Mindfulness of Dharma is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] reflection of the Dharma is pure.
念法是法明門、觀法淨故。

Let’s consider first what dharma is, and then what it means to be mindful of or remember dharma.  The root of the Sanskrit word dharma has a meaning like “something that is established” or “something that is firm,” the connotation being of something that supports or bears up.  Dharma as a term predates the Buddha in India; in Hinduism, dharma is the religious and moral law governing individual conduct.  There’s a broad dharma that applies to everyone and includes virtues like truthfulness, non-injury, and generosity, and there is also a specific dharma to be followed according to one’s class, status, and station in life.

The word dharma has two other important meanings: the Buddha’s teaching and the reality of all beings.  In Buddhism, the plural “dharmas” means all the interconnected elements of this phenomenal world, as in all the myriad dharmas.  These two aspects of dharma make up the Buddha’s dharma body or dharmakaya.  It means the Buddha is still here even though his physical body died 2500 years ago.  As we saw last week, there are three kinds of three treasures: manifesting, maintaining and absolute.  This is the dharma as one of the absolute three treasures; it has no boundary and can’t be separated from buddha and sangha or from anything else.  The dharma existed before Shakyamuni—he didn’t create it but he’s not separate from it.

The historical or real-world manifestation of the dharma is the teachings of Shakyamuni, what he saw and helped his followers to understand.  This is the dharma as one of the manifesting three treasures.  There is also the dharma as the sutras, Buddha’s teachings that were written down and that we can still find in books today.  This is the dharma as one of the maintaining three treasures.

• Manifesting dharma treasure: dharma as Shakyamuni’s teachings
• Maintaining dharma treasure: dharma as written sutras
• Absolute dharma treasure: the dharma that can’t separated from anything else, which is the true reality of all beings

Last week we saw what Dogen had to say about the three kinds of Buddha treasure in the Kyojukaimon.  This week, the dharma treasure:  

• “[The Reality to which] the Buddha awakened is the Dharma Treasure.”  (Manifesting)
• “[The truth] that expresses itself [in the form of the Buddha’s teachings stored in] the ocean treasury and [recorded in the scriptures] on the pattara leaves in order to transform animate and inanimate beings is the Dharma Treasure.” (Maintaining)
• “[The Reality that is] pure and free from defilements is the Dharma Treasure.” (Absolute)

After six years of various ascetic practices with various teachers, Shakyamuni sat down under the bodhi tree and experienced awakening at the age of thirty-five.  Then he had a talk with himself.  What do I do now?  The dharma is difficult for anyone else to understand! Well, there will be some who are not completely hopeless and will be able to accept and understand it, so I shouldn’t keep this to myself, but should teach others so they can benefit as well.

He goes and finds five monks with whom he’d been doing ascetic practice before, thinking they might be able to get it.  They don’t welcome him back, because they know he’s given up those harsh practices and been eating some food and resting, and they think he’s taking it easy.  However, they notice that he’s become calm and steady, and eventually they agree to listen to him.  He teaches them about the four noble truths and the eightfold fold path, and this is the first turning of the dharma wheel, the first manifestation of dharma as Buddha’s teaching. (1)  After teaching these five monks, Shakyamuni traveled and taught for the rest of his life, and showed others how to practice.

Sutras and sutra books are the maintaining dharma treasure, something we can physically encounter in this world today.  Buddha’s teachings were not written down until after he died; before that, they were only transmitted orally.  His disciples were concerned about the gradual changes in the contents of the teaching, and they gathered in a council to collect, organize, and correct the oral record of the Buddha’s teachings.  A number of disciples participated in putting the records together, checking each other and verifying what they heard as Buddha’s teaching.  

Today the canon includes some sutras that are particularly important for in the Soto Zen tradition, like the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and the Prajna Paramita literature, including the Heart Sutra.  We can read these things in books that we can pick up and hold, and these days we can also hear recordings or see talks about them or read them online.  We can continue to encounter them ourselves today as the maintaining dharma treasure.

Now that we know what dharma is, what about this mindfulness of dharma?  Mindfulness in our tradition is about something that is remembered.  As we saw last week, mindfulness is not about focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else, or about engaging in contemplation of a deity.  It’s about bearing something in mind—in this case, dharma—and not forgetting what dharma really is (and perhaps what dharmas really are).

Mindfulness of dharma or dharmas means we have to pay attention to our relationship with the phenominal world.  If our relationship is clear and not muddy or cloudy, then the reflection of the dharma is pure.  If we create a gap between ourselves and all beings and then toss all kinds of misperception and delusion into that gap, the reflection is distorted.

Now on the one hand, if dharma is the true reality of all beings, or the way the universe works beyond whatever we may think about it, it’s not possible for us to reflect dharma in an impure way.  We do something with body, speech and mind that creates causes and conditions for something else to arise, and it arises because that’s the working of the universe.  That’s beyond our limited position as a human being.

On the other hand, it would be good to reflect dharma in a way that moves ourselves and all beings away from unwholesomeness and toward wholesomeness.  If we’re not paying attention to our relationship with the phenomenal world and the way it works, we’re acting based on our concepts or ideas about things work.  In other words, we’re taking action based on stories we’ve made up, not on actual reality.  That’s a recipe for creating and perpetuating suffering, because what we’re doing is not a true reflection of the nature of reality and the way the world actually works.

Some time ago, one of our sangha members introduced me to the idea of aspirational recycling.  She pointed out that when we really, really want something to be recyclable, or we think it really should be recyclable, we may put it in the bin even though it’s not actually recyclable.  What do we think is going to happen to that object?  Will our wishing make it recyclable?  No, someone else at the recycling facility will have to find it and take it out of the stream and do something else with it.  

It’s a great metaphor for our lives and practice.  Putting a nonrecyclable object in the bin is not mindfulness of dharma.  It’s action that has no relation to what’s actually going on in the phenomenal world.  It’s action taken based on something we wish was true.  I wish the good things in my life will never change, so I cling to them even though, because of impermanence, they will certainly disappear.  I wish this or that pretty thing was mine, so I help myself even though I’m breaking a precept about not stealing.  I wish I had a solid and permanent self because I’m afraid of annihilation, so I become defensive and ego driven even though Buddha taught that there is no self I can grasp.

In each case, I’m completely forgetting Buddha’s teaching, forgetting the nature of reality, and not paying attention to whether my relationship with the phenomenal world is wholesome or unwholesome, creating suffering or ameliorating suffering.  So what can I do to clean up my relationship?

In zazen, we have the opportunity to notice our responses to the sensory phenomena that give us information about the world.  Zazen is not the time to do analysis about this, just to pay attention and see what happens.  When I was running the Milwaukee Zen Center, in the summer I had all the windows open on the first floor, where the zendo was.  Every evening just as zazen was starting, the shrieking would start from next door—parents playing outside with their kids after they got home from work and before the sun went down and the kids had to go to bed.  I’d spend the whole period wishing those kids would go inside and be quiet, and at the same time I was genuinely thinking it was great that the parents were taking time with their kids.  The important activity wasn’t taking place next door in the yard; it was in my own mind, my own perception of what was happening and my own response.  Rather than just sound coming and going in my awareness, I watched both positive and negative feelings arise: there was unpleasant noise, but a nice family.  I wrote a whole story about how this happens every night, maybe I should close the windows, wondering whether others are being disturbed, and guessing how much longer the shrieking would go on.

Paying attention to my relationship with the workings of the universe means I can try to respond skillfully rather than falling into habituated thinking, and perhaps getting angry or impatient that “my” zazen was being disturbed instead of seeing that sound was just sound.  Rather than radiating suffering caused by my delusion, I can maintain equanimity because there’s no real cause for upset.  The original nature of everything is tranquility, and the disturbance happens when we poke our heads in and add our own material.  To reflect the dharma in a pure way is to be in alignment with reality.

Suffering is about dis-integration: we’re not integrated with what’s really going on.  Instead we’re living in our own world that we’ve created in our own heads.  We need to see that we’ve never actually been separate and in that way reintegrate ourselves.  That’s when wholeness and wholesomeness happens and the dharma reflection is pure.

When it comes to mindfulness of dharma as our effort not to forget what Buddha taught, of course dharma study is important in our practice.  Zazen, work and study are the three core elements of our practice here at Sanshin.  Probably you’ve encountered the argument that Zen or the dharma is beyond words and letters and therefore study is useless.  Is the dharma beyond words and letters?  Absolutely.  Do we all completely understand that and live in that place?  No, we don’t.  We need to use words to go beyond words.  

To read teachings from someone like Buddha who’s farther along this path than we are gives us the chance to get into his head and share his experience and the reality to which he woke up.  We need to approach a dharma text with an open mind and flexibility.  We might not agree with what we read and that’s OK, but at that point we also need to see from where our reactions are really coming.  If this teaching was true, I’d have to change how I see myself, or my habits, or the world, and that would be scary and uncomfortable.  We need to be free from fixed views, and dharma teachings can point out where we’re stuck.  

Dharma study is one of the ways we traditionally cultivate wisdom from seeing and hearing, then thinking and reflecting.  We need to learn at least the basics of the dharma that Buddha taught: the four noble truths, the eightrold path, the three marks of existence, etc. as the basis for further study and discussion, and also as the basis for our lives.  Dharma study might initially be an intellectual investigation of the teachings by reading or hearing a talk, but we don’t stop there because next we have to do some reflection.  What does this mean for me in my own life?  What does it say about my own day to day experience in 21st century North America?  We gradually move from learning concepts from “out there” to expressing the dharma naturally in our own ways.  We understand what it means in a non-intellectual way, and then teachings become really real for us.

This is sometimes not so easy.  Impermanence is scary.  It’s about death, separation and loss.  We get it intellectually, but when someone actually dies, it becomes real.  We have to completely digest the dharma or else it’s just someone else’s ideas that we’ve heard about somewhere.  Zazen is one of the ways that we study dharma; by sitting down and just inhabiting ourselves, we can have some direct experience of the complete working of reality.  This isn’t dharma we memorize from a book, but dharma we find ourselves right in the middle of and just settle into.

Thus we need the intellectual structure and conceptual understanding to lay the groundwork—otherwise we may have no direction in our practice.  However, if we only have the book learning without actual practice, we can’t really completely enter into the teachings.  When we’ve completely taken in and digested the dharma, we can function smoothly as a part of this one unified reality, without being bottlenecks or the things that gum up the works.  We’re still ourselves, with all our personality, and we’re also seamless with everything around us, reflecting dharma in a pure way.

Mindfulness of Buddha is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] reflection of [the state of] Buddha is pure.
念佛是法明門、觀佛淨故.

This week we move into a new section of the 108 gates: the six kinds of mindfulness, according to the Dīrghâgama, one of the four Āgamas, or divisions of the early Indian scriptures.  The first of these is mindfulness of meritorious virtues of the Buddha.  The Buddha was said to have nine virtues:

• freedom from defilements
• discovering the four noble truths
• carrying theory and practice equally
• dealing with things in the best way toward liberation from suffering
• seeing clearly the functioning of the six senses
• teaching effectively
• leading skillfully
• fully understanding the four noble truths
• perfection of the ten paramitas

We can consider how Shakyamuni moved through the world and interacted with others, and take that as a model or inspiration for our own practice.  To be free from defilements is to liberate ourselves from the things that cause suffering, beginning with the three poisons.  Discovering and thoroughly understanding the four noble truths shows us the nature of suffering and how we can avoid it.  Practicing our understanding and understanding our practice, as Sawaki Roshi used to say, means we know why we’re doing what we’re doing.  Focusing our effort on liberation without distraction and paying attention to what we do with the information that comes in through the senses keeps us on the path.  When our own practice and our own wisdom and compassion are well-grounded, we’re good teachers and leaders.  Arising at the same time are the paramitas, things like generosity, truthfulness, loving kindness and equanimity.  Who wouldn’t be inspired by meeting and practicing with someone who exhibited all of these virtues?  

Shakyamuni isn’t the only kind of Buddha we include in our tradition, and we ought to look at the nature of all three aspects of Buddha and see what else we can learn.  As we know, the root of the word Buddha is “awake” and a Buddha is an awakened being.  One is Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical figure that lived and taught in India 2500 years ago.  However, once Shakyamuni died, his students had a problem.  He was their only teacher, and they thought no one could become a second Buddha—but they remembered that he had taught them that whoever sees the dharma sees the Buddha.

In the Vakkali Sutra, the Buddha has gone to visit a sick monk who says “For a long time I have wanted to come and set eyes on the Blessed One, but I had not the strength in this body.”

Buddha says, “Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body?  He who sees the Dharma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees the Dharma.  Truly seeing the Dharma, one sees me; seeing me one sees the Dharma.” (1)  The Buddha would still be there as the teachings and as this one unified reality.  

After Shakyamuni’s death, his relics were enshrined in eight different sites in India.  Eventually, figures and statues were made to represent him, and people made pilgrimages to important Buddhist sites to pay homage.  Now the Buddha had three bodies: the physical body of Shakyamuni who died, the ongoing body of teachings and reality, and a continuing body as represented by statues and relics.  Ultimately, however, the conclusion is that these three treasures can’t be separated—they’re all one reality.  We call that view of the three treasures itai sanbou (一体三寳 one body, three treasures or absolute three treasures).

Thus there’s an absolute Buddha that has no boundary and can’t be separated from anything else, but there’s also a historical or real-world manifestation (genzen sanbou 現前三寳; manifesting three treasures).  This gen is the same as the character in genjokoan, meaning something that appears.  In the case of Buddha, the manifesting treasure is Shakyamuni as a physical person that appeared in the world.  Then there are the maintaining three treasures (juuji sanbou 住持三寶); again, in the case of Buddha, the images, statues or relics that symbolize him and that we can see and touch and practice with today—a maintained presence in this world.

• Manifesting Three Treasures: Buddha as Shakyamuni
• Maintaining Three Treasures: Buddha as relics and images
• Absolute Three Treasures: the Buddha that can’t separated from anything else, which is unsurpassable awakening.  (Unsurpassable here means there is nothing outside of it, you can’t get beyond it and it has no boundary.)

If you’ve taken precepts or attended a precepts ceremony or the monthly ryaku fusatsu ceremony at Sanshin, you’ve heard Okumura Roshi or me read the Kyojukaimon, Dogen’s instructions on the precepts.  Because we take refuge in the three treasures as part of those ceremonies, Dogen says a bit about them.  

• “The one who was born in the world and realized awakening is the Buddha Treasure.”  (Manifesting)
• “The one who appears in empty space or in the dusty world in order to edify heavenly and human beings is the Buddha Treasure.” (Maintaining)
• “The unsurpassable True Awakening (Annutara-samyak-sambodhi) is the Buddha Treasure.” (Absolute)

Let’s consider each of these kinds of Buddha.  Shakyamuni, the person who lived in the world, was born a prince in the Shakya tribe about 2,500 years ago in a town called Lumbini, which is located in present-day Nepal. His family name was Gautama, and his given name was Siddhartha.  He lived a rich and luxurious life as a prince, but was deeply troubled by the problem of suffering.  Leaving home at the age of twenty-nine to become a monk, after six years of various ascetic practices with various teachers, he experienced awakening at the age of thirty-five.  At that time, he became the “Buddha” (Awakened One). 

From that time on, he expounded various teachings, including the law of causality, or dependent origination, the impermanence of all things and, by extension, that all things are without fixed self-nature, and the four noble truths.  The Buddha traveled and taught for the rest of his life, and it’s because he manifested his meritorious virtues, showed others how to practice, and taught the dharma that we’re still able to encounter these things today.  That’s the manifesting Buddha treasure.

Buddha’s relics and images are the maintaining Buddha treasure, things we can physically encounter in this world today.  Relics are typically bones, hair or flesh, but when Shakyamuni died and was cremated, there were reportedly jewels among the remains.  These were to go to the Shakya clan, but eight different kings demanded relics; they were then divided into portions and enshrined in stupas around India.  There are many tales about how relics were dug up, moved around and enshrined in new places, about supernatural powers, and how when its time for the future Buddha, Maitreya, to appear, all the relics will gather under the bodhi tree and form themselves into his body.  When that body disappears, then Maitreya will arrive.

We’re more likely to encounter images or statues of Buddha than relics, but these didn’t exist until the 1st century CE.  Artists didn’t want to show Buddha, someone who had completely crossed over to nirvana, in anthropomorphic form, so they used symbols like feet, a wheel, or a tree of life.  Under Greek influence, artists started to make sculptures in the style of Greek portrayals of their gods: draped robes, wavy hair, sandals, leaf patterns, etc. mixed with Indian styles.  These were realistic depictions in terms of form and proportion, and showed Buddha as divine human.  Thereafter Buddha sculptures, as well as paintings and carvings, were subject to all the influences of the Silk Road and Asian cultures as Buddhism spread.

We can include important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in this maintaining Buddha treasure.  People go on pilgrimage to these places because they want to feel some physical proximity or contact with the Buddha.  Venerating relics, viewing art, and visiting important places are all ways of maintaining contact.

The absolute Buddha treasure is unsurpassible awakening.  In the Heart Sutra we chant: With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita and attains unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment.  Dogen Zenji called it shinjin datsuraku, dropping off body and mind.  Suffice it to say here that unsurpassable awakening might be clearly seeing and understanding how things really are in this one unified reality. and at the same time not actually being a separate entity having some separate experience of that reality.  We drop off body and mind in that we are no longer bound, constricted or cut off by our karmic conditioning and yet our karmic conditions don’t go away.  We’re still humans with bodies and minds, but we see through our delusions and concepts and really get what that means.  This is liberating all beings, or liberating self and others.

Now that we know what Buddha is, what about this mindfulness of Buddha?  The sense of this word mindfulness goes all the way back to the Pali smrti and makes its way  through to the Japanese nen 念, “something that is remembered.”  Mindfulness is not about focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else and therefore somehow suppressing or blocking things we don’t want to think about.  It’s about bearing something in mind—in this case, Buddha and his virtues—and not forgetting what Buddha is.  There are many practices from around the Buddhist tradition for doing this, particularly related to the maintaining Buddha treasure.

However, starting with the manifesting Buddha treasure, or Shakyamuni who lived in the world, there are stories of his life and written accounts of his teachings that we can read today and from which we can learn.  What’s important is not only his explanation of the dharma, but the example of his life: how he lived, what he did, and how he interacted with others.  He didn’t invent the dharma, because reality already existed and would have even if he hadn’t awakened to it, but he’s the one who made it possible for us to encounter the dharma today because he taught others who carried it on.

We have three particular opportunities in a year to remember Shakyamuni.  One is his birthday, which we celebrate at Sanshin on the Sunday closest to April 8.  The second is his enlightenment day, on the Sunday closest to December 8 and which we lead up to with a weeklong sesshin.  The third is the day he died, Nirvana Day, the Sunday closest to February 8.

As for the maintaining Buddha treasure, the relics and figures, for example we chant the Shariraimon, the verse of homage to Buddha’s relics, at funerals.  In Japan we did it when when we went to a person’s house right after he or she died and the family was doing the vigil, and we also did it at the gravesite, either when ashes were being interred or when we were holding memorial services later on.  

Verse of Homage to Buddha’s Relics (Shariraimon 舍利禮文)
With wholehearted reverence we bow to the relics 
of the true body of the Tathagata, 
who is fully endowed with myriad virtues;
to the dharma body which is the fundamental ground;
and to his stupa, which is the whole universe. 
With deep respect we venerate the one 
who manifested a body for our sake.
Through the sustaining power of the Buddha, 
which enters us even as we enter it, we verify awakening.
By means of the Buddha’s spiritual power,
we benefit living beings, arouse the thought of awakening,
cultivate bodhisattva practice, 
and together enter perfect peace, 
the knowledge of the equality of all things.
Now let us reverently bow.

It’s interesting that while this is about the Buddha’s relics, we chant it for ordinary people.  Ejo, Dogen’s main disciple and second abbot of Eiheiji, chanted it at Dogen’s funeral.

There are supposed relics of Buddha all over the world.  Here, we’re more likely to encounter statues or figures, particularly on altars.  We make offerings and bow to these things, and it can look worshipful—and it can be, if that’s your practice.  In North America, it’s more likely that these figures represent our aspiration and inspiration.  When we have them around in our temples, Zen centers or homes, we remember to practice.  We’re reminded that we’ve chosen and vowed to be on this path and to emulate the qualities of the Buddha.  We’re reminded to set aside the small self and manifest our Buddha-nature.  For some people, the creation of Buddha images is in itself a practice, but caring for them can also be a practice; we carry them with two hands, we don’t stack things on top of them, and we clean and dust them regularly with cloths dedicated to the purpose.  We also  recognize sutras as relics of Buddha—something he left behind when he died—and to treat them the same way by not putting them on the floor, for instance.  In this way, we remain mindful of Buddha

This eighth gate is telling us that if we bear in mind what buddha really is, we can more clearly reflect our own buddha nature, and we can maintain our aspiration to practice, to manifest awakening and not be sidetracked by the hindrances and delusions of our everyday samsaric life.  It also helps us to remember that our zazen and our practice is not all about us, not purely for our own enjoyment or benefit.  We can have a little gratitude for Shakyamuni and for all of the teachers and practitioners who came before us and made it possible for us to move towards awakening.  It’s also not for our short-term gain or solely to help us get rid of pesky problems in our lives.  Those things may happen, but this practice is about awakening to the same reality as Buddha and realizing (making real) our buddha nature as we move through the world, just as he did.  Mindfulness of Buddha and what he awakened to can help keep us on the path.

Our zazen is a reenactment of what Buddha did and the conditions into which he put himself in order to enable awakening.  We sit this way because Buddha sat this way.  We’re putting ourselves directly into the middle of Buddha’s awakening and carrying on Buddha’s practice, and in that way, zazen is the ultimate mindfulness of Buddha.

Pure conduct of the actions of the mind is a gate of Dharma illumination; for it eliminates the three poisons.
意行淨行是法明門、斷三毒故.

This is the third gate related to the places we create karma.  When we looked at actions of the mouth we saw that speech can lead to action, so it’s important to be careful about what we say.  Likewise, thought can lead to speech that can lead to action, so the origin of this whole chain of events starts with the mind.  

If our thoughts are wholesome, we have magnanimous mind, nurturing mind and joyful mind, the three minds or sanshin 三心.  In the Tenzo Kyokun, Dogen Zenji recommended that a person working to benefit all beings should maintain three mental attitudes: magnanimous mind (daishin 大心), nurturing mind (roushin 老心 ), and joyful mind (kishin 喜心).  Magnanimous mind is like an ocean or a mountain: calm and steady, yet accepting and nourishing countless beings and situations without differentiation. The ocean is serene because it accepts the many rivers without resisting.  Nurturing mind, literally “old mind,” is akin to the attitude of a kindly grandmother or parent who delights in caring for others. It is the spirit of the bodhisattva, the fully mature person.  Joyful mind is the joy that comes from deep in our hearts even in the midst of difficulty. It arises from the insight of zazen, that we live together with all beings and are not separate.

If our thoughts are unwholesome we have greed, anger and ignorance, the three poisons or sandoku 三毒, the opposite of sanshin.  Greed, desire or craving (貪欲) is more than simply wanting what we want.  It includes coveteousness, getting what we want at the expense of others, and continuing to be dissatisfied even after we have what we think we want.  Hatred, anger or aversion (瞋恚) is about being angry at whatever we find disagreeable and ranges from minor irritation to outright hostility and malice.  It’s considered to be one of the most powerful and fundamental afflictions that disturbs the human mind and brings about unwholesome states.  Finally, ignorance (愚癡) is our condition when we lack the wisdom to see reality as it is and we make mistakes based on our delusion and preconceptions.  

These three poisons are a central element in Buddhist teaching; they lead to the craving that is the basis of suffering.  In the Buddhist Wheel of Life, they’re right at the very center.  The hub of the wheel shows a pig (ignorance), a bird (greed), and a snake (anger) each biting the tail of the one before.  These three are not separate and can give rise to each other.  Ignorance in particular is seen as the root of greed and anger.  Right at the center of the human experience is the strong tendency of the three poisons to arise in our minds.  This is the very root of our suffering and our being trapped in samsara.  

Okumura Roshi has written that zazen is like an acupuncture needle to heal the sickness caused by the three poisonous minds.  In zazen, we stop creating karma with the three forms of behavior.  We take the posture with the body and don’t take action based on our delusion or craving or aversion  We don’t do any talking, so we can’t get into trouble there.  We let go of thought and don’t get into a relationship with it that creates a subject (me) and object (my thought).  We can see that zazen is way to purify body, speech and thought and although our karma is playing out while we sit, our intention is not to create any more.

Okumura Roshi also warns us about creating another kind of poison with our zazen.  If our motivation to practise is influenced by the three poisons, that is, if we practice for the sake of making this person more important, more powerful, more enlightened or for anything else, then it is motivated by greed: “I want to get this or that.”  It may not be for wealth or power that we practice, but for something spiritual.  If we practice in order to get something desirable, however, our zazen is generated by greed.

It’s really hard to avoid this, isn’t it?  We all came to practice because we wanted something for ourselves—and this stubborn clinging doesn’t mean we shouldn’t practice!

Also, if we practise in order to escape from our present condition, then the practice is motivated by anger/hatred toward this condition. . . . We often call this “way-seeking mind”.  But our way-seeking mind can be very deeply influenced by the three poisonous states.  This is a strange contradiction.  In order to practice to be free from the three poisonous states of mind, we need the three poisonous states of mind. (1)

This is why we sometimes say that suffering is our friend, or suffering is necessary to practice.  Of the six realms of samsara (gods, giants, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hells), it’s said that the human realm is the only one in which we can practice, so we’re fortunate to be born in this form.  If we were in a heavenly realm and believed that we were perfectly happy all the time, we would have no motivation to practice and see clearly.  We have to use the three poisons to transcend the three poisons.

This is enough of a challenge when it comes to ourselves as individuals.  What about the potential for institutionalizing the three poisons in ways we don’t even realize?  We can think of societies and institutions as our collective selves.  If we are deluded and take action based on that delusion, we create causes and conditions for the perpetuation of that delusion.  This is how karma keeps unfolding.

David Loy has written a lot about this and he always points to three areas.  He says the economic system is institutionalized greed. the military is institutionalized ill will, and mainstream media are institutionalized ignorance because their purpose is to profit from advertising rather than to educate and inform. (3)  The whole question is really complicated and we can’t just decide to do away with these things and start over.  To take this on, we have to look deeply into the meaning of well-being.  What do we and all beings really need in order to be healthy and whole?  Is that different than what we think we need?

In a book called Blue Zones of Happiness (4), Dan Buettner outlines where in the world people are happiest and why, using various measures of life satisfaction.  For instance, one finding is that more money does equal more happiness up to a point—but once basic needs are covered, plus enough to be comfortable, you’re not more happy with more money.  You just have more stuff.

There was a report in 1999 that said that the percentage of Americans who considered themselves happy peaked in 1957, even though consumption per person had more than doubled since then.  Yet our economy is driven by production and consumption.  If I make stuff, then I need to create a demand for it.  If my job is to make widgets, then I need people to buy them if I’m going to keep my job and feed my family.  This quickly becomes a discussion about right livelihood.  Are my widgets contributing to quality of life for others?  If they’re not but this is the job I can get, is that OK?  When I make widgets, I buy supplies from other vendors, so I’m supporting their employees too.

Because of interdepenence, these are tough questions.  There are those who say that the legal system is 
institutionalized ill will because it incarcerates more people of color than whites, or that the military needs to justify its spending, so there always needs to be an enemy out there.  It’s not only institutionalized ill will but reinforces the idea of separation—me and you, win and lose—that is at the heart of delusion.  Of course, institutions are simply extensions of our own mindstate.  If our intentions as individuals are wholesome, we tend to create wholesome institutions.  If we are deluded, we can’t help but poison our institutions with our delusion.

Again, these issues are not simple, but very complex.  Environmental destruction is about both greed and 
ignorance, and discrimination is about all three.  At the root of it all is fear—fear that our small selves are not enough as they are and are going to disappear in the shadow of someone else.  So what do we do about all this?

At the beginning of these comments, I made the point that the three poisons were part of the human condition, and that if we were somehow to be without the them then we couldn’t take this human form and we couldn’t practice.  Rather than eliminating or eradicating the three poisons, our practice is to be free from the three poisons.  Uchiyama roshi wrote, Since desires and cravings existing in human life are the cause of suffering, [we may] struggle to extinguish them and attain the bliss of nirvana.  But isn’t seeking to get rid of pain and to attain the bliss of nirvana itself a desire or craving?  Actually, this too is craving and precisely because of that the practitioner is caught in self-contradiction and can’t escape suffering.

Since desires and cravings are actually a manifestation of the life force, there is no reason to hate them and try to extinguish them.  And yet, if we become dragged around by them and chase after them, then our life becomes fogged over.  It is not a matter of making great effort not to be dragged around by desires.  It’s just waking up and returning to the reality of life that is essential. (1)

Because of their vow to save all beings, bodhisattvas are not pulled by their karma and they don’t transmigrate through the realms of samsara based on three poisonous minds.  As ordinary bodhisattvas, our job is to continue to function right in the middle of three poisons.  After all, both samsara and nirvana are right here and there’s nowhere else to go.  Three poisons come up because of our beginningless karma, but still we try not to create more.  Pure conduct of the actions of the mind is seeing these three poisons come up and letting go of them moment after moment, rather than engaging with and perpetuating them.  

These three poisons are all self-centered or self-involved.  Giving up the opportunity to do something that inflates the ego is one of the biggest bodhisattva activities there is.  Job One is to see the urge to self-involvement coming up in the mind: sitting in the breakroom with your coworkers and looking for the chance to engage in name-dropping, humble-bragging, or subtly drawing attention to your expensive new phone.  It starts with the thought and then goes on to speech and action.  Passing up that opportunity for self-aggrandizement is a gift to other beings.  Not doing something is sometimes as important as doing something when we’re working to save all beings.

Okumura Roshi says, Letting go of our self-centered views in practice, we are freed from the three poisonous minds, supporting the entire network of interdependent origination as it supports us.  If we’re not stuck in the delusion that there is a fixed self that needs defending, then three poisonous minds don’t arise.  We can give up our self-involvement, and in that moment we heal the separation.  However, this isn’t a linear process.  Not giving rise to three poisonous minds means we don’t create separation between subject and object, but also, when we don’t create separation there’s no contact between subject and object that gives rise to the three poisonous minds.  Separation and poison arise together because they’re dependent on each other.

Notes
(1) See Zazenshin: Acupuncture Needle of Zazen, article by Shohaku Okumura
(2) See The Great Awakening by David Loy, Wisdom Publications, 1997.
(3) Learn more at Blue Zones of Happiness.
(4) Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama.  Wisdom Publications (2004)  p. 76

Pure conduct of the actions of the mouth is a gate of Dharma illumination; for it eliminates the four evils.
口行淨行是法明門、斷四惡故.

Last week we noted that harmful speech can also lead to unskillful action.  Suffering leads to more suffering and the creation of more harmful karma for ourselves and others.  Actions of the mouth are really a critical part of our practice and are connected to nearly everything else we do.  This is not just about saying nice things to each other.

The four evils (四惡 shiaku) to which this gate is pointing are lying, suppression of speech, abusive speech and  duplicitous speech.  These come from the traditional larger set of ten evils, in which the second is not suppression of speech but idle talk.  Rather than lying, suppression of speech, abusive speech and duplicitous speech, the more frequent list is lying, idle or frivolous speech, harsh or abusive speech and divisive speech, like backbiting or malicious gossip.

Not doing these four evils is what Right Speech means in the Eightfold Path.  You might recognize this 悪 (aku, bad or evil) from the Shoaku Makusa fascicle of the Shobogenzo.  Shoaku makusa is “not doing evil” and it’s the first line of a poem from the Dhammapada:

Not doing of any evil   /   諸悪莫作   /   Shōaku makusa
Doing of all good deeds   /   衆善奉行   /   Shu zen bu gyō
Purification of one’s own mind   /   自淨其意     Ji jō go i
This is the teaching of all buddhas.   /   是諸佛教   /   Ze sho butsu kyō (1)

When Okumura Roshi has talked about this poem, he has said that it contains two levels of teaching: we should do good and not do evil; and we should go beyond good and evil.  What does that mean for these four evils related to actions of the mouth, or right speech?

The first one is lying.  On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward.  The fourth precept tells us to abstain from speaking falsehood, and lying is about deceiving somebody, so that can’t be good, right?  The most obvious way to interpret this teaching is to tell the truth and not use words to trick people or get something for yourself that you don’t really deserve.  The precept came into being because food became scarce after a natural disaster, and some monks started telling people they were enlightened so they could get something to eat.  Buddha put a stop to that behavior.  

However, we all know that there are times when the compassionate thing to do is not to express what we’re really seeing or feeling.  What do you do when your loved one asks, “Do these pants make me look fat?”  When little Bobby was expecting a new bike for his birthday, isn’t the kind thing to say, “Of course, Aunt Zelda, he loved the sweater you knit him for his birthday!”?  Are those lies doing evil?  They’re not true.  At the same time, they completely express our reality in that moment, which is that we’re saying something not quite true because we’re trying to be compassionate.

This gets us to the second kind of teaching Okumura Roshi is talking about when he says the Dhammapada verse is about both not doing evil and going beyond good and evil.  Words are symbols for other things, not the things themselves, and in that way, all words are false.  The only way to make sure you’re telling the truth is not to say anything.

Words are how we poke our heads into stuff.  It’s what we layer on top of the reality of this moment.  By their nature, words carry our interpretations, ideas, delusions and confusions.  Whether our speech is intended as a lie or not, on the one hand it’s a reflection of our own stuff.  On the other hand, our speech can’t be separate from this one unified reality—it’s part of the reality or truth of this moment.  Paying attention to what we’re saying and getting down to some insight about the real nature of lying is a gate of dharma illumination.

The second evil, according to the older tradition, is idle talk, so let’s consider that.  This is the kind of speech that just doesn’t really have any purpose.  Maybe we notice men and women talking about each other—isn’t she pretty, and how about that guy?  Perhaps there’s a classmate or coworker that just can’t keep from saying whatever comes into his head and seems to be engaged in conversation all the time.  These folks could be talking just to make noise, or pass the time, or get noticed somehow.  My mother used to call this "talking to hear your head roar."  You might say that none of these things is really harmful, but they’re not really helpful, either.  There’s some potential to stop paying attention and drift into something less wholesome, like gossip,  exaggerating one’s own importance, or making fun of people.

I would distinguish this from small talk designed to build relationships.  Chatting with your friend as a way to enjoy being together and get caught up on what you’re doing and what you’re thinking about is not necessarily idle talk.  When you meet someone for the first time and you start talking about the weather, you’re looking for common ground and a shared experience so you can get to know each other.  On the other hand, idle talk doesn’t really care about the effect it’s having on the listener—it’s kind of selfish and all about me.  We can ask ourselves, Is what I’m saying at all beneficial to the other person?  Am I doing this with benevolence, or talking to hear my head roar?

The second evil according to Dogen’s 108 Gates is suppression of speech.  In a country like the US, where the First Amendment is a sacred document, this feels pretty relevant to us.  Suppressing speech is usually an attempt to make something go away or to ignore some part of our reality.  It’s just another way to create separation that doesn’t actually exist.

The bottom line here, as always, is wholesomeness.  What course of action leads to the amelioration of 
suffering or prevents it from arising?  There are certain kinds of speech that have to be restricted for the benefit of people’s privacy, national security, or because slandering somebody is harmful.  We don’t want to encourage people to say things that lead others to take unwholesome action.  Curtailing this kind of speech can be said to lead to healthy circumstances or to prevent injury.

However, suppressing speech because we don’t agree with the opinions being expressed allows us not to take 
responsibility for what happens when feel challenged.  It’s a way to abrogate responsibility either for our own response to that speech or for engaging with the speaker.  The speaker and the speech go away, my reaction goes away, and I can escape from those parts of reality.  I can perpetuate my idea that my view is the one true way and I can have things just the way I want.

Of course, this can happen on a national scale or in our own personal interactions.  It’s a thorny thicket, deciding what kind of speech should be allowed in a healthy society or a healthy relationship—there’s no one good answer.  Sometimes the best we can do is be aware that its tricky, and not assume that everyone has the same values, the same approach or the same idea about what’s dangerous.

We can make effort to actually listen to what’s being said and acknowledge the person saying it, but we need to do that skillfully, without any idea of our own small self.  It’s easy to convince ourselves that “I’m the bigger person, so I’m going to listen to this crackpot because I’m doing him or her a favor, or I’m trying to be nice.”  That’s just about our own ego, and not so much about the reality of nonseparation.  

It’s really difficult sometimes not to engage in suppression of speech.  No one wants to get hijacked and triggered.  No one wants to be in a toxic situation.  And what about suppressing our own speech?  It’s also really difficult sometimes to say what needs to be said, but if these things are said with good-will, they’re helpful and it makes them a little easier to say.

The third evil is abusive speech.  The abuse being referred to here is slander, saying things about people that you know are not true in order to achieve your own ends.  In other words, you’re misusing somebody for your own purposes.  It would be pretty hard to think of a case where slander would not be harmful, certainly to the person being abused and also to the person doing the slandering,  This is another of those cases where committing unwholesome acts brings the unwholesomeness right back home.

Slander is about ill will, harmful intent, lying, self-involvement, and a whole raft of issues.  It’s really not the work of a bodhisattva.  We might engage in idle talk without realizing it in the moment if we’re not paying attention, but lying, slander and divisive speech are sins of intention.  If we’re doing this stuff, we’re out to get our own way at all costs, no matter the effect on other beings.  All of these intentional acts are based in fear—the fear that somehow we are not enough just as we are and we’re going to disappear.  Fear is where suffering starts, so slander arises from suffering and results in suffering.  I’m afraid of you, so I say something untrue about you.  I’m angry at you for something you did to me that makes me feel weak and powerless, so I perpetuate some public lie about you so that I feel strong and powerful.  Now you have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess, and if I’m found out as the one that started the rumors, then I have all of that mess to deal with myself.  It’s an endless cycle, and even if there’s a short term gain, ultimately it’s not a stable, positive outcome.

The fourth evil is duplicitous speech, the kind of speech intended to cause division.  In a sangha, this is the kiss of death.  Causing a schism is a major offense according to the Vinaya and gets one expelled from the sangha.  
This is not the same as a case where there is a real and legitimate difference of opinion about something among sangha members.  If someone honestly suggests the sangha buy a new building and half the sangha agrees and the other half doesn’t, that’s not a problem.  That’s a community carefully and skillfully considering its options.

Duplicitous speech is aimed at getting people to fight with each other and break up the community, the team, the  family or some other group.  In the Vinaya, the examples are about arguments over interpretations of the teachings and practice.  If two groups of monks are in honest disagreement about the dharma and are going along in good faith, it’s OK even if it results in a group splitting off and starting a new sangha.  If the split happens because someone has knowingly misrepresented Buddha’s teaching just to create dissent, that’s unwholesome action.  Slandering the Three Treasures also breaks the tenth precept.

Duplicitous speech is clearly aimed at creating separation.  We already know that separation is just our idea, so clearly things like malicious gossip are just aiding and abetting our delusion, trying to create separation where ultimately none really exists, and probably for some kind of personal gain for the small self.  No good can come of it.

Interestingly, the Buddha said that even in the event of a real schism, each side is still to treat the other with care and respect, even while there may be some investigation into what’s really happening.  He even taught about how to choose sides—he said we should always be on the side of the dharma.  Which side is acting on behalf of the dharma?  That’s not always clear in any disagreement.  Which side is working for wholesomeness?  Both might actually intend to do good.  In the case of someone actively sowing dissention with his or her speech with the intent to cause harm, our job is to be on the side of ameliorating suffering for the largest possible number of beings, not leaving out ourselves and the person creating the division.

When we sit down on the cushion and don’t say anything, we are not able to commit these four evils.  The challenge is, how do we avoid them once we get up?  We think of zazen as connected to awakening, but can our speech really be a gate of dharma illumination?  As bodhisattvas, our speech can lead people to awakening or hold them back.

Notes
(1) Verse 183 of the Dhammapada.  One translation is here.