Dharma conduct is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we follow the conduct that is the Dharma.
法行是法明門、隨順法行故.

This week’s gate sounds like it’s giving a simple direction.  Maybe it sounds like minding your manners in the zendo, carrying out forms properly.  Maybe it sounds like following Buddha’s teachings, following the precepts, and paying attention to what you’re doing.  That’s not wrong—we should indeed do all those things—but this simple phrase “dharma conduct” opens up a larger discussion about cause and effect and good and evil.

We can understand dharma conduct as behavior that arises from prajna or wisdom.  Wisdom includes compassion because compassion arises naturally when we see the nature of reality.  When we see the universe and ourselves clearly, we act skillfully for the benefit of all beings.  We also begin to purify our twisted karma, because our actions move us toward wholesomeness and away from unwholesomeness.

One of Dogen’s most important teachings is that practice and awakening are not two.  Without action, awakening is not realized, so paying attention to what we do and the way we conduct ourselves is necessary; we can’t just think about the dharma.

In our tradition, good and evil isn’t something abstract and separate “out there;” it’s about our moment to moment activity and what we’re doing with this body and mind.  The six realms of samsara through which we transmigrate also aren’t something “out there.”  Where we find ourselves is related to what we’re doing right now.  Seeing clearly and acting in accord with reality is the way to keep ourselves out of the lower realms.

In the animal realm, we’re just complacent and dull. trying simply to avoid pain and make ourselves comfortable.  Of the three poisons, this is ignorance,  In the hungry ghost realm, we want things and we’re incredibly frustrated because we never get them.  This is the poison of greed.  In the hell realm, we can’t escape from our anger and hatred.  It feels claustrophobic and extremely hot or cold.  This is the poison of anger and ill will.

These three poisons and their attendent hell realms are the root souce of our suffering and the suffering we perpetuate for others.  They aren’t something that comes from somewhere else and strikes us randomly.  This is the point of teachings about cause and effect.  Belief in cause and effect is one of the most important teachings in Soto Zen and Dogen addressed it several times in the Shobogenzo.  One of his most important points was that we may not see the result of our conduct right away, and it might not look the way we expect.  I conduct myself according to the dharma, but my life doesn’t go well.  My neighbor does whatever he wants and gets away with it.  It might seem to us that what we do and what others do is disconnected, or that what we do is our own business and no one else should care, or that our actions and the results of our actions are separate.

Of course, another of Dogen’s main teachings is that the things we usually separate in our minds are actually one reality.  He makes two points about this: 1) that we may not see or recognize the effects of what we do, and 2) that we and our actions are completely interpenetrated with everything else in the universe.

First, we may not see or recognize the effects of our conduct.  That makes it hard to believe in cause and effect.  Dogen thought this was a big problem; he wrote:

Noble and lowly, pain and pleasure, right and wrong, gain and loss, are all effects of wholesome and unwholesome actions.  People who believe in spontaneous origin do not understand individual karma and collective karma.  As they do not clarify past and future lives, they are ignorant of the present life.  How can their views be equal to buddha dharma?

This “past and future lives”  is what he writes about in Shobogenzo Sanjigo.  We might see the results of our conduct in this current life, in the next life, or in a subsequent life.  If we don’t understand this, he says, we can fall into false views and end up in one of the three lower realms and have a lot of suffering.

Whether or not you believe in literal rebirth, the point is that we don’t know the outcome of our conduct.  If we’re operating purely on the basis of immediate reward or punishment, we’re going to make mistakes.  When we take some action and don’t see an immediate consequence, we can decide there’s no such thing as cause and effect.  We decide that the things we do don’t matter and that whatever happens is determined by something outside of ourselves.  Both of these are mistaken views in our tradition, because they ignore interdependence.  Dogen says that if we don’t believe in cause and effect, we can’t escape the consequences of our conduct.  We never see clearly what’s going on, and we can’t make wholesome choices about what we do.

Dogen’s second point was that we and our actions are completely interpenetrated with everything else in the universe.  In Bendowa, he writes:

If a human being, even for a single moment, manifests the Buddha’s posture in the three forms of conduct, while [that person] sits up straight in samādhi, the entire world of Dharma assumes the Buddha’s posture and the whole of space becomes the state of realization.

The three forms of conduct are actions of the body, speech, and thoughts.  He’s saying that in zazen and outside of zazen, if we’re seeing clearly and manifesting awakening, then the whole world becomes awakening.  Thus  because the only things we have to work with are this body and mind, and this time and place, we have to practice right here and now.

Of course, dharma conduct fills everthing we do all day long.  There are myriad opportunities moment by moment to work with our dharma conduct.  Sawaki Roshi says our practice is to constantly ask ourselves what we can do for the buddha dharma right now.  He says, Even in the case of putting down a teacup it makes a big difference if you simply let it fall or if you lower it carefully with your hand.  The basis of all actions is to follow through to the end.  If your mind is absent even just for a moment, you’re no different from a corpse.

He goes on to say it’s about becoming a person without gaps.  Where are the gaps?

• between me and my conduct
• between my actions and the rest of the universe around me
• any kind of separation between subject and object

Dharma conduct is exactly the interpenetration of Uchiyama Roshi’s individual self and universal self.  We conduct ourselves as individuals, taking our own action, and at the same time, causes and conditions lead us to act as we do, and also we’re part of the causes and conditions of someone else’s actions.  We have a form or body, and also emptiness is right there.

At one time we had an important demonstration of these points in our sesshin and retreats.  People routinely left early, before the sesshin was over, because they had a drive ahead of them and were anxious to be on their way.  It resulted in up to 50% attrition.  Folks sometimes think coming to a practice event is like going to the theatre, when you buy your ticket, take your seat and enjoy something that is performed around you by others.  No one minds if you sneak out of the show early; there’s simply an empty seat in the audience and show goes on. 

Sesshin and retreat are not like this at all.  You are not a spectator or a consumer.  Participants are the material of the retreat, and without them there is nothing going on.  When people start fading away, the integrity of the structure is weakened for everyone.  Somehow participants really didn’t understand this, and I had to start explaining that there are three problems:
1) All the cleanup work falls to the few people who remain, so I and a couple of others end up cleaning up after everyone.
2) We buy food based on registration headcount, so when people start skipping meals that’s a waste of temple resources, both the food itself and the effort to cook it.
3) The bigger problem is that as people begin to silently disappear one by one, the energy built up by the community over the course of the sesshin or retreat trickles away.  The event goes flat and ends with a whimper for those who are still around rather than everyone ending strong and together with attention and intention.  The message the early leavers send is, “Now that I’ve gotten everything I want out of this shindig, I’ll be on my way and leave it to the rest of you to wrap things up.  I have better things to do.”  Nobody means to be unkind or disrespectful; they just don’t realize that their conduct affects everyone else in the sesshin.

As Sawaki Roshi said, the basis of all actions is to follow through to the end.  Make your commitment and then carry it out completely.  See the larger picture, and care enough to see things through.

The previous two gate statements addressed truth telling and truth itself.  One of the points was that on one hand there is breaking a precept by speaking falsehood, and on the other hand even telling a lie is a complete manifestation of the truth of this moment.  This same kind of setup is related to how we consider our conduct.  It was a real puzzle for Tettsu Gikai, who was an important student of Dogen.  Several times, Dogen told Gikai that he needed to work on developing grandmotherly mind, or roushin 老心, one of the Three Minds (sanshin  三心).  Dogen writes about roushin in the Tenzo Kyokun, and Gikai had served as tenzo himself.  He tried to make the connection and understand why Dogen was telling him this, but it took some time before he got it.  

There were some monks from a sect called Darumashu who taught that all actions encompassed Buddhism.  Lifting a hand or moving a leg in a natural way was itself enlightenment.  Gikai rejected this teaching.  At the same time, Dogen was teaching that all the day to day tasks in the temple were expressions of true Buddhism.  Gikai finally realized that there is a difference between “Buddhism encompasses all actions” and “doing every action as Buddhism.”  The Darumashu monks were saying that we don’t need any rules, because all of our actions arise from inherent enlightenment.  However, Dogen said that all our actions express our inherent enlightenment and there can’t be any Buddhism apart from our day to day activities.  Buddhism isn’t something seperate that gives rise to activity, in the same way that without any participants, there is no sesshin.

What Dogen was trying to get Gikai to see was that grandmotherly mind isn’t just about being kind to other people and taking care of them.  It’s about taking care of the three treasures by understanding that all actions—all our conduct—is the buddha dharma.

Dogen said we should be mindful of the Three Treasures as a parent would be mindful of an only child.  We have to pay attention to all of our actions as practice.  When he taught that practice and awakening are not two, he was saying that there is no awakening which is outside or of separate from our day to day activity.  Later, Gikai’s successors tended to deemphasize text study for their own students; he felt that Buddhism was best expressed by actions rather than words.

Of course, our daily actions are an important ground for practice.  Traditionally, there are four postures: sitting, standing, walking and lying down.  These are also a metaphor for all of our activities, everything we do at all times.  

The kanji used here for “posture” is 威儀 igi, sometimes translated “deportment.”  This has to do with maintaining the proper attention and conduct at all times because we’re never not practicing.  As I pointed out at the beginning, when we hear words like conduct and deportment related to Zen practice, we often think of zendo forms: bowing, holding a chant book, doing shashu or isshu, etc.  Practice forms are indeed a great place to pay attention to what our bodies, mouths and brains are doing.  One of the things people notice about the style of our particular family is that we don’t do a lot of ritual.  Our forms are simple and we don’t do a lot of ceremonies.  This is not because Okumura Roshi doesn’t think these things are important.  Our forms are simple so that we remember how they’re connected to shikantaza and how they express our practice.

When we start coming to a zendo, we can be intimidated or get frustrated because it seems like there’s a “proper” way to do everything.  Without the context for these things, they can seem like empty gestures or antique rituals.  On the other hand, some folks fall in love with this exotic, special kind of conduct and deportment and they get really precious about it.  Both of those attitudes miss the mark.

Okumura Roshi says our forms should express our respect and gratitude, which is a direct outgrowth of wisdom,  seeing clearly how things work.  When we really understand interdependence, we naturally feel grateful.  However, having said that, forms are good for nothing in the same way that shikantaza is good for nothing.  We don’t do them to get something out of it.  We’re not using them to train ourselves in humility or selflessness, and yet humility and selflessness are probably there.

Forms are an interesting practice of interdependence in a community.  We do a lot of communicating through forms during silent sesshin.  Formal meals completely served and eaten according to forms.  Outside of sesshin, during morning practice or liturgy, the bells tell us what to do.  We have to pay attention to the forms going on around us so we can be in alignment with the rest of the practice.  It’s not just imitating; we have to be more open and aware than that.  It’s about sharing a space with others, and not just literally—sharing a practice experience and nonseparation.

Returning a bow, turning the same direction as others, putting your hands in isshu with everyone else—not paying attention to these things is not respectful to others and perpetuates separation.  It doesn’t matter who the others are; you can like them or not.  The deal we make is to encounter each other completely and not discriminate.  However, even if we’re alone, paying attention to deportment is a good practice.  When we’re sleeping in the zendo, we don’t point out feet toward Buddha.  During soji, we don’t sweep dirt toward Buddha, and we don’t blow wind toward Buddha when folding a zagu or blow out altar candles with our breath.  Watching our dharma conduct is an opportunity to see where our attention is, what the body is doing and what we’re thinking.  It’s real opportunity to see how there’s no “me” “doing” a “form.”  I’m acting together with all beings without a boundary.

Truth is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we do not deceive ourselves.
眞是法明門、不誑自身故.

Last week we investigated telling the truth and not deceiving gods.  This week we investigate what truth is and not deceiving ourselves.

We aspire to tell the truth, but we have to know what that is.  In a way, we have to be clear ourselves about reality before we can represent that to others, although, as we saw last week, in another way whatever we’re doing expresses the truth of this moment, even if we’re deluded and telling lies.

In his text called Comments on teaching and conferring the precepts (Kyojukaimon), Dogen says, “When a drop of sweet dew moistens things, Reality and Truth become revealed.”  This “drop of sweet dew” is Buddha’s teaching.  In other words, when we see with the eyes of Buddha, or when we see things through the lens of Buddha’s teaching, we see truth.  That truth is the three marks of existence:
1) Everything is part of the network of interdependent origination, and nothing arises on its own but because of causes and conditions.
2) Everything is impermanent because those causes and conditions are constantly changing, so what arises from them has to be changing too.
3) There is no fixed self-nature because we’re subject to the same interdependence and impermanence as everything else.

These three things are true no matter what we think about them and no matter what we want to be true.  We’d like to talk ourselves into believing that the things we like will never go away or that there is something called “me” that is separate from everything else.  If we do that, we’re setting ourselves up for suffering because these things aren’t true or sustainable.  We’re going to keep tripping and stumbling and stubbing our toes because we’re not seeing the whole picture, and we can’t escape these three marks of existence.

If we really see truth, we can’t deceive ourselves in this way.  One of the most important teachings in our dharma family is “zazen is good for nothing.”  It comes from Kodo Sawaki, my dharma great grandfather.  The reason we do dharma study in this family is to deeply understand this point.  It’s the center of everything.  When a drop of sweet dew moistens things, when we study what Buddha and our ancestors taught, we see the truth of the three marks of existence and we understand that zazen is good for nothing.

Kodo Sawaki had lot to say about how we deceive ourselves, particularly how we deceive ourselves about zazen.  In our modern times, we see mindfulness and zazen being used for various personal outcomes: stress management, productivity, better relationships, improved daily functioning.  Sawaki Roshi saw this happening too—people trying to use zazen to cultivate various personal qualities—and said that if you think that’s going to work, you’re fooling yourself, because you won’t get any results from zazen.  Why?  Because zazen is not about you.  As soon as you inject your own stuff into it, it misses the mark.

Sawaki Roshi says: If it’s even the slightest bit personalized, it isn’t pure, unadulterated zazen. We’ve got to practice genuine, pure zazen, without mixing it with gymnastics or satori or anything. When we bring in our personal ideas – even only a little bit – it’s no longer the buddha-dharma.

Shikantaza is about nothing extra, and piling your own expectations and attachments on top of the three marks is something extra.  We deceive ourselves and lose sight of the truth in our shikantaza.  Instead, we just take the posture, keep the eyes open, breathe deeply and let go of thought.  Anything else is extra.

We can spend a lot of time on the cushion, but unless we’re doing only these four things and nothing else, we’re not really doing shikantaza, though we can deceive ourselves that we are.  If we’re thinking, we’re not doing shikantaza.  If we’re sleeping, we’re not doing shikantaza.  This is why there’s no way to measure our shikantaza and decide whether we’re getting better at it.  Either we’re doing true shikantaza, or we’re not.  As soon as there’s anything extra, we’ve stopped doing it.  As Dogen says in the Fukanzazengi, “As soon as the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.”

Sawaki Roshi goes on: If we don’t watch out, we’ll start believing that the buddha-dharma is like climbing up a staircase. But it isn’t like this at all. This very step right now is the one practice which includes all practices, and it is all practices, contained in this one practice.

There’s nowhere to get to with zazen; we don’t get better at it.  Either we enter into that same space with everyone else, or we don’t.  

“Zazen is good for nothing” is a simple phrase, but in order to understand it, we have to understand the reality of how the universe works.  That’s why we do dharma study in this family.  Sanshin’s main practice is to do a lot of zazen, by sitting sesshin as well as every weekday morning plus a couple of evenings and Sundays.  Doing that much zazen can lead to trouble if we don’t put equal emphasis on understanding that there’s no personal gain from it.  If we don’t understand reality, we don’t understand “zazen is good for nothing,” and then we fall prey to the “Zen sickness” that Dogen describes in Shobogenzo Zazenshin.

Okumura Roshi says: Even though our practice of zazen based on Buddha’s teachings is a treatment of this sickness, zazen itself can be a poison and cause sickness. If our motivation to practice 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.

When we practice for certain lengths of time we find that our motivation itself is influenced by poison. Then we often have doubts about our practice and whether or not it works to lessen the suffering caused by the three poisons. Sometimes we might even quit because we feel it doesn’t work.

Dharma study keeps our shikantaza from becoming a poison and keeps us from deceiving ourselves about what we’re doing.

For Uchiyama Roshi, this question about what truth is was a real driving force in his life.  He tried studying Western philosophy, but it felt abstract and disconnected from his actual life.  In Buddhism he found the teaching that we’re living both an individual life and a universal life.  It’s true that we have individual bodies and minds and we’re not interchangeable.  We have agency and take our own actions and make decisions.  It’s also true that because of the three marks of existence, we’re not separate from our lives.  

As Uchiyama Roshi said, Everything I encounter is my life.  For him, truth was completely living out both individual and universal self.  Living one or the other is not complete truth.  This teaching goes back to Nagarjuna’s two truths: relative and absolute.  Chinese Tiantai said there was a third truth in which we see everything from both sides at the same time.

In the Genjokoan, Dogen describes the moon and the whole sky being reflected in a single drop of dew on a blade of grass.  The moon is emptiness, the drop of dew is form, and these two are interpenetrated and arise together.  Thus there is the truth of the individual, the truth of the universal, and the truth that goes beyond individual and universal.

One of the most important aspects of this teaching is its relation to the self.  To understand truth and not deceive ourselves, we need to understand the nature of self.  Sawaki Roshi had a lot of interesting images for this.

• You can’t hold on to your self.  The very moment you give your self up, you realize the self which is one with the universe.  
• Precisely that self which I haven’t thought up is who I really am.
• The entire universe radiates the light of the self.  So I fill the entire universe. I’m not that fool playing with his pocket change.

Shikantaza is where we get to really experiences the truth of no-self.  Sawaki Roshi says: Non-self means that “I” am not a separate subject. When “I” am not a separate subject, then I fill the entire universe. That I fill the entire universe is what’s meant by “all things manifest the truth.”

When I don’t make a distinction between myself and the rest of reality, then there’s no part of reality that isn’t me.  All things are manifesting the reality of nonseparation without the covering of my thoughts about what they are, whether I like them or not, and whether they’re useful to me.  Usually, we think our thoughts are the truth.  I like this thing, therefore it’s good and has value.  I agree with this person, and therefore he’s right.  I want things to be like this, and therefore that’s the way things should be.

Uchiyama Roshi says: Once we think of something we want or like, we assume that the simple fact of thinking we want it or like it is the truth.  Then, since we think this idea is the truth and is worth seeking, we proceed to chase after it everywhere and our whole world becomes a world of greed.  On the other hand, once we think of something we hate or dislike, we assume again that the simple fact of thinking we hate it is the truth.  Thinking that this idea is the truth so we ought to follow it, we chase after it until our whole world turns into anger.

Sometimes we just lose touch with the truth.  Then we have ignorance, one of the three poisons (greed, anger, ignorance).  Staying in touch with truth is wisdom, seeing through Buddha’s eyes and seeing the reality of our lives.  We might not like the truth we see.  We have to watch what’s happening when those preferences come up and start coloring what we’re seeing.  We can’t take skillful action unless we have a clear picture of what’s going on and we don’t look away.

Last week’s gate was about deceiving others, and this week it’s about deceiving ourselves.  Setting aside any actual intention to fool other people or ourselves, sometimes we just get caught up in what Sawaki Roshi called group stupidity.

We live in group stupidity and confuse this insanity with true experience. It is essential that you become transparent to yourself and wake up from this madness. Zazen means taking leave of the group and walking on your own two feet.

There are a lot of things we assume are true and never question.  We may never question the values we inherit from our culture or family, even though they cause us suffering.  We may never question things that are common knowledge or shared beliefs.  Nobody means to fool anybody with this stuff, but sometimes it turns out not to be true, even though everyone accepts it as truth.  Time was when everyone accepted that the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth.  That’s what it looked like, and common sense said it was so.  At one time, everyone accepted that certain kinds of people should be marginalized in society.  In Uchiyama Roshi’s time, he saw a lot of people who valued wealth and luxury over everything else and seemed to believe that development and progress were always good.  Our psychological makeup says there is a self that is born with us and dies with us and remains constant in some way.  You can come up with other examples yourself.

Sometimes our framework comes from culture and society, and sometimes from just doing what humans do.  We come in contact with something, we decide immediately whether we like it or not, and that’s the basis of a whole complicated story.  We feel like we have a consistent existence over time.  We do what’s being done and adopt the beliefs of society or the habits of humans until something happens that causes a major shift in our thinking.  Wait—I did what society or my values told me to do, but this bad thing happened!  I did everything I could to get ahead at the office and my health failed.  I met someone from a cultural group I was uncomfortable with and it turned out that we got along well.  I took for granted that this or that would always be part of my life and it went away and now I’m suffering.  Now we’re asking ourselves: What is true, really?  Who am I?  How can I know?

Awakening from self-deception can be disorienting.  Somehow, the self is deceiving and being deceived at the same time.  How can that be?  There are things about ourselves and our lives that we don’t want to acknowledge.  We can decide that our fantasy is easier to live with.  It’s easier to go along with the crowd than to be considered different or challenge the norm.

The reality is that our self-deception happens all the time.  We deny that we and our loved ones are going to die.  We don’t like to think or talk about death, yet we know it will happen.  We don’t like to think that buying the things we want won’t bring us lasting happiness.  We’d rather assume that our worldview is true.  We don’t even want to acknowledge our suffering.  Maybe you’ve told someone about your practice and the Four Noble Truths, and that person’s immediate response was, Well I’m not suffering!

Shikantaza is checking all our assumptions at the door, sitting down, only doing the four things, and seeing what happens.  Now we’re walking on our own two feet in zazen rather than relying on opinions and suppositions.  We might find that some of our conclusions about ourselves and our lives are dead on, but some might not be, and those might be deeply held beliefs.  That’s hard, and practice takes courage.

The search for truth in this practice means accepting both individual and universal truth and everything they contain.  We can only describe universal truth in terms of individual truth.  We can’t read a book and memorize it and say, There--now I know what truth is about and it’s an abstract thing out there.  Truth is in unfolding of our own lives moment by moment.  

Truth contains our delusions, mistakes, and limitations.  The truth is that we don’t see completely or clearly.  We get caught up in our stuff and in the imitations of language.  The truth is that we deceive ourselves every day in our practice and in our daily lives outside of the zendo.  And even so: truth is right here.  It’s not an abstract something “out there” that requires mental gymnastics.  We can’t help but express truth completely in every moment.

Our practice of vow and repentance is a practice of understanding that we are limited and also truth is right here.  If we didn’t believe that truth was right here, it would be difficult to keep making the vow and keep practicing.  Our practice is to continually aim for truth so that we don’t deceive ourselves and therefore don’t deceive others.

Veracity is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we do not deceive gods and human beings.
實是法明門、不誑天人故.

Veracity means telling the truth.  (Next week we’ll take up truth itself.)  Buried down at #4 in the list of precepts is not speaking falsehood.  It’s interesting that it’s buried in the middle of the list, because breaking other precepts probably also involves breaking this one.  Breaking this precept means deceiving others for the sake of ourselves.  The kanji for “falsehood” 偽 (ishiwari) has one piece that represents a person and another that means benefit or serve.  We lie to serve ourselves.

Society says lying is a bad thing; depending on the severity of the falsehood, you could go to jail.  However, it’s not really that simple.  What about the white lie of kindness and compassion?  What about when your friend asks you, “Do pants make me look fat?” or when someone says “How are you?” and you say “I’m fine” when you’re not?  If this isn’t someone you know well, it’s not appropriate to spill all your issues on him.  “How are you?” is a social convention, not a question.

The earliest version of this precept is not about lying in general, but a particular kind of false speech.  A natural disaster happened and many monks didn’t have enough food, but a particular group of monks had plenty, which they got by telling the laypeople that they were enlightened and had superhuman powers.  Thus this precept was originally about not saying you’re enlightened.  Even today, someone who says he or she is enlightened is going to get funny looks, and apparently Kodo Sawaki was still running into this problem.  He wrote:

Nowadays, all zazen groups or masters who transmit the law have signs indicating their presence.  A long time ago in India, large banners were put up. And even now, in certain regions, flags of all colors hang and fly in the breeze, a souvenir of ancient times.  In our language nowadays, hanging flags indicating Dharma, and establishing true doctrine, means expressing one’s own experience relating to satori. Those who speak of Dharma without ever having experienced it are like parrots. They quote words and expressions of others, just like a dictionary. Teaching the Dharma means relating your personal experience.

I want to come back to this in a few minutes, because I’ve struggled with this myself and I think it’s relevant to all of us, not just dharma teachers.

Not saying that you’re enlightened is a very particular aspect of the precept about not speaking falsehood.  There’s an absolute view of this precept as well that says that any use of language is speaking falsehood.  After all, the word isn’t the thing; the word fire**  won’t burn anything.  There’s also the old problem of words creating duality.  As soon as we say “emptiness,” we imply there’s something that’s outside of emptiness, reality or the Buddha Way.  That’s why we have stories about teachers remaining silent when asked a question.  Bodhidharma said that whatever you say is falsehood—so don’t speak.  Don’t say anything, because nothing can truthfully be said about reality.

Dogen brings both of these perspectives together.  He says yes, language is a problem, but we need to use it in our daily lives, and also, in an absolute sense all language is false.  So, we’re stuck.  What do we do now?  Dogen turns the whole thing inside out and says that even in our falsehood, we can’t help but express reality.  The reality is that I’m using language and it’s false.  The reality is that someone is telling a lie for his own benefit.  The reality is that someone is trying to deceive others.  We’re all expressing the reality of ourselves and our delusion, which may be an intent to mislead or do harm, or not.  

Even telling falsehood reveals reality.  We can step back and step back, but we can’t step out of reality.  In that sense, veracity or truth-telling is always happening, and false speech is an expression of the dharma.  

Okumura Roshi says: Within reality, there is the fact that human beings are telling lies. It’s a part of reality, the turning of the dharma wheel.  Still, we don’t see that reality, so we think we can tell a lie and deceive others.  Sometimes we even say that we can deceive ourselves, but actually we can’t deceive others or deceive ourselves.  We can’t deceive reality or the dharma wheel.  If we really see that we can’t tell a lie even though we are telling a lie, we are showing our reality.  There’s no place to escape, and no place to hide ourselves.  When we really awaken to that reality, there’s no way to tell a lie.

Thus there are three dimensions to this one precept about not telling a lie.  In our daily lives, we need to make choices; we try not to tell lies and instead to speak truth.  From the absolute point of view, whatever we say is false.  Finally, when we let go of our small self, whatever we see and whatever we say is reality or truth.  These three aspects together make a dynamic whole.

Now I want to go back to Sawaki Roshi and his quote about about dharma teaching:  
Those who speak of Dharma without ever having experienced it are like parrots. They quote words and expressions of others, just like a dictionary. Teaching the Dharma means relating your personal experience.

Some of us practicing at Sanshin are preparing to be dharma teachers, but all of us are expressing our own practice because we can’t help it.  One of my peers once called me a dharma technician -- and it wasn’t a complement.  She felt that I wasn’t self-revelatory enough in my dharma teaching.  For instance, I have an academic writing style, concerned mainly with Sanshin’s functioning and the processes of practice.  I'm trained as a journalist, and we don't insert our opinions into our reporting.  ​She said, “I know you have strong feelings about the dharma, but we don’t see that.”

I let that percolate.  When you get feedback like that, you need to see if there’s something there to investigate.  My initial response was: I don’t see the problem.  I don’t know that I do have strong feelings about the dharma.  I have strong feelings about how we should practice, but who cares what I think about the dharma?  Dharma doesn’t care!  Dharma is the dharma.

Our expressions of the dharma are always true and complete because they can’t come from anything but our own lives.  One one hand, Sawaki Roshi is so right when he says we can’t just parrot our teachers’ words.  I wrote a handbook for shusos (1) that includes help and suggestions for writing and giving talks, since by nature many shusos are inexperienced with these things.  It makes the point that you have to use your own voice and talk about your own understanding rather than just stringing a bunch of quotes together.  I’ve heard far too many dharma talks that amount to book reports: I found this book on [something] and it says . . .  OK, tell us what you read, but tell us why we should care.  Bring something new and original to the discussion.  Shusos are sometimes afraid of me because they know that following the talk I may ask, “Why is all this important for you or us?  What's your take on this topic?"

I do sometimes quote my direct ancestors because they are the source of our style of practice, and I want to know what they have to say on a topic and to share that with the sangha.  Rather than just filling space in the talk, including them in the conversation brings their words alive for us.  I’m expressing my own practice by sharing what our ancestors had to say.  This is how I study, and that makes the expression true and complete in this moment.  In that way, it’s impossible for my dharma teaching not to be a true expression of my personal experience no matter what I say -- and yet, it’s a lie because I’m using words.

This is true also for practitioners who don’t teach formally.  Maybe we can’t really explain to others what our practice is about, but how can your life not be a true and complete expression of your practice?  We all hear the shuso acknowledge this every June at the end of the hossenshiki when he or she lowers the head and says, "Please forgive my mistakes; they fill heaven and earth, leaving me no place to hide."

We’ve talked about veracity related to language, but of course we can lie with actions as well as with words.  Depending on motivation, we can look completely sincere on the outside and really be doing things for our own profit, including our practice.  We can turn our practice into a lie.

Kodo Sawaki wrote this :
Depending whether we believe in religion for personal profit or let go of this gaining mind for the sake of faith, the meaning of our practice changes completely.  The former is a heretic who exploits God or Buddha, while the latter is a truly religious person.  When someone prostrates before God or Buddha and prays devoutly, it’s impossible to tell from the outside whether his faith is true or false.  It depends whether we’re seeking benefit for ourselves, others or Buddha.  Even a holy person respected by many could be driven by a subtly selfish motive.

Attitude and motivation are everything.  We’re going for transparency so that what we’re transmitting is our most authentic self. the self before the delusion of separation and subject and object come into it.  Because of interdependence and interpenetration, what we do colors the entire universe.  Okumura Roshi said in Living by Vow that when we’re angry the whole universe is anger; when we’re happy the whole universe is happy, etc.  Thus it follows that if the entire universe is supporting our being, and if we’re perpetuating falsehood, then we turn all the things that support us into engines for breaking the fourth precept.  We can use our karmic conditions for veracity or for lies.  We can use them to create wholesomeness in the world or unwholesomeness.

Sawaki Roshi again:
If our attitude is false and then all those who have fed us and taught us, all those we have met and known, have acted solely in order to produce that falseness. If our attitude is right, whatever they have done they did solely in order to produce that rightness. The limits of the Self are truly beyond any imagining, and fill the sky, earth, and the whole universe.

This gate about truthtelling becomes even more important when we see that it affects so much more than just us, and even more than the people we may intend to deceive.  The whole universe becomes veracity or falsehood in this moment depending on what we choose to do.

Notes
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(1) The shuso is the head novice during an ango, or practice period.  Serving in this role is an opportunity for leadership development on the way to becoming an authorized dharma teacher.  At Sanshin, among other things the shuso is asked to prepare and deliver about eight Sunday dharma talks.

Humility is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] eternal malevolence vanishes.
羞恥是法明門、外惡滅故.

As usual, let’s look first at humility and then at the relationship with eternal malevolence.  To understand humility, we need to understand the teachings about no-self.  Emptiness in our tradition means that all conditioned things are empty of a permanent self-nature.  That’s because everything comes into being because of causes and conditions.  There has to be a cause for something to arise and the conditions have to be favorable.  If we try to plant a seed on a rock, it won’t grow; the cause is there, but the conditions are wrong.  If we put a container of fertile soil in the sunshine and water it but it doesn’t contain any seeds, then again, nothing will grow.  The conditions are good, but there’s no cause.

Causes and conditions are changing all the time, so the things that arise from causes and conditions are also changing all the time.  This is the teaching of impermanence.  However, interconnection is important here too, because nothing arises from nothing.  Nothing can exist on its own by itself; everything is connected to other things and dependent on other things.

All of this is certainly true of the self.  The self is changing all the time. We aren’t the same people we used to be before we learned the things we know now, before our bodies grew and aged, or before we had our various experiences and memories.  

The self is also dependent on causes and conditions,  It’s said to be made up of a heap of aggregates or skandhas: form, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness.  These things come together for some period of time and we can provisionally point to something called the self, but there’s no permanent element there that will always be “me.” 

The Christian tradition says humility means our worthlessness or imperfection before God, and the need to admit our entire dependence on Him.  The Zen teaching about humility is a little different.  As we saw last week, our practice will always be incomplete because of the nature of bodhisattva vows.  This is why we also need repentence, the recognition that we’ll never reach the end of our practice.  However, this isn’t worthlessness, and we still make effort.  Dependence, however, is important.  Our tradition includes the teachings of dependent arising, that we are indeed dependent on the universe for everything and can’t exist alone.  Humility is about putting aside self-importance and arrogance in favor of modesty and the ability to look outward to others.

It’s important to know what humility is not.  In Soto Zen, humility is not the same as humiliation or low self esteem.  If we really feel unworthy or have self-esteem issues, those are ideas about the self too that need to be examined.  The idea that we’re special in any way—especially slow, especially deluded, or especially anything— goes against the grain of our practice.  Teachings about not being special don’t mean we aren’t distinct from each other and don’t have individual qualities.  Everyone has them, and everyone is better or worse at something.  However, to decide that I’m especially unworthy is an idea about the self which is just as deluded as arrogance and pride.

When I was training in Japan and was expected to do my job just as well as everyone else, I took it as encouragement.  I wasn’t special because I was a Western female who had just arrived there.  The message was that my superiors saw no reason why I didn’t have the ability to do things properly, and I got to give up my idea of self.

Humility is not about being a martyr.  Ideas like “I’m a good or strong person because I deny myself the things I need” are ego trips because martyrdom is based on an idea of self.  Humility is not about being servile.  Maybe you’ve encountered a practitioner who is overly obsequious with Zen teachers.  Respect is fine, but ostentatious displays are just ego trips.  Humility is not false modesty.  The person who constantly refers to herself and her activities as humble, unworthy or undeserving is pointing to her own humility so that other people will be impressed.  If you have to point out your humility so others will notice, you’ve missed the mark somewhere.  There’s nothing made-up or put-on about genuine humility.  It arises genuinely and sincerely when we understand the nature of self.  If we’re trying to demonstrate how humble we are, we’ve certainly not put aside our self-importance.  In real humility, we give up ideas about self and ideas about humility; otherwise, we become conceited about not being conceited!  Modest deportment happens naturally.  It’s a reflection of our understanding about our relationship to the universe and all beings.  It’s not necessary to put ourselves forward in ways that shore up our ego.

There are several places in our tradition to which we can turn to help us work with humility.  There’s the precept about not praising self and blaming others; on a day to day basis we can see why this is important in maintaining good relationships.  What we do affects others, so reducing egocentrism makes it easier to get along.  Humility fosters harmony.  We can also see how this precept helps our practice of seeing beyond the demands of the small self.  However, there’s also the absolute version of it, and that’s about non-separation:

Buddhas and ancestors attain realization with the whole sky and the great earth. When the great body is manifested, there is no inside and outside in the sky. When the dharma body is manifested, there is no inch of ground on the earth.  --  Dogen Zenji's Kyōjukaimon

Within the non-discriminating dharma, not distinguishing oneself from others is called the precept of not praising oneself nor slandering others. -- Bodhidharma’s Comments on the One-Mind Precepts

If I understand that you and I are not separate, then I have no need to build myself up at your expense; the need for jealousy, arrogance and pride doesn’t arise.  As soon as there’s something I can get from you, I’ve created separation, and that gap is the space for craving and aversion to come up.  

Pride is a big obstacle to humility.  This isn't the feeling of being proud of your kids when they get good grades, or pleased when you’ve achieved something for which you’ve been working hard.  It’s the pride that goes with an outsized ego, when all the space is taken up with self and ego so that there’s no room for anything or anyone else, even dharma teachings.  Interestingly, the near companion of pride is usually insecurity.  Puffing myself up is my attempt to keep you (or myself) from seeing how unworthy or incapable I really am.  It’s also connected with anger and ill-will because I feel threatened.

So now we should take a look at this phrase “eternal malevolence vanishes.”  Malevolence is bearing ill will, but this is about more than just wishing ill on someone.  There are two important sets of kanji here: 滅ぼす (horobosu), which means to overthrow, destroy, wreck or ruin, and 悪事 (akuji), doing an evil deed.  Cultivating humility overthrows our impulse to perpetuate suffering by engaging in evil acts.  Aku here immediately makes me think of Shobogenzo Shoaku Makusa, or Not Doing Evil; shoaku contains the same aku.  Dogen says that when we avoid evil actions based on our understanding of reality, that’s awakening.  It’s not something we’re doing for ourselves and it’s not something we’re doing on our own.  However, because of beginningless greed, anger and ignorance, the reality of our Buddha nature gets covered up by our unwholesome actions.

Another way to think about this gate statement, then, is that deeply understanding the nature of self means that arrogance, pride and anger don’t arise, and that allows awakening or buddhanature to manifest.  We don’t harbor ill will towards others or feel compelled to commit unwholesome actions against them, and that circumstance is itself nirvana.

In the Dhammapada, Buddha says we need to give up anger and pride; they’re based on craving and aversion, which are the basis of suffering.  We gain some liberation when we see these things and let go of them.  Understanding no-self, emptiness and non-separation will naturally dissolve pride, which we need to do in order to manifest awakening, and in manifesting awakening we naturally dissolve pride.  Humility, like all virtues, is both the cause and result of practice, and Dogen says practice and awakening are not two.

In place of pride we can cultivate gentleness, modesty, patience, tolerance, and love.  We just have to be careful not to fall into thinking that by cultivating humility we’re especially good practitioners, or we’re right back where we started.  We have to keep letting go of our desire to show off; otherwise we set up a hindrance with our own practice.

So while we’re engaged in the long term practice of cultivating wisdom, what can we watch out for on a day to day basis?  We can watch our motivation for our actions.  Habituated thinking is strong.  We’ve developed these habits because they seem to work in protecting the self.  We can ask ourselves, Am I doing this in order to impress people or because I want to show someone else up?  Instead, can I show genuine interest and sympathetic joy for others without trying to create a particular self-image?

We can also continue to be as honest as possible with ourselves about our own strengths and weaknesses.  There are things we can do well and things that others can do better.  This human body is frail and there are things we could do more easily when we were younger, or, there are things we will be better able to do when we’re more mature.

We can continue to practice putting aside the small self, doing forms as instructed or following the schedule rather than doing as we want.  Every time we’re tempted to say to ourselves, everyone else is doing this or that, but it doesn’t apply to me, we can ask, are you sure?  What’s the yardstick that determines that?

We can look beyond our immediate goals that may be tied up with self-centeredness.  When caught up in need for praise, it’s hard to see what’s really happening and easy to miss what others are experiencing.  We may miss opportunities to do something else that's more effective.

In addition to moving away from the individual self, how about moving away from anthropocentrism?  Reality includes more than human beings; we’re not the only valuable element, but we can forget that.  Not only can we do harm that way by disregarding the lives of other beings, but we’re ignoring a large part of universe.  All sentient and insentient beings are preaching the dharma.

We can learn thusness from everything we encounter.  There is no time or place where thusness is not available to us.  Uchiyana Roshi says we can learn about humility from flowers:
The flowers blooming in the field do not feel with pride that they should win first prize in a beauty contest; they do not feel that they are in competition with other flowers.  The violet does not develop an inferiority complex, thinking “The roses are big and beautiful, but a little violet like me is useless.  It doesn’t say with greed and impatience, “I’ve got to become more efficient."  It simply manifests its own life force with all its might.

The point is that looking outward can help us cultivate humility by reminding us that there’s something beyond our ideas.  We don’t know it all, and simple things around us can show us the dharma if we pay attention.  How we handle everyday objects is a lesson in humility.  When doing formal meals, we handle oryoki with care.  When ringing a bell, handling a sutra book, or caring for a zafu, we do it all with attention.  We can do that with anything we’re using.  The arrogant point of view is that this thing is here to serve me and it only has value as long as it fulfills that function.  If not, I throw it out or disregard it.  It doesn’t matter how I treat it, because it’s subservient to me.  The humble point of view is that we’re partnering to achieve a task, and there’s no reason not to show this thing some respect.  Dogen says we should put things in the right place, high or low.  It helps us to see the wider world.

We have to realize that we are in a dance with the rest of the universe, turning things and being turned by them.  We’re functioning together with everything else.  Humility says my small self is no more or less important than yours.  You can’t function without me, but I also can’t function without you

There is a famous section of Shobogenzo Zenki:
Life is just like sailing in a boat. You raise the sails and you steer.  Although you maneuver the sail and the pole, the boat carries you, and without the boat you couldn’t sail. But you sail the boat, and your sailing makes the boat what it is. Investigate a moment such as this.  At just such a moment, there is nothing but the world of the boat.

We look at a boat and think a human being made it to serve a purpose for people and the world of people is the only important thing—or even that the world of people is the only world there is.  Dōgen says the boat has a world too, not to mention the universe of completely interconnected functioning.  Humility lets us see that our point of view isn’t the only one or necessarily the most effective one for preventing unwholesome action.  In that moment, we can put aside self-importance without negating ourselves.  We can accept that our practice will always be incomplete.  We can accept that we are completely dependent on causes and conditions.  We can accept that we are supported by the entire universe and don’t exist on our own, and we do that without injuring our self-esteem in any way.  We can have humility and still be mentally and spiritually healthy.