Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website.
I just wanted to mention that a great teacher, a great teacher of sewing Buddha's robe in the style called nyaho e, which is clothing, according to the Dharma, passed away yesterday late afternoon in Minneapolis. And her name is Tomoe San or Tomoe Katagiri.
And I can just say that we'll do a memorial service at the very least for her at some point in the near future.
But interestingly, you know, her husband was Nanyan Katagiri Roshi, who assisted Suzuki Roshi at San Francisco Zen Center.
Both Suzuki Roshi and Katagiri Roshi died at relatively young ages, but their wives stayed on in America forever for decades, taking care of the Sanghas in various ways and generously, patiently teaching our way.
And, you know, many of you know this, but my first sewing teacher was Tomoe Katagiri. I was very lucky, right as she was kind of winding down a little bit.
She taught me sewing and inspired me so much in her practice. So I just want to honor her life and her great gifts to us.
And she lived a long life supported by Minnesota Zone center and the Minneapolis Sangha.
And may she swim in the great ocean of reality endlessly.
So on that note, not to be too somber because Tomoy left us with so much and.
And we have another great teacher in the room today, Tigan Dan Leighton. I will pass the mic.
Needs no introduction unless you want to introduce more about yourself.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Okay, can you hear me? Everyone
[00:02:54] Speaker C: get a thumbs up online.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Okay, so I want to start today talking about Eheikoroku, Dogen's extensive record, which was many of you may know. Shobo Genzo True Dharma Eye treasury by Dogen Eheikoroku. I've translated with Shohaka Okamura. It's a massive work of mostly short Dharma hall discourses from his entire career.
And he, Dogen was sitting on the Dharma seat in the Dharma hall, and monks were standing in the Dharma Hall. And so they're short, they're mostly short discourses.
I'm going to be doing an afternoon seminar on Eheikoroku on June 13, 1 to 3:30.
I'm also doing a first and third Thursday of the month, starting this Thursday, a study group on HUA and Buddhism. So anyway, Ehikoroku, they're formal talks, but it's actually kind of more informal in terms or more personal in terms of Dogen Dogen's sense of humor, Dogen's feelings and sentiments, Dogen's.
Dogen's mature teachings from a heiji.
So I'm gonna. I'm gonna start with a couple of those.
So in 1240, 1240, while he was still in Kyoto, Dogen said, here is a story.
John Wang Dawu asked Shitto, what is the essential meaning of Buddhadharma?
Shito is the guy who Sekito in Japanese. He translated.
He wrote Sandokai, the harmony of difference in sameness in the Song of the Grass Hut. Anyway, his students said, what is the essential meaning of Buddhadharma? And Shitto said, not to attain, not
[00:05:10] Speaker C: to know, no attainment, nothing to attain,
[00:05:15] Speaker B: as the Heart Sutra says.
And even not knowing, not knowing is most intimate. So there are many things we don't know.
So Daoud then said, beyond that, is there any other pivotal point or not? And Shitto said, the wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting,
[00:05:48] Speaker C: not
[00:05:48] Speaker B: attaining, not knowing is Buddha's essential meaning. The wind blows into the depths, and further winds blow. The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. At this time, why do you bother to ask Shito?
So that's the. The entire Dharmal discourse.
The wide sky doesn't obstruct the white clouds drifting by. And this is also a meditation instruction. As we sit open to the universal, to the ultimates of the wide sky, thoughts come up, and they're not obstructed by the white clouds.
The universal wide sky is not obstructed by the white clouds drifting by all
[00:06:41] Speaker C: these thoughts and feelings.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: So, and vice versa, the.
Clouds do not obstruct the white cloud, the white sky.
So that's the entire Dharma hall discourse. I wanted to do another one, which is much later, 1251. So Dogen taught in Kyoto from 1233 to 1243, after coming back from China, and then he taught.
He died in 1253, so this is
[00:07:17] Speaker C: a fairly late one.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: And he said, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy.
So this is the basic.
To save all living beings, to free all living beings, removing suffering and providing joy for them only. This family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear.
In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time.
As clouds clear, we recognize the sky.
So literally, if. If you go to the mountains of Tassahara or someplace else, or if you sit for a few days, like a
[00:08:10] Speaker C: lot of you recently did. Here
[00:08:14] Speaker B: we see the moon for a
[00:08:16] Speaker C: while, for a long.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Only this family style was inexhaustibly bright and clear.
In the lofty mountains we see the
[00:08:30] Speaker C: moon for a long time.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky cast loose down the precipice.
The moonlight shot shares itself within the 10,000 forms.
So as we go back out from Sachin, or from a practice period at
[00:08:51] Speaker C: Tassahara, or wherever
[00:08:57] Speaker B: the moonlight shines on the surface of the streams that flow down into the busy Marketplace within the 10,000 forms, then Dogen added, even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power.
So at the same time that we remove, we.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: We.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: We save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy, we also take good care of ourselves.
So in Zazen, we see our ancient twisted karma.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: And over time
[00:09:37] Speaker B: we all. We see the moon. And we see.
We see through our ancient dristic karma.
[00:09:43] Speaker C: We can let it go.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: It comes up again and again and
[00:09:47] Speaker C: again and again and again. But we can also let it go.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: So we share ourselves within 10,000 forms. We work with the suffering of our world.
This is the basic practice of Zen Bodhisattva people.
So these days we are working with the Maga forces of corruption and violence and cruelty.
Maybe it's only 30% of American people
[00:10:29] Speaker C: who are part of MAGA, probably less,
[00:10:32] Speaker B: much less in Chicago. But this corruption and violence goes back to the foundation of the United States.
We were founded on exterminating indigenous peoples.
We didn't succeed completely.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: There are indigenous people still around, but
[00:10:55] Speaker B: we put them in reservations. So anyway, the Europeans came to this country and took the land and exterminated the cultures of many indigenous peoples.
Also the US economy was based on slavery and slave trading.
And it's both north and south.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: The United States economy was based on this.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: But also all through this history of exterminating ancient peoples and slavery and Jim Crow and racism, all through there was resistance.
So there's also a history of resistance
[00:11:46] Speaker C: to all of this.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: There's a book Lies My Teacher Told
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Me by James Lohan.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: It goes into this very well.
Tells the truth about Christopher Columbus exterminating
[00:11:59] Speaker C: people in the Caribbean.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: He talks about Jeffrey Amherst who sent smallpox infected blankets to Native American people.
But there were also many white people who were included among native peoples.
So the movie Dances with Wolves is actually, you know, not uncommon story. There were many white people who were part of native tribes and, you know, were forced to go back to white
[00:12:38] Speaker C: white people when.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: When Native Americans were being exterminated.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Or put into reservations.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: There's. He also tells that in Elias. My teacher told me the truth about the Mexican American War, about John Brown, about Helen Keller, who was a wobbly and activist amongst other things.
So, you know, in this country we have the ideals of life, liberty and equal justice under the law.
They've never been actualized completely, but still we do have these ideals.
Do didn't even have these ideals. He lived in a feudal society where everything was just up to the feudal lords.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: So.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah, these ideals are important.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: We believe in equal justice under the law, even though it's never been. It's never really happened completely. But we have the ideals and that's important.
So I want to talk about something which is to many of you, ancient history, the assassinations of the 1960s.
So I've been reading a book by James Douglas, two S's at the end, called Martyrs to the Unspeakable, the Assassinations of jfk, Malcolm Martin and rfk.
He did a previous book, JFK and the Unspeakable, how the CIA and Allen Dulles and Some people from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Were behind the Assassination of John Kennedy.
So again, this is, this may seem like ancient history to many of you. I was very aware of it, all
[00:14:48] Speaker C: of it in the 60s.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: So.
These books are extremely well documented.
How Kennedy was killed.
He was going to withdraw troops from Vietnam when he got back from Dallas.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: And there were people who, cold warriors
[00:15:18] Speaker B: who didn't want that to happen, who
[00:15:21] Speaker C: wanted to continue to have war.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: So Oswald was a patsy. JFK's head wound was from the back from the grassy knoll.
And yeah, jfk, John Kennedy freaked out after the Cuban Missile Crisis and said,
[00:15:50] Speaker C: no, we can't have this. We can't have nuclear, nuclear war because
[00:15:53] Speaker B: it came very, very close during the Hebrew Missile Crisis.
So he wanted to end the Cold War and he secretly had negotiations and
[00:16:03] Speaker C: communications with Nikita Khrushchev and the Russians,
[00:16:06] Speaker B: although they were secret from the hardline militarists in both.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: So there were the.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: There, there were these negotiations and Kennedy and Khrushchev were talking about a joint
[00:16:29] Speaker C: manned mission to the moon.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: And there was a secret envoy from Kennedy sitting with, with Fidel Castro in
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Havana
[00:16:44] Speaker B: talking about including peace for Cuba.
This was after the Cuban Missile Crisis and they heard about the assassination and Fidel Castro said this changes everything.
And it did.
So again, this is ancient history to
[00:17:07] Speaker C: many of you, but
[00:17:10] Speaker B: John Kennedy campaigned
[00:17:12] Speaker C: for peace in the last six months of his life.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: He talked about peace and he spoke about peace to the country and the country was actually going along with having peace. And to the, to the joint, some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
[00:17:31] Speaker C: to the people who were cold warriors,
[00:17:34] Speaker B: that was not acceptable.
They considered him traitor and they had to have war.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: So John Kennedy was killed
[00:17:49] Speaker B: with involvement of the CIA.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were also killed with a lot of support by the FBI. The FBI made sure that Malcolm and Martin Luther King's police protection was withdrawn at the times of their assassination.
[00:18:17] Speaker C: And there's more about.
Martin Luther King's killing was not Jen jewelry.
He was another patsy.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Anyway, this book is extremely well, extremely extremely well documented.
So RFK Bobby Kennedy was not killed by Sirhan Sirhan.
Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian.
He was a very malleable person, very much influenceable,
[00:19:01] Speaker C: hypnotized
[00:19:03] Speaker B: suggested. So he was, he did stand in front of Bobby Kennedy right after he
[00:19:13] Speaker C: was, he won the California primary and
[00:19:15] Speaker B: would have been, was, was going on to Chicago and would have been president.
He was 4 or 5ft in front of Bobby Kennedy. But according to the coroner, Mr. Noguchi and his autopsy, Bobby Kennedy was killed from a gun that was an inch to an inch and a half behind his ear.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Sir John was 4 or 5ft in front of him.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: So this has been, all of this has been confirmed by congressional commissions that happened later, weren't so advertised.
So all of our history since these assassinations in the 60s has been impacted by this.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Kennedy, John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy wanted to have peace, wanted to end the Cold War.
But
[00:20:25] Speaker B: yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
You did not learn the lessons of Vietnam.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: John Kennedy was going to withdraw troops from Vietnam.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Vietnam continued into Nixon's reign.
[00:20:41] Speaker C: Wars continued.
Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, wars we lost.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: And our country now is super militarized.
So all of this is kind of
[00:20:59] Speaker C: background to what's happening with MAGA and
[00:21:02] Speaker B: the current regime and the ICE detentions.
The, the money that we pay to for the Pentagon is.
It could be paid for, could be going into health care and housing and education is massive.
So our national budget, which is a kind of moral document is about militarism.
Okay. How do we practice in the midst of this reality?
So first of all, hopelessness is not helpful.
Hopelessness is not reality. Actually resistance in opposition to the current regime is strong and growing in all kinds of places
[00:22:19] Speaker C: amongst rural people as well as city people.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: And the culture has changed since the 60s.
The politics is still is under control of Maga, but our culture has changed.
The cold War ended, apartheid ended in South Africa.
Women have been empowered, although certainly not enough.
And you know, MAGA is trying to move everything back and persecute women.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: And
[00:22:59] Speaker B: so, you know, the ICE detentions
[00:23:05] Speaker C: are horrible.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Same sex marriage, it was legalized.
Our culture has changed a lot since the 60s in good ways.
So we have to have the long view.
Dr. King said that the arc of history is long, but it moves, it bends towards justice.
The arc of history is long, but
[00:23:48] Speaker C: it bends towards justice.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: And Zen, our, our tradition has a
[00:23:54] Speaker C: long view of history.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: We invoke Shakyamuni Buddha who lived 2500
[00:24:02] Speaker C: years ago,
[00:24:06] Speaker B: lived 800 years ago.
Suzuki Roshi was back in the 60s.
So Zen Buddhism can see a wide range of history.
How do we see the resistance to Maga and all of the horrible things
[00:24:34] Speaker C: that are happening in our culture?
The violence and the cruelty, it's just, it's just cruelty.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: So we all know this and some
[00:24:47] Speaker C: of you are here for the first time, I think, and you probably came to a Zen place to get away
[00:24:54] Speaker B: from all of that.
[00:24:58] Speaker C: Zen is supposed to be chill and calm each day, and yet
[00:25:05] Speaker B: we live in this world.
So again, what did Dogen say?
[00:25:19] Speaker C: We can see the wide range of history.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: We don't have to feel caught by
[00:25:26] Speaker C: the cruelty of Nago.
We can resist.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: So Dogen said again, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is first to arouse the vow to free all beings by removing suffering and providing joy.
Now, there's still joy in the world. There's still birds and flowers and trees
[00:25:59] Speaker C: and, you know,
[00:26:03] Speaker B: climate damage is, is with us. But there's still, I still hear birds singing.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: How can we provide joy? How can we feel the joy? A friendship of community.
Into birdsong.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: But also we remove suffering. So there is suffering.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: People are having a hard time. Some people, many people.
The economy is not friendly to many people.
We here are all more or less privileged white people, Or we have some token Asian people,
[00:27:08] Speaker B: But still we're, you
[00:27:12] Speaker C: know, we're relatively duplicated.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Well, he's Asian American.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: You know,
[00:27:20] Speaker A: I apologize if, if I conveyed that to you in any way.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we have had black people here
[00:27:34] Speaker C: at Ancient Dragon before.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Again, anyway, it's. So Zen is supposed to be like,
[00:27:43] Speaker C: you know, peaceful and cool and calm.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: And yet we respond to suffering in
[00:27:51] Speaker C: the world around us, to the ice ages.
Maybe they're not so many in Chicago anymore, but there's still, there's still some.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: And. Yeah.
Ah, so only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear togen says in the lofty mountains in session, or even in one period of Zazen, we see
[00:28:23] Speaker C: the moon for a while, a long time.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: So
[00:28:40] Speaker B: as we work on our. The clouds of our ancient twisted karma.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: And we each have them, and that's endless.
Each have things we may regret or problems that we may have.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: It's not that we do one then the other.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: We work with our personal karma at
[00:29:00] Speaker B: the same time that we respond to
[00:29:02] Speaker C: the suffering of the world.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: So we recognize this guy.
Then cast loose down the precipice from
[00:29:14] Speaker C: the mountaintop or wherever.
We don't have mountains.
So there are prairies and there are skyscrapers. You know, Snyder talks about cities as natural places where there are skyscrapers and avenues, boulevards of streams.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Anyway, cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight in the stream shares itself within the 10,000 forms.
So we share our awareness, our sense
[00:29:52] Speaker C: of the ultimate, of the universal within all of the 10,000 suffering beings.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: And then he says, even when climbing up the bird's path,
[00:30:05] Speaker C: which is, you know, this image from, from Dongshan, of
[00:30:09] Speaker B: the birds fly overhead and we don't
[00:30:11] Speaker C: see any path but that they're flying
[00:30:13] Speaker B: in, but they, they can for centuries
[00:30:17] Speaker C: and centuries follow the same migration paths, north to south and south to north.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Anyway, even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power.
So we take good care of ourselves.
And that includes studying real history of
[00:30:40] Speaker C: where we're at, of our country.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: So we can study that history.
But also our personal ancient twisted karma
[00:30:53] Speaker C: is,
[00:30:56] Speaker B: becomes apparent in zazen.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: So we work on that, we work on both,
[00:31:04] Speaker B: and sometimes we take turns
[00:31:06] Speaker C: working on one or the other.
At any rate.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: So this is what Dogen talked about.
This is our story, how we practice in the world.
And you know, knowing this, all this history is helpful.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: I believe
[00:31:29] Speaker B: John Kennedy actually tried to
[00:31:32] Speaker C: work for peace and end the Cold War.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: And he had a secret, secret from his own hardliners connection with Khrushchev.
[00:31:45] Speaker C: And they, and they, you know, shared
[00:31:47] Speaker B: things and talked about how to not
[00:31:51] Speaker C: let nuclear war happen.
This was, this was a, a big impetus for John Kennedy.
He had been to war ET109.
His boat in the Pacific was cut
[00:32:09] Speaker B: apart and he had to swim.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: And anyway, he'd been through war.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: And Bobby Kennedy in his last six
[00:32:21] Speaker C: months before he was killed, maybe a little more than six months, he connected with people. He connected with poor people. We connected with farm workers in California. He connected with black people in ghettos.
And he saw that.
Hunger was a problem, a big problem
[00:32:47] Speaker B: even then in the 60s.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: So.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Okay, I'm gonna take comments and questions
[00:33:02] Speaker C: now and
[00:33:05] Speaker B: please feel free share whatever
[00:33:08] Speaker C: response you have to this difficult talk.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Thank you, Genesis. I can open my Casting Things down into the Abyss.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: So
[00:33:26] Speaker A: anyone online know to raise your hands and in the room you can share a mic.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: So comments, Responses?
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yes. Wait,
[00:33:44] Speaker C: David. Oh, David. Ray
[00:33:49] Speaker D: Tay.
[00:33:49] Speaker E: Again, thanks for that talk.
[00:33:51] Speaker C: You're welcome.
[00:33:52] Speaker E: I first want to just say some of the thoughts and feelings that it brought up for me, because one of my earliest memories is.
Yes, exactly. The triangle folded flag being given to Jackie Kennedy is one of my earliest childhood memories. I definitely. And I grew up in Georgia, so I remember so many people saying that there were going to be race riots after Dr. King was shot. And I remember waking up that morning in June to the news that Bobby Kennedy had. Those are very vivid memories for me.
They're defining, but every generation has defining memories like that we all have shared events that we remember where we were when we heard that.
But that makes me think more about history, about the weirdness of what it is to be an American Zen Buddhist.
But I really want to ask you about Dogen, because I'm in this group where we're reading Dogen. And so here we are, these
[00:35:04] Speaker F: good
[00:35:05] Speaker E: urban virtue signaling liberals.
And Dogen is, to use the word, sometimes problematic, at least in the way he's sometimes translated. And so a lot of us in this room are teachers, caregivers.
And the style now to be a teacher or caregiver is very friendly and gentle and all of that. And that's difficult. Dogen isn't always that way, or at least he doesn't always come off that way.
So my question is really, you know, as someone who has spent most of your life in the company of Dogen, how would you describe Dogenomics as a teacher? Was he a crabby, difficult teacher that people only at length and at last could sort of get to? Does he seem to have been open and welcoming? What would it have been like to be a student or to be a practitioner in Dogen's practice community?
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Dogen was complicated in many, many, many different things.
So he seems sometimes crabby in Shobo
[00:36:15] Speaker C: Genzo,
[00:36:17] Speaker B: in Eihei Koroku. He's warm and at times and humorous,
[00:36:24] Speaker C: very funny, actually, and.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Welcoming and caring about his students.
[00:36:34] Speaker C: So,
[00:36:38] Speaker B: you know, he, he, he was many things.
He was also strict sometimes and he also often asked, you really understand this?
[00:36:46] Speaker C: He would give some talk and say,
[00:36:50] Speaker B: can you, can you thoroughly Understand this.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: Can you thoroughly study this?
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Please do so he would, he could be strict, but he could also be
[00:37:00] Speaker C: warm and cry at times.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: And I wanted to mention Bobby Kennedy's killing.
The next morning I was in court because I had been arrested.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: I was going to mention this, but
[00:37:17] Speaker B: I had been arrested for sitting in
[00:37:21] Speaker C: at Dow Chemical Company.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Dow Chemical Company was, was recruiting among
[00:37:27] Speaker C: students at Columbia University where I was then freshman.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: And I went and sat in, in
[00:37:34] Speaker C: front of Dow Chemical Company and to
[00:37:37] Speaker B: recruit their employees for the anti war movement.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: And
[00:37:44] Speaker B: it happened that one of the,
[00:37:45] Speaker C: that, that there was a, a court
[00:37:49] Speaker B: appearance the next day after Bobby Kennedy was killed.
And Bobby Kennedy, you know, the judge just said, well, these young people are doing something good for the country.
[00:38:02] Speaker C: And Bobby Kennedy was killed.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: And so he just dismissed the charges completely.
[00:38:08] Speaker C: So anyway, just a little anecdote about that.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Other comments, questions.
[00:38:15] Speaker G: I have a follow up to David Ray's.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Okay, I do want to say you
[00:38:19] Speaker G: were very lucky today. You might have been taken to another country and put in jail.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: So yeah, the ICE may be coming
[00:38:30] Speaker C: to take me away. And I'll let you know if we can.
[00:38:33] Speaker G: We'll find you. We'll send lawyers, guns and money.
So I'm thinking about Dogen, you know, and I love Ehei Kuroku. Thank you so much for sharing those fascicles.
And you know, I often think, you know, these are just like standing around the zendo. But I think of Dogen, like I wondered about like these short talks, if some of them were just very intimate, like telling of the family story to his students. You know, like here's Dengshan and here's Dawu and here's Yunyan. And you know, that it was, it was this way of transmitting the dharma that, that was very, you know, like he was instructing them very clearly on knowledge that was in the lineage or beyond the lineage really. I mean it was barely a lineage at that time, but within, within Chan Buddhism, let's say. So I just think it was really like to think about that, like, oh, here I'm telling you these stories and then I'm adding my flourish and I'm engaging you in it. And I think that that form of teaching is something that we really carry forward and we'll have stories we tell, you know, we've been telling stories of women now imagine that. And you know, Queer People Pride month is coming up, you know, but, but there's, there's this, there is a family style.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:40:02] Speaker G: I wondered what, how that felt to you when you were translating Eihei Kuroku. You know, like, what that was like for you?
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Well, yeah. I mean, translating Ehekoroku was like having doksan with doken all the time. And, you know, some heikoroku is simpler in some ways than Shobo Genzo, which 2 Dharma I Treasury, which is Dogen's
[00:40:24] Speaker C: other masterwork, where he has these longer, elaborative essays on particular
[00:40:32] Speaker B: koans or teachers or themes.
Ehikoroku was the way he taught in his mature years at Aheiji. He shifted to these short Dharma hall
[00:40:46] Speaker C: discourses for the most part.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: And, yeah, it was intimate and it was just, you know, sharing the family style of Dongshan and all the other
[00:40:58] Speaker C: teachers in the lineage.
[00:41:00] Speaker G: So, yeah, it's just the depth and breadth of his knowledge of the canon seems almost like unbelievable and unique. You know, there was no publishing houses. You know, you had. And so I think this oral transmission and very personal transmission is just amazing and wonderful.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yes, it is.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: So other comments, Questions.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: Howard
[00:41:33] Speaker D: took an Asian speaking up and also, I mean, it's complicated, right?
Hearing this talk was interesting because you're talking about the 60s, and I became a history nerd starting in eighth grade because I had a great teacher that really matters to have a good teacher.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: It does.
[00:41:54] Speaker D: And meanwhile, as you're talking about, I'm thinking about everything that was going on in my family history during the 60s. I mean, I was not alive then, but arguably.
But during the 60s, everything was, you know, stuff hitting the fan in China during the 60s, but also the decades before that, for many decades before that.
All of it, you know, maybe arguably traced back to. To American and European colonialism and whatnot. But, you know, I had this really powerful experience when I was at the Roots and Refuge Retreat, the Asian American Buddhist Writing Retreat, a few. The first time it came around.
And these were Buddhists from all backgrounds, mostly predominantly Jodo, Shinshu, Pure Land and a lot of Sotozen.
So even we, like, we would notice that. Wait, where are all the. There's a lot of pale Asians here, East Asians here. Where are all the brown Asians at? Where are the South Asians at? Where are the Southeast Asians at? Not that many of them.
I ran into my own sort of conundrums about history and my karma and my inheritance, because here I am a Chinese American, and I, with these people, did not know how to chant my own sutras in my own language, but I knew the Korean ones, and I was part of a Japanese tradition.
It's complicated.
[00:43:17] Speaker C: It's complicated.
[00:43:18] Speaker D: What is My ancient twisted karma that it led me here.
And something that became very clear to me during that retreat. And every year I've gone since then, I'm fortunately not going this year is stuff around heartbreak.
And I am curious whether from your personal experience or maybe there's a good discourse in the extensive record about.
I think I agree that hopelessness doesn't really get us anywhere. But there's something about heartbreak and not letting ourselves, letting the heartbreak happen, letting our heart open, but not letting it, like, destroy us. And I don't know if there's a good discourse for that or if you can speak from personal experience.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there are lots of discourses about that. But, yeah, heartbreak is necessary.
[00:44:13] Speaker C: We have to break open our hearts
[00:44:14] Speaker B: to be connected with the reality of
[00:44:18] Speaker C: our own lives and the reality of our culture.
So, yeah, okay, how not to be destroyed by that.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: We have to just let it in. But, you know, it's different for each person.
For some of us, we need to take it very slow.
[00:44:40] Speaker C: For some of us, it just.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: It can happen suddenly.
[00:44:43] Speaker C: It's just.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: Is it. It's. And it's.
[00:44:46] Speaker C: And it's endless in a way. You know, we're never going to get to.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: We're not. We're not trying to get to nirvana. We're not trying to leave this wounded territory.
[00:45:02] Speaker C: We are.
Yeah, We're.
We're here.
And so we work with heartbreak and
[00:45:13] Speaker B: we work with, you know, just everything.
So, Eve, did you have your hand up?
Eve?
[00:45:19] Speaker C: And then David Weinum was on Weinlauf.
[00:45:24] Speaker F: Yeah. Well, I think there's a difference between saying that that's endless and the long arc of history inevitably blends towards justice, which, frankly, at this point I have my doubts about.
And to me, that comes more from a Christian messianic view of history than a Buddhist one.
And as far as the cracks and discourses, I mean, the discourse that's helped me is Leonard Cohen's the Crack that Lets the Light in.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:46:01] Speaker F: And you know his verse about the dove, she will be caught again, Bought and sold and bought again. The dove is never free, but ring the bells that still can ring.
And I think when we do the vows and we vow to free all sentient beings, I mean, it's impossible, but we vow it anyway.
And it's like the mosquito biting on the iron bar. I think you do it anyway.
And I think. And anyway, that's.
So I was just wondering about.
I mean, this sort of messianic view of history versus this idea that the light is there and the light is always there.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: The light is here from the very beginning.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: There's nothing to attain.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: There's nothing to get.
All of our efforts are just about realizing that.
So, you know, I would say both.
[00:47:06] Speaker C: We're never going to get there. And maybe there will be a time of justice. I don't know. I don't know.
[00:47:13] Speaker F: Or we can make more space for more light.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:47:17] Speaker C: And that's what we've been doing, actually.
That's what Buddha Sangha is about.
That's what is happening in our culture.
And yet the politics is pretty morbid now.
[00:47:30] Speaker F: And I did have another question about family style. I mean, that's a word that. A phrase Hougetsu uses a lot. And I hadn't known what the sources are for that, and you quoted it, so I wondered if.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Yeah, Dogen uses it a lot.
And it goes way back.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: It's just.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: It's the style of a particular lineage.
[00:47:50] Speaker C: It's also the style of Buddhist and ancestors, all Buddhas.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: So wind of the family's house.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:47:58] Speaker F: The wind of the family.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: The wind of the family's house.
[00:48:01] Speaker C: It's another way to say it. Yeah.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: David Weiner.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Where?
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:48:10] Speaker F: Oh, he's online. Okay.
[00:48:11] Speaker H: Yeah.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:12] Speaker F: In the cloud.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: David, go ahead.
[00:48:16] Speaker H: Yeah, I didn't quite hear Hougetsu's comments just now, but.
Because she didn't have the mic.
[00:48:22] Speaker D: But
[00:48:25] Speaker H: something you're saying about the family style. Two things. Howard is the one who really stimulated me to raise my hand as a chaplain.
I'm seeing people who are going through end of life, and one thing I bring up to them to consider is that their disease or their impending death is not the totality of their life.
That even though they're facing this disease usually, like somebody recently with Parkinson's, he is still a doctor. He is still someone who played oboe with a classical orchestra.
That the disease is in front of him. And that's right now, the only thing he sees. But that is not the totality of his life.
And it's his realization that he has more in his life is what is important, at least from point of view. And so he. He is not patient X. You know, he is not a Parkinson's patient. He is patient X who happens to have Parkinson's.
And there's a difference.
And so I would say to you, Howard, in breaking your heart, you have to deal with the heart that is broken in front of you. And it has to be real and there, but it is not. The heartbreak is not the only thing which segues into thich Nhat Hanh's book the Heart of Understanding. And in one part of the book he says, do you see a cloud on this page?
And he says, well, there was a cloud in this page because water was needed for the trees to grow so that the lumberman could come and cut the trees and then make paper and then the company to print the book. So those clouds are on this page. There is no separation. There is only inter being that we're all connected, it's all one thing and we're not separate. And this goes back to what you were saying Teigen, about. This is family style. We are all family. We are all inter being with each other.
I like your comment on that.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Well, you know, death is just part of life.
I mean, everybody in this room.
[00:50:48] Speaker C: It's very, very, very, very, very likely that everybody in this room will die at some point.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Some of us more, more, more soon than others.
But, you know, that's to allow another generation to, to be so, you know, we old people have to get out
[00:51:11] Speaker C: of the way so that newer people can come and, you know, it's so.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: It's just part of life and, you know, it's sad.
[00:51:25] Speaker C: Maybe it's sad and we leave people
[00:51:29] Speaker B: and you know, but this is the way things work.
