doubts at the moment. Why is it that we can't just stop, sit down, relax, open and admit, surrender to things exactly the way they are? Life happening. That's what we are. The instructions for zazen are very simple. It's almost no instructions at all.

[08:53]

I just read it in a book about Maha Ati actually, which is a different lineage, but it's the same instruction. The end of the paragraph of the instruction was, don't do anything. That was the instruction. Don't do anything. So, when we sit zazen with the understanding that we are this total dynamic working or which is this Buddha nature, that we are in our deepest truth, Buddha, when we sit there and allow things just to be the way they are, this is renouncing the separation. This is renouncing the small self. Now, we are afraid to do that. Even though over and over and over again we see that this creates misery and suffering for us,

[09:55]

we are afraid to actually let go of the stories, let go of the entertainments of our life. We are afraid to be nothing. We are afraid of this groundlessness, this insecurity. And so all the time we are going around trying to control, manipulate, arrange for our security and benefit. It doesn't work. What we are is this one total dynamic lifeness. This is the way Dogen puts it. In the culmination of its quest, the great way of all Buddhas is emancipation and realization. Emancipation means that life emancipates life, that death emancipates death. So in this case, life would be all individualness and death would be totality, oneness or unity.

[10:57]

And emancipation in this case would be allowing what we are, this total dynamic event, to be itself. Sweat developing, breathing happening, sounds coming in. Emancipation means practicing no-self. Or even better, emancipation means being no-self. And what does it mean to be no-self? To be no-self means to be 100% committed to whatever is happening, your activity, whatever the activity is right then. This is realization. This is our zazen. Zazen is 100% activity of doing nothing. The activity is happening all by itself. Life is happening all by itself. We don't have to produce life. We don't have to produce awareness.

[12:03]

We don't have to produce delusion. It's all happening by itself. There's nobody in there needing to do it or doing it. Realization simply is 100% okay. And emancipation is simply sitting down and proving to yourself or confirming to yourself that that's the case. Zazen, no-self. Even in the midst of self coming up, just not being attached to it, the whole thing keeps flowing on and all we have to do is stay on the page, stay on the page that arose right then at that moment. Now, then now, then now, then now, then now. Comfortable sometimes, not comfortable sometimes, no difference. Relative terms.

[13:05]

Just this, then this, then this, then this. This dynamic working readily brings about life and readily brings about death. At the very time this dynamic working is thus realized, it is not necessarily large, it is not necessarily small, it is not limitless, it is not limited, it is not long or far, short or near. One's present life exists within this dynamic working. This dynamic working exists in this present life. In other words, it's beyond concept. It's not big or small, near or far, thing or not thing, free or not free, diluted or not diluted. It just is this, 100%, exactly this.

[14:09]

It's difficult to accept because it's so... It couldn't be just this. It's got to be something more. It has to be better, fuller, more complete. This is not quite enough. It couldn't be. Right? No. It's got to be something else. Well, it turns out it is something else if we just let what is now be, just as it is, just like this. The it isn't enough comes from our thirsting, just from the sense of separation. So every time you see that sense of separation arise, which is the self, which is what we were studying for three weeks on the cushion, just looking at that self, how it is that we believe and create,

[15:12]

create and believe separation, every time you find yourself grabbing on to whatever it is for you that creates that separation, for some people it's fear or arrogance or I'm no good or the other person is to blame or whatever it is, whatever it is that creates a sense of yourself or a sense of other that we then habitually grab on to and make real, whenever you sense that happening, let that go. It's difficult. This is why Buddhism is so difficult. It's not that the instructions are hard to understand. No. It's not. It's just okay. It's not the instructions are hard to understand. It's just don't do anything. It's not the instructions that are hard to understand. It's that we don't do it. We don't want to do it. Every time you actually have a sense of separation,

[16:16]

it hurts. You can feel your body contract. It's uncomfortable. Whenever you feel that way, when you're walking down the street and you see somebody that makes you feel funny or whatever it is and you contract, notice it and release, [...] open, open, open, open to this. That's emancipation. That's renouncing the self. Behaving that way is our practice. You should know that within the incalculable dharmas that are in you, there is life and there is death. You must quietly reflect

[17:18]

whether your present life and all the dharmas existing with this life share a common life or not. There's another way of putting it. Quietly consider whether your present life and all dharmas existing with this life share a common life or not. He's asking us to consider this. He's asking us to look carefully whether this is true or not. He's asking us to look carefully He's not telling us.

[18:19]

He's not interested in convincing anybody. No. He's asking. Why don't you think about this? Why don't you consider? Take a good look at your own life so that each of us can have our own direct experience of the truth of existence, of this total dynamic working. Quietly, please, consider whether or not your present life and all dharmas existing with this life share one common life or not. Of course, then he gives you his opinion. In fact... Kathleen says that all the time. In fact. She'd never say that, in fact. Because, you know, it's all relative. You don't know. This is exactly what we're trying to get us not to do, right? He says, in fact. Okay? Well, it's Dogen.

[19:21]

He gets to say, in fact. In fact, there is not one thing, not one single thing, nothing at all, just in case, three times, just in case you don't get it. In fact, there is not one thing. Not one thing. That means me, you, each of us. Okay? In fact, there is not one thing, not one single thing, nothing at all, that is separate from this life. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Then he says, I like this part a lot, Life is like a person riding a boat. Aboard the boat. Shall I tell you the story about Suzuki Roshi? Do you know that story? That life, he said, what life is like?

[20:22]

I'll tell you if you don't know. It's not even a story. It's a sentence. Suzuki Roshi said, Life is like riding a boat. Life is like getting in a boat, riding out into the middle of the ocean, and drowning and sinking. He didn't mean that pessimistically. That's not pessimistic. That is our life, you know. We row real hard, trying to do this and that, right? Trying to get somewhere in the middle of the ocean, right? There's nowhere to get to, but here we are rowing, rowing, rowing. And then at the end of the rowing, we sink. I mean, if you kept that in your mind, you know, it might influence your life in some way. So here we are in another boat.

[21:25]

Life is like a person riding in a boat. Aboard the boat she uses a sail. She takes the tiller. She pulls the boat along. Yet, the boat carries her. And without the boat, she's not there. By riding in the boat, she makes it a boat. You must concentrate yourself to studying and penetrating this very time. At this time, all is the world of the boat. The heavens, the water, the shore, all become the boat's time. And they are not the same as time, which is not the boat. This is a very typical Dogen statement, the last statement, because all dharmas have their own time. Time, first of all, for Dogen, is just this total dynamic working, it's activity. And when the person is in the boat, it makes the boat in terms of dependent co-rising. This is just a piece of cloth, really,

[22:30]

but because I use it in a certain way, I can call this a zhagu, it's a bowing cloth. When you have a rowboat, if you're rowing it and using it as a boat, it's a boat. It's just a label of a function like that. That's what he's pointing to here. And he's saying that each activity has its own place, complete. Each one of us has our own dharma place. And we do our own dharma place thoroughly, and in thoroughly doing it, each individual place does not impinge on any other total dynamic dharma place. That's a Dogen way of talking about things. Here's another way of reading the boat. Life is like riding in a boat. Aboard the boat, we take the tiller, work the sail, use the oars, yet without the boat,

[23:32]

we could do nothing. But it is we who make the boat a boat. You should study and penetrate this activity, this time of the boat. At such a moment, there is only the world of the boat. The clouds, the water, the shore are all circumstances of the boat at that moment, which is not the same as a world that is not the boats. There are other worlds and other dharmas and so on and so forth. And then the last one. Then at the end, in the first part of Zenki, he's talking about us as individuals and this total dynamic working, and then he kind of, as he does often, he kind of floats his mind into the great vastness and then comes to us with total no duality, total oneness, which is what he writes about all the time, constantly.

[24:32]

What are we doing? Yeah. Therefore, life does not impede death. In other words, life completely itself is just completely life and that everything that happens in the world is creating and is created by that life. And when there's death, it's a hundred percent death. And life and death, in that way, are not separate. I told you the story before, but one time when my mother was dying, I went to see Kadagiri Roshi, my brother and I did. And we asked, my brother did, my brother asked him, what is life and death? My brother is way more spiritual than I am. He's a businessman, but he's always, he's way more spiritual. Anyway, and then

[25:35]

Kadagiri Roshi said, they're not different, not different. And this was his way again. And he always did this to me, he was such a great teacher. He never answered me with the response of my particular question. He always gave me this wide view, which I never understood. But that's good, because he gave me always a little bit more, so I can work at it. There was always something I didn't understand that I wanted to grab onto and understand. But that's what it is. Life and death are not different. They're parts of, like the front and back of a coin. You can't have just the front of a coin. You can't have just the back of a coin. You have to have the front and the back. Life and death, the world is this life and death event happening, this one life and death event happening. It's wonderful when you see it that way, you know, then when it's time for us to die, although, you know, we may not want to die, we would understand it

[26:36]

in a much bigger way. There would be some possibility of willingness, okay, my turn, you know, goodbye. All world and all space exist equally within life and death. This does not mean, however, that one single world or one single space is totally dynamically worked within life and within death. Though this is not oneness, it is not difference, though it is not difference, it is not sameness, though it is not sameness, it is not manyness. We can't pin it down. It's not one, not two. Therefore, the total dynamic working of birth and death could be likened to the bending and extending

[27:36]

of a young... of your arm. In other words, you know, if you bend it this way, it doesn't hamper outstretch. If you outstretch it, it doesn't hamper this way. It's the function, total function. Or to a person reaching back for her pillow in the night. It is manifested by means of the great many all-pervading powers and radiant brightness. This is Dogen's view of our activity. He has a big wide view of our activity. And usually we can't see that because we're caught up with the samskaras, with the habit tendencies of our mind. But if we sit, just sit and stay present. Or even if you don't even sit,

[28:37]

don't even sit. You have to sit. It's easiest when you sit. But if you just stay present all day long, you can actually see the habit patterns that you are. And the more you don't do anything with it, you just watch them, they become transparent and you don't have to cling to them. And as you don't cling to them and the more they become transparent, they... they wither. And as they wither, your life force blooms. The energy of your life force blooms. I'll read you a poem. You...

[29:41]

This is real quick again. You Darkness Death Emptiness Of whom I am born I love you more than the flame that limits the world to the circle it illumines and excludes all the rest. But the dark embraces everything shapes and shadows creatures and me people, nations just as they are. I imagine a great presence stirring beside me. I believe in the night. If we...

[30:41]

If we could only have a kind of it's okay-ness with regard to our own delusions which are also this total dynamic working. It doesn't exclude anything. If we can just be okay with them be patient with them so that we can see through. They're not so thick as we think they are. They're not so powerful. And develop a kind of presence just being present then emancipation the way Dogen is talking about it is a possibility for everybody. This is a teeny quote from Psalm number one. This is for everybody.

[31:47]

They delight in the way things are and keep their hearts open day and night. Everything they do will succeed. And... There it is. So it's a really pretty day. I hope you guys go and have a really nice day. It's hot out there. And see if you can do this practice. We try. You know, just stay present with the stuff of life and so that we can have little pockets of sanity in this world that is having so much trouble.

[32:53]

Take care.

[32:56]

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