Dogen Quotes

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.

Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons. Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults; just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions, but did not tell us to hate those who practice unwholesome actions.

Forgetting oneself is opening oneself

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools.

do not view mountains from the scale of human thought

No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.

If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.

To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.

There is a simple way to become buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

If a tree falls in the forest and it hits a mime, would he make a noise?

Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.

It's too late to be ready.

Real wisdom is the ability to understand the incredible extent to which you bullshit yourself every single moment of every day.

Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm, Without looking for the traces I may have left; A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home; Hearing this, I tilt my head to see Who has told me to turn back; But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home.

To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad.

If you study a lot because you are worried that others will think badly of you for being ignorant and you'll feel stupid, this is a serious mistake.

In a snowfall that covers the winter grass a white heron uses his own whiteness to disappear.

What you think in your own mind to be good, or what people of the world think is good, is not necessarily good.

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine many things with a confused mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing that has unchanging self.

Although we say mountains belong to the country, actually, they belong to those that love them.

Those who regard worldly affairs as a hindrance to buddha dharma think only that there is no buddha dharma in the secular world; they do not understand that there is no secular world in buddha dharma.

The prospect of future lives in remote heavens as a compensation for the inadequacy of our present lives is a bad tradeoff for losing out on the present.

The Buddha is found in other people - even the ones we do not like very much.

You should not be esteemed by others if you have no real inner virtue. People here in Japan esteem others on the basis of outward appearances, without knowing anything about real inner virtue; so students lacking the spirit of the Way are dragged down into bad habits and become subject to temptation.

Thus a person can be a Buddha one minute and a jackass three minutes later. You don't just become Buddha at the moment of your first enlightenment experience and then stay Buddha forever.

We just need to feel we know, or we can’t rest. And yet much of life is unknowable and will remain so. Lots

If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to scream.

But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home. – Dogen Zenji

Those who are extremely stupid think that women are merely the objects of sexual desire and treat women in this way. The Buddha’s children should not be like this. If we discriminate against women because we see them merely as objects of sexual desire, do we also discriminate against all men for the same reason?

If you have compassion and are imbued with the spirit of the Way, it is of no consequence to be criticized, even reviled, by the ignorant. But if you lack the spirit of the Way, you should be wary of being thought of by others as having the Way.

The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there (in zazen) the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.

Our actions are part of who we are. It's not that we are inert things who do stuff. Rather, the stuff we do and who we are are inextricably woven together.

Not-being-a-jerk means this and that are done, and now you gotta do the other thing. It’s an ongoing process. Haku

Don’t work towards freedom, but allow the work itself to be freedom. —DOGEN ROSHI

No matter how compelling or beautiful they may be, words appeal in the main to the linear, thinking mind that thinks in words.

At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Long ago a monk asked an old master, “When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done?” The master replied, “Don’t try to control them” What he means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the buddha-dharma, not objects at all. Do not understand the master’s reply as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth. Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled.

Meditation begins now, right here. It can't begin someplace else or at some other time. To paraphrase the great Zen master Dogen, "If you want to practice awareness, then practice awareness without delay." If you wish to know a mind that is tranquil and clear, sane and peaceful, you must take it up now. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now. Nobody can bring awareness to your life but you. Meditation is not a self-help program--a way to better ourselves so we can get what we want. Nor is it a way to relax before jumping back into busyness. It's not something to do once in awhile, either, whenever you happen to feel like it. Instead, meditation is a practice that saturates your life and in time can be brought into every activity. It is the transformation of mind from bondage to freedom. In practicing meditation, we go nowhere other than right here where we now stand, where we now sit, where we now live and breathe. In meditation we return to where we already are--this shifting, changing ever-present now. If you wish to take up meditation, it must be now or never.

Dogen’s teaching: We practice because we do not yet know who or what we are. But as a result of many causes, including the suffering we experience and the longing engendered by that suffering, we aspire to know. That aspiration leads many people to begin the practice of zazen. Dogen expressed this beautifully when he said, “Wisdom is seeking wisdom.” Perhaps we might paraphrase and say that wholeness is seeking wholeness, self is seeking self.

Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.

The time of our delusion does not obstruct the time of our realization. Our practice is not in order to attain realization. Practice itself is the actualization of realization.

So our practice is not to eliminate our delusion, but to see or to become aware of the fact that we are deluded. Just become aware of it and let go of it. Do not be pulled by the delusions.

In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You will have something remaining which is not completely burned out. Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes. This is the goal of our practice. That is what Dogen meant when he said, “Ashes do not come back to firewood.” Ash is ash. Ash should be completely ash. The firewood should be firewood. When this kind of activity takes place, one activity covers everything.

Dogen tells us we tend to reject that which is near, close at hand, and venerate that which is far and unattainable. Whatever seems unattainable becomes a pure mind, an open heart, or something else.

The longness and shortness of the present moment can be recognized by utilizing a big image of the moon, which is reflecting on the surface of the ocean, and a small image of the moon on the surface of a cup of water, or in another example the very wide scale of the whole sky itself, and the very narrow space of the moon, which is shining in the sky.

Like the sun illuminating and refreshing the world, this sitting removes obscurities from the mind and lightens the body so that exhaustion is set aside.

Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency.

Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization. This is not only practice while sitting, it is like a hammer striking emptiness: before and after, its exquisite peal permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment?

There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Seek nothing else.

If you try to examine your life analytically, asking yourself who you are, finally you will realize that there is something you cannot reach. You don’t know what it is, but you feel the presence of something you want to connect with. This is sometimes called the absolute. Buddha and Dogen Zenji say true self. Christians say God.

Delusions mean our individuality, our limitations as individuals, and also egocentricity. We cannot see the universe from the viewpoints of other people; we can see things only from "my" point of view. I cannot see from your point of view. Even though I think I can understand it, I really cannot see it, because it is not reality for me.

Within nirvana we can appreciate both positive and negative experiences as simply the scenery of our lives.

When you let go, the dharma fills your hands;

That the self advances and confirms the myriad things is called delusion. That the myriad things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment.

Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest? When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.

The entire moon and sky can be reflected in a dewdrop on a blade of grass.

We live forever by practicing the Buddha Way right now. If we wind up being reborn after we pass from this life, that’s fine. If not, that’s okay too.

Pain was simply pain, pleasure was simply pleasure; for him they were no longer part of the cycle of suffering.

Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in simply not being a jerk.

Prolong not the past. Invite not the future. Do not alter your innate wakefulness. Fear not appearances. There is nothing more than this. Ram Dass

The measure of wisdom is how calm you are when facing any given situation. Naval Ravikant

Intimacy is at the heart of the teaching contained in this book. In the thirteenth century, Zen Master Eihei Dogen taught that enlightenment is just intimacy with all things.

If you can't find the truth right where you are, where do you expect to find it?

Shikantaza is not a practice carried out by the individual. It is, rather, a practice in which we let go of the individual karmic self that is constantly seeking to satisfy its own desires.

Reality exists as it is. The words we use to explain our understanding of it are always pale reflections of the truth we are attempting to convey and of our own understanding of that truth.

In front marched Egypt. The Duke of Egypt at their head, on horseback, with his counts on foot, holding his bridle and stirrups; behind them the Egyptians, men and women, in any order, with their young children yelling on their shoulders; all of them, duke, counts, common people, in rags and tinsel. Then came the kingdom of the argot, that is to say, every thief in France, graded in order of rank, the lowest going in front. Thus there filed past in column of four, in the various insignia of their grades in this strange academy, the majority crippled, some of them lame, others with only one arm, the upright men, the counterfeit cranks, the rufflers, the kinchincoves, the Abraham-men, the fraters, the dommerars, the trulls, the whipjacks, the prygges, the drawlatches, the robardesmen, the clapper-dogens; an enumeration to weary Homer.

SHOHAKU OKUMURA: We human beings have the ability to think of things not in front of us. We create stories in our minds in which the hero or heroine is always us. We evaluate what happened in the past, we analyze our present conditions, and we anticipate what should happen in the future. This is an important ability. Because of it, we can create art, study history, and have visions of the future. Without it, we couldn’t write or enjoy poems or movies. Almost all of human culture depends on seeing things not in front of our eyes. This means almost all culture is fictitious. Our ability to create such fictions is the reality of our lives. We cannot live without it. But this ability leads to many problems. We have certain expectations of our stories. If things go as we expect, we feel like heavenly beings, but if not, we feel we’re in hell. Often we desire more and more without ever experiencing satisfaction, like hungry ghosts. It’s important to see that it’s not life that causes suffering but our expectation that life should be the way we want. We can’t live without expectation, but if we can handle the feelings caused by the difference between our expectations and reality, that’s liberation. Zazen practice as taught by Dogen Zenji, Sawaki Roshi, and Uchiyama Roshi is taking a break from watching the screen of our stories and sitting down on the ground of the reality that exists before our imagination. When we’re not taken in by our fictitious world, we can enjoy and learn from the stories we make.

At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. —Dogen Zenji, Mountains and Waters Sutra

To him, Buddhism was not a spiritual practice or a religion. It was simply a practical approach to real life that neither denied the spiritual side of things nor held that spirituality was better or nobler than the material side of life. Whereas

Buddhas do not make intentional efforts for this to happen,” he says; “it happens when they are activated by the moment of the present.” You get it when you allow the universe to act through you without hindering what it wants with your own petty needs and wishes.

Dumb-bunnies think that if they don’t understand the dharma or memorize it, then there’s no benefit to even hearing it. They think that the best thing is to pursue knowledge and that if they forget what they’ve learned they might as well not have learned it at all.

All we can do is to try in each moment, whatever we are doing, to practice the Buddha Way; we just keep opening the hand of thought and continuing to practice. There is no time when one can say, “I’m finished—now I have finally reached the level of an enlightened person.

There is no ultimate arbiter of right or wrong. In the whole vast universe, there is nobody who knows what you should do in any given situation any better than you do — not your mom and dad, not your best friend Alice, not the president or the pope, and certainly not God.

What is personal death? Asking this question and pausing to look inward - isn't personal death a concept? Isn't there a thought-and-picture series going on in the brain? These scenes of personal ending take place solely in the imagination, and yet they trigger great mental ad physical distress - thinking of one's cherished attachments an their sudden, irreversible termination. Similarly, if there is 'pain when I let some of the beauty of life in' - isn't this pain the result of thinking, 'I won't be here any longer to enjoy this beauty?' Or, 'No one will be around and no beauty left to be enjoyed if there is total nuclear devastation.' Apart from the horrendous tragedy of human warfare - why is there this fear of 'me' not continuing? Is it because I don't realize that all my fear and trembling is for an image? Because I really believe that this image is myself? In the midst of this vast, unfathomable, ever-changing, dying, and renewing flow of life, the human brain is ceaselessly engaged in trying to fix for itself a state of permanency and certainty. Having the capacity to think and form pictures of ourselves, to remember them and become deeply attached to them, we take this world of pictures and ideas for real. We thoroughly believe in the reality of the picture story of our personal life. We are totally identified with it and want it to go on forever. The idea of "forever" is itself an invention of the human brain. Forever is a dream. Questioning beyond all thoughts, images, memories, and beliefs, questioning profoundly into the utter darkness of not-knowing, the realization may suddenly dawn that one is nothing at all - nothing - that all one has been holding on to are pictures and dreams. Being nothing is being everything. It is wholeness. Compassion. It is the ending of separation, fear, and sorrow. Is there pain when no one is there to hold on? There is beauty where there is no "me".

Our own picture of the world is a kind of a fantasy made of our memory in our brain. Each person has this limitation. That is why we have problems, troubles, fighting, arguments. The angles we see the world from are different, and anuttara samyak sambodhi, the supreme awareness, is to see that we cannot see the whole world, to understand that we are deluded and limited. This means we have to let go of our viewpoints.

When we break through the barrier and drop off all limitations, we are no longer concerned with conceptual distinctions.

The modern mind is overstimulated and the modern body is understimulated and overfed. Meditation, exercise, and fasting restore an ancient balance. Naval Ravikant

Zen is not some special state, it is our normal condition, silent, peaceful, awake, without agitation. Taisen Deshimaru

Life is not going to follow you. You cannot force life to be according to you. It is better to flow with the river rather than pushing it. Osho

Insight emerges out of silence. B. D. Schiers

At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment.

Never fail due to a lack of effort, because effort requires no skill.

We always tend to think we can become happier by getting what we want, even if that means we have to make someone else suffer.

Creative vision, sometimes childlike, enhances our ability to explore and question the reality around us.

If you open your hand, you may receive everything.

The present moment is the only reality we experience because the past is already gone and the future has not yet come.

If you attain unsurpassable, complete enlightenment, all sentient beings also attain it. The reason is that all sentient beings are aspects of enlightenment.

As a rule we do not know the self, instead we know things, thoughts, emotions, feelings but not the self. Gurdjieff said we do not remember ourselves and he was saying much the same thing as Dogen. But is not the trouble that we are too full of the self? Yes, but we forget what is essential. Dogen says to know the self is to forget the self, but, before we can forget the self, we must know the self. We constantly use the word ‘I.’ All of our conversations, real and imaginary, revolve around ‘I.’ We say, ‘I’ like and ‘I’ don’t like; ‘I’ want and ‘I’ don’t want. We confuse ‘I’ with the self but although they cannot be separated, they are not the same. A Zen nun said, “I cannot pull out the weed because if I do so I’ll pull out the flower.

Effort is far more important than so-called success because effort is a real thing. What we call “success” is just the manifestation of our mind’s ability to categorize things. This is “success.

Often statues depicting the Buddha’s moment of enlightenment show him touching the ground. This symbolizes that his enlightened state included a firm grounding in this reality instead of serving as an escape from it.

In conclusion, polishing a stone really does transform it into a mirror. If stones couldn’t become mirrors, regular people couldn’t become Buddhas. If we hate stones for being hunks of dirt, you might as well hate people for being hunks of dirt. If people have minds, stones must also have minds. Who can notice that there are mirrors in which stones are reflected? Who can notice that there are mirrors in which mirrors are reflected?

[W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.

Because a lot of our philosophical stances these days are kind of half-assed. We’re very bold in our proclamations of our own moral rectitude, but then we neglect to even keep our own toilets clean. You see a lot of that kind of thing. I used to see it all the time in my punk-rock days. Those guys were super-concerned with having the right political and philosophical views. But they never seemed to be able to keep their showers free from mold or

When I have to struggle seeking after something, When I feel loneliness in helpless solitude, When I am in despair of myself —These are all thoughts of ourselves. Leave everything to zazen, letting go of thought, Or to single-minded chanting of the sound that sees the -world. At this time, even though we don't know it consciously Suddenly, whatever has happened The living reality of the self that is only the self is there, Just as the big sky is always the big sky.

Again, ancient Zenists did not claim that there was any mysterious element in their spiritual attainment, as Do-gen says[FN#259] unequivocally respecting his Enlightenment: "I recognized only that my eyes are placed crosswise above the nose that stands lengthwise, and that I was not deceived by others. I came home from China with nothing in my hand. There is nothing mysterious in Buddhism. Time passes as it is natural, the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting into the west." [FN#259]

it’s still absurd from a Buddhist standpoint to say the mountain on which the old man / wild fox met Hyakujo is the same one that existed millions of years ago. Yet there is still some kind of continuity from the past to the present, and we all know that.

The Chinese character used to indicate it is 行 (gyō). In common usage this just means “to go.” The Sanskrit word is samskara. I’m using the English word formations because that’s the most commonly used translation. My first teacher’s teacher used the word impulses instead. The fourth skandha is generally understood to be the impulses toward action that precede action itself, as well as those actions. So our actions are part of who we are. It’s not that we are inert things who do stuff. Rather, the stuff we do and who we are are inextricably woven together.

If he hadn’t become a Buddhist monk, Sawaki Roshi would have been successful in a worldly sense in business, politics, or the military. Instead, he devoted his life to wholeheartedly practicing Dogen Zenji’s just sitting, or shikantaza, which according to him was good for nothing. For him, social climbing in pursuit of fame and profit was meaningless. The Japanese expression for “waste” is bonifuru, which means “sacrifice,” “lose all,” or “ruin.” So when we say he wasted his life, we use the expression in a paradoxical way—like saying that zazen is good for nothing.

If you feel offended about something, you haven’t been meditating enough. If you feel the need to defend yourself, or justify your opinion, you haven’t been meditating enough. If you can’t take joy in sitting under a tree on a beautiful day, you haven’t been meditating enough. Thibaut -

Genjō means “reality actually and presently taking place,” and kōan means “absolute truth that embraces relative truth” or “a question that true reality asks of us.” So we can say that genjōkōan means “to answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity.

It’s hard for most of us to admit, but when you start paying attention you’ll notice that you actually enjoy being angry. There’s this wonderful rush of self-righteousness to it. Because, obviously, you can’t be angry about something unless you know you’re right and the other person is wrong. You

The Buddha taught that the atman or self does not ultimately exist. He said that everything living or existing is a collection of different elements that are constantly changing. Our lives are dependent on other beings and elements that allow us to be alive as the person we are in this moment. So if one of these things that we depend on changes, whether it is within or outside us, we also must change. This is in fact what the Buddha meant when he said that everything is impermanent and without essential existence. This is the basic reality of our lives, but it is difficult for us to accept.

Clarifying the Way" means that we determine the point we should aim at throughout our lives, based on the self that is only the self and life that is only life. This is the sole great matter, and this is what "completing the sole great matter of one's life" means. True practice begins at this point.

I have given a brief explanation of the various meanings of dharma according to the Abhidharma, but what I want to say next is much more important. In Mahayana Buddhism, and especially in Dōgen Zenji's teachings, the meaning of dharma has more depth. According to the concepts we accept, we think that everything exists as objects outside the self. For example, we usually think that all phenomenal things that appear before our eyes, or this twentieth-century human society, have existence outside our individual self. We believe that when we are born we appear on this world's stage, and when we die we leave that stage. All of us think this way. But the truth is that this common-sense concept is questionable. Mahayana Buddhism began from a reexamination of this common-sense attitude. I'll give you one of my favorite examples. I am looking at this cup now. You are also looking at the same cup. We think that we are looking at the very same cup, but this is not true. I am looking at it from my angle, with my eyesight, in the lighting that occurs where I am sitting, and with my own feelings or emotions. Furthermore, the angle, my feeling, and everything else is changing from moment to moment. This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your eyesight, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing. This is the way actual life experience is. However, if we use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking. Western philosophy's way of thinking is also based on abstractions. It assumes that all of us are seeing the same cup. Greek philosophers went further and further in their abstractions until they came up with the concept of the idea that cannot be seen or felt. One example is Venus, the goddess of beauty. In the real world, no woman is as well-proportioned as Venus, or embodies perfect beauty as she does. Yet the Greeks idealized beauty and created a statue of Venus, just as they had thought of the "idea" of a circle that is abstracted from something round. In other words, the Greek way of thinking is abstraction to the highest degree. Buddhism is different. Buddhism puts emphasis on life, the actual life experience of the reality of the self.

I am a Buddhist priest and I am also my wife’s husband and my children’s father. When I am with my family, I am a father, so I play the role of a father. When I give a lecture, I am a teacher so I do my best to talk about Dōgen Zenji’s teachings in an understandable way, though I don’t know if I succeed. These roles are like clothing I put on in different situations, and I define who I am according to the role I am doing my best to fulfill at the time. But when I sit facing the wall, I am neither a father nor a Buddhist priest. At that time I am nothing. I am empty. I am just who I am. This is liberation from my karmic life.

People often ask me, “What is the Sōtō Zen view of rebirth?” This is a difficult question because Dōgen Zenji, I believe, advocates “not knowing” in this case. Rather than offering us a consistent view on rebirth, he teaches that we should let go of our limiting concepts and beliefs and simply practice right here, right now.

The Buddha Way includes both self and objects. The Buddha Way includes both people sitting and the sitting they do. They are actually one thing. This is very difficult to explain, yet it is an obvious reality of our lives. This reality is not some special state or condition that is only accomplished by so-called “enlightened” people. Even when we don’t realize it, self, action, and object are working together as one reality, so we don’t need to train ourselves to make them into one thing in our minds. If self, action, and object were really three separate things, they could not become one. The truth is that they are always one reality, regardless of what we do or think. To study the self is to forget the self.

Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles in the world of phenomena in the ten directions all engage in buddha activity, those who receive the benefits of the wind and water are inconceivably helped by the buddha's transformation, splendid and unthinkable, and intimately manifest enlightenment.Those who receive these benefits of water and fire widely engage in circulating the buddha's transformation based on original realization.

As a society we are only now getting close to where Dogen was eight hundred years ago. We are watching all our most basic assumptions about life, the universe, and everything come undone, just like Dogen saw his world fall apart when his parents died. Religions don’t seem to mean much anymore, except maybe to small groups of fanatics. You can hardly get a full-time job, and even if you do, there’s no stability. A college degree means very little. The Internet has leveled things so much that the opinions of the greatest scientists in the world about global climate change are presented as being equal to those of some dude who read part of the Bible and took it literally. The news industry has collapsed so that it’s hard to tell a fake headline from a real one. Money isn’t money anymore; it’s numbers stored in computers. Everything is changing so rapidly that none of us can hope to keep up. All this uncertainty has a lot of us scrambling for something certain to hang on to. But if you think I’m gonna tell you that Dogen provides us with that certainty, think again. He actually gives us something far more useful. Dogen gives us a way to be okay with uncertainty. This isn’t just something Buddhists need; it’s something we all need. We humans can be certainty junkies. We’ll believe in the most ridiculous nonsense to avoid the suffering that comes from not knowing something. It’s like part of our brain is dedicated to compulsive dot-connecting. I think we’re wired to want to be certain. You have to know if that’s a rope or a snake, if the guy with the chains all over his chest is a gangster or a fan of bad seventies movies. Being certain means being safe. The downfall is that we humans think about a lot of stuff that’s not actually real. We crave certainty in areas where there can never be any. That’s when we start in with believing the crazy stuff. Dogen is interesting because he tries to cut right to the heart of this. He gets into what is real and what is not. Probably the main reason he’s so difficult to read is that Dogen is trying to say things that can’t actually be said. So he has to bend language to the point where it almost breaks. He’s often using language itself to show the limitations of language. Even the very first readers of his writings must have found them difficult. Dogen understood both that words always ultimately fail to describe reality and that we human beings must rely on words anyway. So he tried to use words to write about that which is beyond words. This isn’t really a discrepancy. You use words, but you remain aware of their limitations. My teacher used to say, “People like explanations.” We do. They’re comforting. When the explanation is reasonably correct, it’s useful.

SHOHAKU OKUMURA: In chapter 30, Sawaki Roshi and Uchiyama Roshi talked about people who chase external things and lose sight of themselves. In this chapter they discuss how one’s own opinion is not valid. On the surface, these two are contradictory. How can we seek ourselves without having our own opinion? When the Buddha, Sawaki Roshi, and Uchiyama Roshi talk about “self” they don’t mean the image of ourselves created within the framework of separation between I as subject and others as objects. In Harischandra Kaviratna’s translation of the Dhammapada, the Buddha says, “The self is the master of the self. Who else can that master be? With the self fully subdued, one obtains the sublime refuge, which is very difficult to achieve.” Self is master of the self, but the self still needs to be subdued. In the Japanese translation of this verse, “subdued” is more like “harmonized” or “well tuned.” In Genjokoan, Dogen said, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.” To study the self, we need to forget the self. In these sayings, self is not a fixed, permanent entity separate from other beings. Self is our body and mind, that is, a collection of the five aggregates: form, sensation, perception, formation, and consciousness. These aggregates are always changing, but somehow we create a fixed self-image based on our past experiences and relations with others. We grasp this image as I. This I is an illusion, yet we measure everything based on the tunnel vision of this fictitious self. When we see fiction as fiction, illusion as illusion, they can be useful. Although no map is reality itself, when we know how a map was made, what its distortions are, and how to use it, the map can be a useful tool for understanding reality. However, if we don’t see a model’s limitations, we build our entire lives on a delusion.

We see an uncountable number of stars all projecting their own time continuum, which we experience as now. Although this is true, the time of the stars and the time of our being are part of the whole of that moment. We make the moment as the moment is making us. We with all of reality share the function of making the whole, and in that way each part is the same as the whole. Yet, each aspect — a person, a star — has its own past and future particularity. At the same time there is just this one moment being enacted as right now, an interconnected, totally functioning universal whole.

translated by Richard B. Clarke Practice of Meditation by Zen Master Dogen TRUTH is perfect and complete in itself. It is not something newly discovered; it has always existed. Truth is not far away; it is ever present. It is not something to be attained since not one of your steps leads away from it. Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things. The slightest movement of your dualistic thought will prevent you from entering the palace of meditation and wisdom. The Buddha meditated for six years, Bodhidharma for nine. The practice of meditation is not a method for the attainment of realization—it is enlightenment itself. Your search among books, word upon word, may lead you to the depths of knowledge, but it is not the way to receive the reflection of your true self. When you have thrown off your ideas as to mind and body, the original truth will fully appear. Zen is simply the expression of truth; therefore longing and striving are not the true attitudes of Zen. To actualize the blessedness of meditation you should practice with pure intention and firm determination. Your meditation room should be clean and quiet. Do not dwell in

When we see a flower, for example, the flower is really there and we may think, “This flower is now in front of my eyes. It is very beautiful, but it will wither and fall someday.” Although we believe this thought, in undeniable reality as we see the flower there is only the flower blooming; there is no falling. But we may think, “This flower is blooming now but in the past it was a seed, and it will fall someday to form seeds for the next generation of flowers.” Or we may think, “This flower is here but it is empty, impermanent; there is no fixed substance to this flower.” This is how we think and understand the Buddha’s teaching when we study

In “Dream within a Dream,” Dōgen said that although everything is a dream, it is our dream. Thus we had best see through it and dream it well. Sometimes the dream is not to our liking, sometimes it can seem like a nightmare, but Buddha is the dreamer and the dream too. When we wake up, we can see through those same dreams. But in order to realize this in our zazen and our lives, we must drop all thought of the least separation between us and Buddha from our minds. Otherwise Buddha will seem a million miles out of reach. Dōgen also warns us that this realization is not a stagnant knowing, a final stopping place, but is instead a realization that keeps unfolding:

This is the Way of Dōgen Zenji. For him, the Way is not simply one direction from starting point to goal; rather, the Way is like a circle. We arouse bodhi mind moment by moment, we practice moment by moment, we become fully aware moment by moment, and we are in nirvana moment by moment. And we continue to do it ceaselessly. Our practice is perfect in each moment and yet we have a direction toward buddha. It is difficult to grasp with the intellect, but that is the Way that Dōgen Zenji refers to in Bendōwa. So our practice is not a kind of training for the sake of making an ignorant person smart, clever, and finally enlightened. Each action, each moment of sitting, is arousing bodhi mind, practice, awakening, and nirvana. Each moment is perfect, and yet within this perfect moment we have a direction, the bodhisattva vows. "However innumerable all beings are, I vow to save them all. However inexhaustible my delusions are, I vow to extinguish them all. However immeasurable the dharma teachings are, I vow to master them all. However endless the Buddha's way is, I vow to follow it." These four bodhisattva vows are our direction within our moment-by-moment practice. And yet each moment is perfect. Since our delusion is inexhaustible, at no time can we eliminate all our delusions. Still we try to do it moment by moment. This trying is itself the manifestation of the buddha way, buddha's enlightenment. But even though we try as hard as possible to do it, we cannot be perfect. So we should repent. And repentance becomes energy to go further, to practice further in the direction of buddha. That is the basis of bodhisattva practice. Our practice is endless. Enlightenment is beginningless.

Another point we have to understand is that Dōgen uses language to negate language and to go beyond its ordinary limits. For Dōgen, language and thinking can function as tools to help us to awaken to the reality beyond language and thinking. This is what Dōgen calls dōtoku (being able to speak). When we truly see reality, we can say that the mountain is moving, the boat is moving, or both are moving simultaneously; all of these are expressions of reality. We can say the wind makes the sound, the bell makes the sound, the mind makes the sound, or the entire universe makes the sound, and all of these can be expressions of reality as well. This is what Dōgen meant when he wrote, “When the Dharma is correctly transmitted to the self, the person is immediately an original person.” In other words, an “original person” meets reality as it comes, without clinging to any particular fixed concept of reality.

The teachings of impermanence and lack of independent existence are not difficult to understand intellectually; when you hear these teachings you may think that they are quite true. On a deeper level, however, you probably still identify yourself as “me” and identify others as “them” or “you.” On some level you likely say to yourself, “I will always be me; I have an identity that is important.” I, for example, say to myself, “I am a Buddhist priest; not a Christian or Islamic one. I am a Japanese person, not an American or a Chinese one.” If we did not assume that we have this something within us that does not change, it would be very difficult for us to live responsibly in society. This is why people who are unfamiliar with Buddhism often ask, “If there were no unchanging essential existence, doesn’t that mean I would not be responsible for my past actions, since I would be a different person than in the past?” But of course that is not what the Buddha meant when he said we have no unchanging atman or essential existence. To help us understand this point, we can consider how our life resembles a river. Each moment the water of a river is flowing and different, so it is constantly changing, but there is still a certain continuity of the river as a whole. The Mississippi River, for example, was the river we know a million years ago. And yet, the water flowing in the Mississippi is always different, always new, so there is actually no fixed thing that we can say is the one and only Mississippi River. We can see this clearly when we compare the source of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota, a small stream one can jump over, to the river’s New Orleans estuary, which seems as wide as an ocean. We cannot say which of these is the true Mississippi: it is just a matter of conditions that lets us call one or the other of these the Mississippi. In reality, a river is just a collection of masses of flowing water contained within certain shapes in the land. “Mississippi River” is simply a name given to various conditions and changing elements. Since our lives are also just a collection of conditions, we cannot say that we each have one true identity that does not change, just as we cannot say there is one true Mississippi River. What we call the “self ” is just a set of conditions existing within a collection of different elements. So I cannot say that there is an unchanging self that exists throughout my life as a baby, as a teenager, and as it is today. Things that I thought were important and interesting when I was an elementary or high school student, for example, are not at all interesting to me now; my feelings, emotions, and values are always changing. This is the meaning of the teaching that everything is impermanent and without independent existence. But we still must recognize that there is a certain continuity in our lives, that there is causality, and that we need to be responsible for what we did yesterday. In this way, self-identity is important. Even though in actuality there is no unchanging identity, I still must use expressions like “when I was a baby ..., when I was a boy ..., when I was a teenager. ...” To speak about changes in our lives and communicate in a meaningful way, we must speak as if we assumed that there is an unchanging “I” that has been experiencing the changes; otherwise, the word “change” has no meaning. But according to Buddhist philosophy, self-identity, the “I,” is a creation of the mind; we create self-identity because it’s convenient and useful in certain ways. We must use self-identity to live responsibly in society, but we should realize that it is merely a tool, a symbol, a sign, or a concept. Because it enables us to think and discriminate, self-identity allows us to live and function. Although it is not the only reality of our lives, self-identity is a reality for us, a tool we must use to live with others in society.

We usually think of abundance (arising, realization, buddhas) as positive, and we consider deficiency (perishing, delusion, and living beings) as negative. When we understand Buddha’s teaching in this commonsense way, it seems that we should escape from samsara, which is something bad, in order to reach nirvana, which is something good. We think nirvana is a goal we can achieve in the same way that a poor person can work hard and become rich. We may think that practice is a way to reach nirvana in the same way that working hard is a way to attain wealth. The common understanding of Buddha’s teaching is that since ignorance turns the lives of deluded beings into suffering, we should eliminate our ignorance so we can reach nirvana. If we simply accept that teaching and devote our lives to the practice of eliminating our ignorance and egocentric desires, we will find that it’s impossible to do. Not only is it impossible, but it actually creates another cycle of samsara. This happens because the desire to become free from delusion or egocentricity is one of the causes of our delusion and egocentricity. And the idea that there is nirvana or samsara existing separately from each other is a basic dualistic illusion; the desire to escape from this side of existence and enter another side is another expression of egocentric desire. When we are truly in nirvana we awaken to the fact that nirvana and samsara are not two separate things. This is what Mahayana Buddhism teaches, especially through the Prajna Paramita Sutras; it teaches that samsara and nirvana are one. If we don’t find nirvana within samsara, there is no place we can find nirvana. If we don’t find peacefulness within our busy daily lives, there is no place we can find peacefulness. This is why the Heart Sutra “negates” the Buddha’s teaching; it attempts to release us from dichotomies created in our thoughts. If we understand Buddha’s teaching with our commonsense, calculating way of thinking, we create another type of samsara. Eventually we feel more pain as our desire to reach nirvana creates more difficulty in our lives. This desire to end our suffering is another cause of suffering, and the Heart Sutra presents the Buddha’s teachings in a negative way in order to avoid arousing this desire.

the ten thousand things To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things. – Eihei Dogen If one is very fortunate indeed, one comes upon – or is found by – the teachings that match one’s disposition and the teachers or mentors whose expression strikes to the heart while teasing the knots from the mind. The Miriam Louisa character came with a tendency towards contrariness and scepticism, which is probably why she gravitated to teachers who displayed like qualities. It was always evident to me that the ‘blink’ required in order to meet life in its naked suchness was not something to be gained in time. Rather, it was clear that it was something to do with understanding what sabotages this direct engagement. So my teachers were those who deconstructed the spiritual search – and with it the seeker – inviting one to “see for oneself.” I realised early on that I wouldn’t find any help within traditional spiritual institutions since their version of awakening is usually a project in time. Anyway, I’m not a joiner by nature. I set out on my via negativa at an early age, trying on all kinds of philosophies and practices with enthusiasm and casting them aside –neti neti – equally enthusiastically. Chögyam Trungpa wised me up to “spiritual materialism” in the 70s; Alan Watts followed on, pointing out that whatever is being experienced is none other than ‘IT’ – the unarguable aliveness that one IS. By then I was perfectly primed for the questions put by Jiddu Krishnamurti – “Is there a thinker separate from thought?” “Is there an observer separate from the observed?” “Can consciousness be separated from its content?” It was while teaching at Brockwood Park that I also had the good fortune to engage with David Bohm in formal dialogues as well as private conversations. (About which I have written elsewhere.) Krishnamurti and Bohm were seminal teachers for me; I also loved the unique style of deconstruction offered by Nisargadatta Maharaj. As it happened though, it took just one tiny paragraph from Wei Wu Wei to land in my brain at exactly the right time for the irreversible ‘blink’ to occur. I mention this rather august lineage because it explains why the writing of Robert Saltzman strikes not just a chord but an entire symphonic movement for me. We are peers; we were probably reading the same books by Watts and Krishnamurti at the same time during the 70s and 80s. Reading his book, The Ten Thousand Things, is, for me, like feeling my way across a tapestry exquisitely woven from the threads of my own life. I’m not sure that I can adequately express my wonderment and appreciation… The candor, lucidity and lack of jargon in Robert’s writing are deeply refreshing. I also relish his way with words. He knows how to write. He also knows how to take astonishingly fine photographs, and these are featured throughout the book. It’s been said that this book will become a classic, which is a pretty good achievement for someone who isn’t claiming to be a teacher and has nothing to gain by its sale. (The book sells for the production price.) He is not peddling enlightenment. He is simply sharing how it feels to be free from all the spiritual fantasies that obscure our seamless engagement with this miraculous thing called life, right now.

It’s just that sometimes we try to make whatever we’re doing into whatever we imagine its ideal state to be. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. But in real action we transcend any notion of an idealized state. Even if we carry that idealized idea in our heads, it doesn’t matter. We just do what we do.

But according to Buddhist philosophy, self-identity, the “I,” is a creation of the mind; we create self-identity because it’s convenient and useful in certain ways. We must use self-identity to live responsibly in society, but we should realize that it is merely a tool, a symbol, a sign, or a concept. Because it enables us to think and discriminate, self-identity allows us to live and function.

So each moment we can see only part of the world, not the whole world. That is the source of delusion.

If we open the hand of thought that grasps “this person” (that is, our self) as the center of the world, then our lives broaden and our hearts open to all beings. This is the basic teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha.

We may cultivate, for example, our reputation as a sincere and virtuous practitioner, instead of simply practicing sincerely and nurturing our virtues

In some ways contemporary Zen centers resemble halfway houses for people who are seeking ways to get by in the world without falling to pieces.

Dōgen's big question when he was a young monk was this: If Buddhism teaches that we're all perfect just as we are — and it does teach that — then why do we have to undergo training? A whole lot of Shōbōgenzō is Dōgen's attempt to answer that question.

We're very bold in our proclamations of our own moral rectitude, but then we neglect to even keep our own toilets clean.

These days we tend to put far more faith in concrete recordings, whether written or electronically preserved in audio and video, than we do in what someone remembers somebody having told them. The early Buddhists saw it differently. They thought the oral tradition was more likely to preserve the true essence and intention of what their master had said than if his exact words had been preserved on paper.

In his earlier writings Dōgen is adamant that Zen practice and realization is available to anyone, regardless of whether they are monastics or laypeople, male or female, old or young, clever or stupid. He was extremely progressive in his attitude toward women, which in Japan is woefully behind the egalitarian ideals of the West, even today. Yet in his later writings Dōgen seems to have changed his mind and started to believe that only temple-bound monks — male and female, so at least he didn't change his mind about that part — could possibly attain the Buddhist truth.

Once we meet a good teacher we should throw away everything else and just get on with it.

If it doesn't sound like "don't be a jerk" it's not Buddhist teaching.

At every moment of every day, no matter how I feel about the situation, whether it is mind-blowingly thrilling or completely brain-numbing, I am the totality of the universe experiencing the fullness of itself. Even if I don't notice it.

No religion, philosophy, or practice will ever mean precisely the same thing even to two people who sit side by side in the same temple for decades, reciting the same verses together and espousing the same doctrines when asked what they believe. Even when two such people might say, for example, "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God," if we probed a bit more deeply we would surely find that the two have different ideas about who Jesus was, who or what God is, what it means to be his "only begotten Son," and so forth.

To me Zen is a communal practice of individual deep inquiry.

Buddhism started not when Shakyamuni had his great revelation by himself. Lots of people had done that before. It began when he made his first efforts to transform that into a communal practice. Buddhism, then, is not something you do by yourself.

The historical reason we chant the Buddhist sutras is to honor our earliest ancestors in the practice. The first Buddhists didn't trust the written word to be a good carrier of their teachings. So for the first two hundred years or so, the Buddha's teachings were not written down; they were memorized. In order to do this, the monks gathered and recited Buddha's words. We still do that today, even though it's all also available in written form now. This is because we've found that chanting the words together helps us remember them better than just reading them by ourselves. These activities also have a deeper purpose in helping to build a feeling of community. When people do activities together they feel more kinship with each other. When we chant we do other things like hit a wooden fish to keep time, burn incense, bow, and so forth. This active stuff, with all its movements and coordination, helps bond the group.

You become a monk because you think there's no better choice for you. No other reason could make any sense.

Paradoxically, we may argue that precisely because of his biases Suzuki can be considered representative of Zen—as a sectarian tradition. The appeal to the "pure" tradition, to the "essence" of Zen, is indeed a typical feature of the sectarian attitude. This attitude was already exemplified by Dogen, for whom true Zen stood above the Zen school. Just as Dogen refused to call his teaching "Zen," Suzuki claims that Zen is "neither a religion nor a philosophy" or better that it is "the spirit of all religion and philosophy." The assumption that there is an "essence" of Buddhism, a kind of perennial Dharma to which only "authentic" masters would have access, is to be rejected as ideologically suspect.

You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this.

In general, when you are a beginner, you cannot fathom the buddha way. Your assumptions do not hit the mark. The fact that you cannot fathom the buddha way as a beginner means not that you lack ultimate understanding but that you do not recognize the deepest point.

As soon as you arouse aspiration for enlightenment, even if you transmigrate in the six realms and four forms of birth, transmigration itself will be your practice of enlightenment. Although you may have wasted time so far, you should vow immediately, before this present life ends: "Together with all sentient beings, may I hear the true dharma from this birth on throughout future births.

Awake or asleep in a grass hut, I pray to bring others across before myself.

Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.

Zazen is not learning to do concentration. It is the dharma gate of great ease and joy. It is undivided practice-realization.

The Tathagata, the World-Honored One, taught his disciples how to sit and said to them, "If you want to manifest samadhi and enter it, you should gather together all distracted thought and scattered mind within this posture. Practice in this way and you will manifest and intimately enter the king of samadhis." Thus we clearly know that sitting in the meditation posture is itself the king of samadhis. It is itself entering realization.

When even for a moment you sit upright in samadhi expressing the buddha mudra [form] in the three activities [body, speech, and thought], the whole world of phenomena becomes the buddha mudra and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. At this moment, all things actualize true awakening; myriad objects partake of the buddha body; and sitting upright, a glorious one under the bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundary of awakening. Then you turn the unsurpassably great dharma wheel, and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned.

Be close to your teacher without long absences.

Even if you hope to live for seventy or eighty years, in the end you are destined to die. You should regard your pleasures and sorrows, relationships, and attachments in worldly affairs as your enemy. To do so is the way to a fuller life. You should keep in mind the buddha way alone and work for the bliss of nirvana. Especially those of you who are elderly or who are middle-aged, how many years do you have left? How can you be lax in your practice of the way?

Although you have your own capacity, you practice the way with the combined strength of the community.

To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

If you speak of "achieving enlightenment," you may think that you don't usually have enlightenment. If you say, "Enlightenment comes," you may wonder where it comes from. If you say, "I have become enlightened," you may suppose that enlightenment has a beginning.

Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way.

If you practice with genuine trust, you will attain the way, regardless of being sharp or dull.

Giving" means nongreed. Nongreed means not to covet.

Know that to give to yourself is a part of giving.

Even when you give a particle of dust, you should rejoice in your own act because you authentically transmit the merit of all buddhas and begin to practice an act of a bodhisattva.

Kind speech" means that when you see sentient beings, you arouse the heart of compassion and offer words of loving care. It is contrary to cruel or violent speech.

You should understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. Nirvana is not realized outside of birth-and death.

Although there is birth and death in each moment of this life of birth and death, the body after the final body is never known. Even though you do not know it, if you arouse the aspiration for enlightenment, you will move forward on the way of enlightenment. The moment is already here. Do not doubt it in the least. Even if you should doubt it, this is nothing but everyday mind.

In birth there is nothing but birth, and in death there is nothing but death. Accordingly, when birth comes, face and actualize birth, and when death comes, face and actualize death. Do not avoid them or desire them.

Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again.

Without practice, the buddha way cannot be attained. Without study, it remains remote.

Praise those with virtue; pity those without it.

Even when you are clearly correct and others are mistaken, it is harmful to argue and defeat them. On the other hand, if you admit fault when you are right, you are a coward. It is best to step back, neither trying to correct others nor conceding to mistaken views. If you don't react competitively, and let go of the conflict, others will also let go of it without harboring ill will. Above all, this is something you should keep in mind.

Beneficial action" is to benefit all classes of sentient beings skillfully, that is, to care about their distant and near future and to help them by using skillful means. In ancient times, someone helped a caged tortoise; another took care of a sick sparrow. They did not expect a reward; they were moved to do so only for the sake of beneficial action. Foolish people think that if they help others first, their own benefit will be lost, but this is not so. Beneficial action is an act of oneness, benefiting self and others together.

Kind mind" is parental mind. Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the three treasures. Even poor or suffering people raise their children with deep love. Their hearts cannot be understood by others. This can be known only when you become a father or a mother. They do not care whether they themselves are poor or rich; their only concern is that their children will grow up. They pay no attention to whether they themselves are cold or hot but cover their children to protect them from the cold or shield them from the hot sun. This is extreme kindness. Only those who have aroused this mind can know it, and only those who practice this mind can understand it. Therefore, you should look after water and grain with compassionate care, as though tending your own children.

It does not matter whether you are a layperson or a home leaver. Those who can discern excellence invariably come to trust in this practice.

[Question:] Should zazen be practiced by laymen and lay-women, or should it be practiced by home leavers alone? [Dogen's answer:] The ancestors say, "In understanding buddha dharma, men and women, noble and common people are not distinguished.

What is the fault of women? What is the virtue of men? There are unwholesome men, and there are wholesome women. The aspiration to hear dharma and leave the household does not depend on being female or male.

If you vow for a long time not to look at women, do you leave out women when you vow to save numberless sentient beings? If you do so, you are not a bodhisattva. How can you call it the Buddha's compassion? This is merely nonsense spoken by a soaking-drunk shravaka. Humans and devas should not believe in such a practice.

It is taught that all buddhas in the past, present, and future leave the household and attain the way. The twenty-eight ancestors in India and the six early ancestors in China who transmitted the Buddha's mind seal were all monks. They are distinguished in the three realms by strictly observing the precepts. Thus precepts are primary for practicing Zen in pursuit of the way. How can one become a buddha ancestor without becoming free from faults and preventing wrongdoing?

Loving fame is worse than breaking a precept. Breaking a precept is a transgression at a particular time. Loving fame is like an ailment of a lifetime.

A billion worlds can be sat through within a single sitting.

With the body and mind that migrate through birth and death, you should arouse the aspiration for enlightenment to awaken others first. Even if you spare your body and mind from the way of arousing the aspiration for enlightenment in the course of birth, aging, sickness, and death, you cannot in the end keep them as your own possessions.

As long as you try to figure out buddha dharma with mind, you can never attain it even for myriad eons or thousands of lifetimes. It is attained by letting go of the mind and abandoning views and interpretations.

attaining the way means attaining it completely with the whole body. With this awareness you should sit wholeheartedly.

Mind is skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Mind is taking up a flower and smiling. There is having mind and having no mind. There is mind with a body and mind with no body. . . . Blue, yellow, red, and white are mind. Long, short, square, and round are mind. The coming and going of birth and death are mind. Year, month, day, and hour are mind. Dream, phantom, and empty flower are mind. Water, foam, splash, and flame are mind. Spring flowers and autumn moon are mind. All things that arise and fall are mind.

Waterbirds come and go, their traces disappear— yet they never forget their path.

In stillness, mind and object merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment.

The earliest attempt to form an independent Zen group in Japan seems to have been led by Nōnin, who taught his form of Zen at Sanbōji (a Tendai temple in Settsu) during the latter part of the twelfth century. Because Nōnin's following, which styled itself the Darumashū (after Daruma, i.e., Bodhidharma, the semilegendary founder of the Chinese Ch'an school), failed to secure a permanent institutional base, scholars had not fully realized Nōnin's importance until recently. As early as 1272, however, less than eighty years after Nōnin's death, Nichiren had correctly identified Nōnin as the pioneer leader of the new Zen groups. Eisai, a contemporary of Nōnin, also founded several new centers for Zen practice, the most important of which was Kenninji in Kyoto. In contrast to Nōnin, who had never left Japan, Eisai had the benefit of two extended trips to China during which he could observe Chinese Ch'an (Jpn. Zen) teachers first hand. The third important early Zen leader in Japan was Dōgen, the founder of Japan's Sōtō school. Dōgen had entered Eisai's Kenninji in 1217 and, like Eisai, also traveled to China for firsthand study. Unlike Eisai (or Nōnin), after his return to Japan Dōgen attempted to establish the monastic structures he found in China. Dōgen's monasteries, Kōshōji (Dōgen's residence during 1230–1243) and Eiheiji (1244–1253), were the first in Japan to include a monks' hall (sōdō) within which Zen monks lived and meditated according to Chinese-style monastic regulations.

There’s a Japanese Zen term called nyushin. Nyu means “soft,” “gentle,” “pliable,” or “meek,” and shin means “mind” or “heart.” Zen master Dogen once asked his teacher, “What is this mind of the bodhisattva?” The teacher said, “It’s this soft and flexible mind.” Dogen asked, “What is this soft mind?” His teacher said, “Soft mind is the willingness to let go of your body and your mind.”1

And Zen master Eihei Dogen said that in the true dharma, zazen is the straight way to correct transmission. Zazen is all the Buddha taught. Zazen includes all the precepts.

Zazen is not meditation or concentration. Zazen is the peaceful and joyful gate to the dharma. The whole universe opens up to you. If you do it this way you’ll be like a geek at a comic book convention or like Luke Skywalker when he hit the thermal exhaust port. Then the dharma will manifest before you and darkness and distraction will vanish like the Death Star blowing up.

Now I learned directly from Dogen’s mouth, “In the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, in your life as you approach death, in death, after death, and as you approach life, always, through all births and deaths, always take refuge in buddha, dharma, sangha.

The Essence of Zen Precepts is a compilation or interweaving of four different texts, which I envision as four concentric circles, each one including and amplifying its predecessors. At the center is the primary text of the Sixteen Great Bodhisattva Precepts. The second circle is a brief thirteenth-century commentary on the precepts by Dogen. This text, known as the Essay on Teaching and Conferring the Precepts (Kyojukaimon), is very important in the Soto Zen lineage. It is recited as part of our monthly confession ceremony at the San Francisco Zen Center.

The third circle is an exposition or amplification of Dogen’s commentary, as taught by his successor Sen’e, and recorded and published by Kyogo in 1309. When, 450 years later, Banjin Dotan discovered this text, he was so deeply impressed that

For Dogen, the “mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient buddhas.”2 We care for everything in the natural and human-made world with utmost respect and devotion. Dogen had a deep veneration for and adamant protectiveness of the great and small trees in the mountains that surrounded Eiheiji (Monastery of Eternal Peace), and he resisted all unnecessary logging there.

According to Dogen, the essence of the true transmission of the buddha dharma is taking refuge in the Triple Treasure.

As Dogen approached death, what practice did he choose? Did he enter into the utmost serene and radiant concentration? Did he perhaps give his final, transcendent exposition of the authentic dharma? This is what he did: on a long piece of white paper he wrote three large black characters: buddha, dharma, and sangha. He hung this paper on a pillar in his sickroom. In his great illness he roused himself to walk around that pillar, and as he walked he chanted, “I take refuge in buddha, I take refuge in dharma, I take refuge in sangha.

A bodhisattva is a being who is selflessly devoted to enlightening others. This is the essence of Dogen’s vow: Awake or asleep in a grass hut, What I pray for is to bring others across before myself.1

Dogen said that when there is bowing in this world, the buddha way flourishes; when there is no bowing in this world, the buddha way perishes.

We always attach ourselves to something that we think relatively better or more valuable than other things, and we are blinded to real life by that. We must purify our system of value. For living out our own life, we must first of all clarify absolute value. Many people live for fulfillment of their desires. These people are like chickens at a poultry farm. I feel sorry for the chickens that just eat nutritious feed day and night and lay as many eggs as possible. This is all that they do in their lives. Chicken raisers keep the light on in the chicken coop all night to keep the chickens producing eggs efficiently. They calculate how many eggs can be laid by one chicken, and they kill the chickens when they become old.