Feeling as an abode of mindfulness is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we detach from all miscellaneous feelings. 
心念處是法明門、觀心如幻化故。

We continue our exploration of the four foundations of mindfulness with feeling.  This isn’t feelings as in emotion; it’s sensation.  Emotions are more complicated and happen farther down the chain.  Feeling is our response to physical or mental stimuli.  We decide that a sensation or experience is pleasant or unpleasant, and then we take some action to get more or run away.  It’s our simplest response to sensation or experience.

The sense of today’s gate statement is that when we pay attention to feeling, we perceive that feeling is illusory.  We come to understand how feeling arises and how we get seduced or enchanted by it.  Our view of the world is based on the feeling we’ve created and our interpretation of whether things are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, rather than on the reality of this moment.  

Feeling or vedana shows up in all kinds of lists and processes in the Buddhist tradition.  It’s the second of the four foundations and also second skandha, among other lists.  Contact of a sense organ with a sense-object is the condition for feeling, and feeling is the condition of craving and aversion.  In other words, there has to be sense-contact before there can be feeling, and there has to be feeling before there can be craving.

Remember that in Buddhism there are six sense organs, and the sixth is mind.  When we have mental sensations, we decide whether we like them or not, just like we do for physical sensations.  Feeling is one of the most basic elements in human life and experience.  It’s near the beginning of the twelve-fold chain of dependent origination, the beginning of five skandhas clinging to five skandhas, and the condition or basis for the three poisons that lead to all the other kinds of suffering and delusion.

Pleasant sensations are associated with greed, unpleasant sensations with aversion, and neutral sensations with ignorance.  We can get hijacked almost immediately when we have some sensation and react based on habituated thinking.  Because of our conditioning, we can react without attention or intention, and our subsequent actions can be happening somewhere that’s a world away from the reality of this moment.  If I hear some bad news, my immediate feeling is I don’t like this!  I may act as though the news is worse than it is, or as though I didn’t hear it, or as though the information is wrong—all based on my habits and conditioning.  That decision happens very quickly and usually without the benefit of discernment or clarity.  What’s important is the feeling-tone that arises when my senses come in contact with an object, and whether or not I’m aware of what’s happening.

In a way, being driven by feeling, or not being mindful of how feeling arises and where it goes, is living in the animal realm of samsara.  You’ll recal that there are six realms in samsara: gods, humans, demi-gods, hungry ghosts, animals and hell.  Traditionally, one was literally reborn in one of these realms depending on your karma.  We can also see these six realms as six states or conditions through which we transmigrate in this life moment by moment.  

Being led around by impulse or instinct is characteristic of the animal realm.  Sometimes beings in this realm are seen as stupid and servile, unable to reason or use logic or reflect on their condition.  They prey on each other, and they’re used for food or labor.  When we’re caught up in sensation and feeling, we’re not thinking clearly and we’re not remembering the dharma and what Buddha taught.  We’re using only a very early part of our brains.  However, one reason that the human realm is considered higher than the animal realm is that we have the capacity to practice.  Unlike animals we are in a position to work with this gate and be mindful of feeling.

Early Buddhists taught that we should understand all feeling as painful because even pleasant sensations are temporary and seductive, and craving and aversion that arise from feeling are the basis of suffering.  In this human form, turning off the senses and the feeling that arises from sense contact isn’t really possible.  We can see why the Buddha said that life is characterized by sufrering.  Since we have physical bodies, we can’t avoid the constant chain of sensation, feeling, thinking, emotions, and writing the story.  No wonder early practitioners wanted to leap off the wheel of rebirth and to go a place where this process of arising doesn’t keep happening.

For us, all this doesn’t mean that it’s not OK to like chocolate cake better than parsnips.  It doesn’t mean that appreciating beauty or having loving relationships isn’t OK.  It doesn’t mean that all experiences should be neutral and bland.  The question is: are we being led astray by these split-second decisions about pleasant and unpleasant?  Can we enjoy and appreciate pleasant sensations and then let them go, without attachment?  Can we encounter unpleasant sensations without running from them or ignoring them or pushing them away, or is our clear vision of reality being clouded by our feeling response to sensation and the impulse to judge and label?  Instead, can we see that feeling is empty of a fixed self-nature just like all the skandhas?  Then we really know that feeling is unstable and impermanent and perhaps clinging to feeling is not so helpful.

So how do we live in midst of the karmic conditions of being human and yet not get swept away by the feeling-tone of our experiences?  There’s a difference between simply experiencing pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations and having opinions about them.  Uchiyama Roshi has a lot to say about this, including:

The most important point is to put all things, both happiness and unhappiness, enlightenment and delusion, on the same ground.  We should think of how we can live on that ground.  However, people today pursue happiness and try to escape from unhappiness, seek after enlightenment and try to eliminate delusion.  Since they think of life from such a point of view, their life goes off the mark.  We should live out the self that is only the self, in whatever situation we face. (1)  

To live out the self that is only the self is to see clearly what’s arising and take the most skillful action we can.  He says a big part of that is letting go of fixed narrow ideas about who we are, and we need to know that the true self is not an abstract thing make of sensation and feeling and thought.  He gives several examples, like not clinging to a feeling of frustration when we have to cook for the group and won’t be able to sit with everyone else, or getting upset because we’ve been asked to clean the toilet rather than the teacher’s room, where no one will see the good work we’re doing.

Uchiyama Roshi frequently said that all of our ideas and thoughts are just the secretions of our brains.  The function of the brain is to make thought, so that’s not a bad thing; we just need to not get trapped by our habits.  He says:  You might try looking at all the stuff that comes up in your head simply as secretions.  All our thoughts and feelings are a kind of secretion.  It’s important for us to see that clearly.  I’ve always got things coming up in my head, but if I tried to act on everything that came up, it would just wear me out. (2)  

Immediately we have sensations as a part of these activities that we judge pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.  Maybe they’re physical sensations: it’s hard work being a tenzo, being on your feet cooking all day.  It’s not so pleasant crawling around the toilet stalls scrubbing them out.  Maybe those sensations are mental: I don’t want to be in the kitchen while everyone else is in the zendo with the teacher.  I don’t want to be cleaning toilets when someone else gets the lighter weight job of vacuuming the tatami or dusting the altar.  There’s a reason that during the ango the shuso or head student is assigned to clean the bathrooms, and the tenzo is frequently in charge of taking out the trash.  It’s a reminder to people in higher-status roles that we need to put happiness and unhappiness on the same ground, and then actually live on that ground, as Uchiyama Roshi says.

He keeps pointing out that living based on feeling, or on chasing and avoiding, is living in a way that’s one step removed from actual reality.  There’s this actual moment, and then there’s the separation we create with deciding about pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.  Again, we can fully experience sensations in this moment as pleasant or not, but we do that without having an opinion about it, particularly “What does this mean for me?”  As soon as there is something we call pleasant, there is also something we call unpleasant or neutral.  We can experience something without giving it a label; as soon as we have a label, we have chasing and avoiding and suffering.

Uchiyama Roshi ties this quite directly to his big question: how do we balance peace and progress?  How do we take action in the world to carry out our vows and responsibilities and also not lose our equanimity and stillness and peace of mind?  He says:  Without being tossed about by personal feelings and ideas, just returning to the life of my true self, without envying or being arrogant toward those around me, neither being self-deprecating nor competing with others, yet on the other hand not falling into the trap of laziness, negligence or carelessness—just manifesting that life of my self with all the vigor I have—here is where the glory of life comes forth and where the life of Buddha shines. (3)

In fact, we can see this in his famous phrase, opening the hand of thought.  The word for thought can also include feeling, desire and judgement.  When we open the hand, we let go of all of that, all the way back to feeling that arises when we experience some sensation.  To live that way is to encounter everything without an agenda based on being a separate being.  The universal self isn’t the one deciding what’s pleasant, unpleasant or  neutral.  That’s the experience of being in this human form, but it’s not the whole story or the only possibility.

Let’s go back to the Dogen discourse from the Eihei Koroku I introduced at the last gate.  You’ll recall that because it includes all four of the foundations of mindfulness, we need to look at it again at each of these four gates.

Our Buddha (Shakyamuni) said to his disciples, there are four foundations of mindfulness on which people should depend.  These four foundations of mindfulness refer to contemplating the body as impure, contemplating sensation as suffering, contemplating mind as impermanent and contemplating phenomena as non-substantial.

I, Eihei, also have four foundations of mindfulness: contemplating the body as a skin-bag, contemplating sensation as eating bowls, contemplating mind as fences, walls, tiles and pebbles, and contemplating phenomena as old man Zhang drinking wine, old man Li getting drunk.

​Great assembly, are my four foundations of mindfulness the same or different from the ancient Buddha’s four foundations of mindfulness?  If you say they are the same, your eyebrows will fall out (from lying).  If you say they are different, you will lose your body and life. (4)

This time it’s Buddha saying we should contemplate sensation as suffering and Dogen saying we should contemplate sensation as eating bowls.  At the last gate I said that my impression is that Dogen is taking the original teachings on the four foundations that describe them with adjectives and providing concrete examples of things we encounter.  At the beginning of this essay I said that early Buddhists taught that we should understand all feeling as painful because even pleasant sensations are temporary and seductive, and craving and aversion that arise from feeling are the basis of suffering.  Dogen makes reference to that here—contemplating sensations as suffering—but his view is that rather than labeling sensations as anything (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, suffering) we can just experience what arises from our senses without deciding anything about them.

When we eat, there are myriad sensations coming in from all our sense gates.  Physcially we’re seeing food, smelling food, tasting food.  Mentally we’re remembering the last time we had this dish and comparing whether it’s as good as the previous meal.  What if we just experience the food without deciding anything about it?  In one way, what Buddha and Dogen are saying isn’t different.  They agree that feeling or sensation is the condition for craving and aversion and suffering.  However, Dogen suggests that maybe this chain of unfolding isn’t inevitable and that we’re not necessarily held captive by our human form.  Rather than disengaging from the senses in order to avoid feeling and eventually suffering, we can fully experience what’s happening, see it clearly and not get completely swept away.

In another of his writings, the Tenzo Kyokun or Instructions for the Cook, Dogen says we should use the ingredients we have without making judgements about quality or quantity.  Ed Brown wrote about this in forward to the translation of the Eihei Shingi by Okumura Roshi and Taigen Leighton.  Ed Brown is a longtime tenzo within the San Francisco Zen Center complex; you may have seen his many books on Zen cooking.

In writing about this part of the Tenzo Kyokun, he says:  Work with what you have to work with.  This is basic and most profound.  We cannot control what cones our way, so we find out how to work with what comes: ingredients, body, mind, feelings, thoughts, time, place, season, flavors, tastes.  This is counter to blaming one’s parents, one’s upbringing, society, others.  This is no longer concieving of oneself as a victim (Why me?  Why this?) or omnipotent ruler (Get it together.  Grow up.).  This is contrary to our cultural norm, which asks, “How do I get rid of anger (sorrow, grief, jealousy) without actually having to relate to it?”  To actually relate with thingsw, to move things and be moved by things, is the heart of intimacy, the way of growing in wisdom and compassion, peace and fulfillment. (5)

In this human form, there will be feeling that arises from sense contact; we cannot control what comes our way, so we find a way to work with what comes.  That means seeing clearly what’s arising and how, without blaming others or having an idea about what that makes me: a victim or a failure or a winner or a loser.  

This question about how to get rid of unpleasant sensations without really having to relate to them is interesting, isn’t it?  We don’t want to inquire into that feeling, or explore it; we just want to label it and get rid of it.  Yet if we’re not acknowledging feeling, we’re not completely living our lives.  Suppressing, ignoring or pushing away any aspect of our experience means we’re not fully alive.  As bodhisattvas, we don’t get the choice to live only the parts of our lives that we like.  We have to see and acknowledge all suffering, the suffering in this body and in the bodies of others.

Uchiyama Roshi reminds us that when we chase after the things our feeling dimenstion decides are pleasant sensations, we think we’re looking for happiness, but we don’t really know what happiness is.

Happiness is nothing more than what we feel when we have joy or pleasure in our mind.  What we call happiness is merely the condition in which our desire for self-satisfaction is fulfilled.  This is the root of our confusion: what do we human beings live for? 
. . . Human beings these days can be motivated only if we convince them that something will improve their standard of living and will fulfill their desire for self-satisfaction.  Nevertheless, happiness, a better standard of living or a prosperous society are concepts, just secretions of the brain.  We are living upside down if we find the meaning of our lives solely in fulfilling desires that are based only on secretions.  See thoughts just as thoughts.  See secretion simply as secretion, neither more nor less than that.  See everything as the reality of life just as it is. (6)

It’s important and interesting to consider that what seems like a pleasant or unpleasant sensation for one person or being is the opposite for another.  It’s easy to assume that we all experience suffering the same way, or that we all experience the same kind of suffering, but conditions that I think are the end of the world might make you very happy.  Let’s just say: we see this every four years at a national level.  However. this happens all the time in other ways.  Your friend tries to solve a problem that you don’t think is a problem, and you’re afraid the solution will actually make your life worse.  Someone you know lives in a way you find problemmatic, but she says this it’s a lifestyle choice and she’s just fine.  Your coworkers want you to join the union at your workplace, but your perception is that you can make better career progress on your own.  In all of these cases, well-meaning people are trying to ameliorate suffering, but others don’t agree on the nature of that suffering.  What’s an unpleasant senation for one is not for another.  We can’t assume that everyone agrees there’s a problem, let alone that everyone agrees on a solution.

When we think about caring for the earth, we quickly realize that because of interdependence, beings are in a delicate balance.  If we remove species we find unpleasant, even if we’re trying to help another species survive, we could be upsetting the balance.  How do we decide which species get to stay there?  Is it OK to base that decision on our own feeling?

Dogen’s Genjo Koan includes a famous image about flowers blooming, which we like, and weeds spreading, which we don’t like.  Even though we like flowers, they fade and even though we don’t like weeds, they grow and spread.  Uchiyama Roshi says that while we might not like weeds, farmers plow them into the ground as fertilizer.  While we might enjoy cherry blossoms every spring, dogs lie under those trees every day and don’t think anything about it.

For grasshoppers, weeds are their world.  When weeds spread they feel comfortable having a new living room.  When the frost in the desolate winter season kills the grass, the grasshoppers think that their Buddha Hall is destroyed, and they think, “This Buddha Hall is crushed and needs to be restored.”  Look at this.  Insects do not think that weeds are in the way.  For those who like it, “spreading” is not a problem. (7)

Notes:
(1) The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dogen's Bendowa, With Commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. (2011). United States: Tuttle Publishing, p.178.
(2) Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 16.
(3) Ibid. p. 97.
​(4) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications. p. 287.
(5) Dōgen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of Eihei Shingi. (1995). United States: State University of New York Press, p. xv.
​(6) Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary. (2018). United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 19.
​(7) Dogen, E., Zenji, E. D. (2011). Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries. United States: Counterpoint Press, p.38.

[52] The body as an abode of mindfulness is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] all dharmas are serene. 
受念處是法明門、斷一切受故。

This time we begin a four-part look at satipatthana, or the four foundations or arousings of mindfulness.  Each of the next four gates takes up an aspect: body, feeling, mind and dharma.

The Mahasatipatthana Sutra is a main source text for mindfulness practice in the early Buddhist tradition.  It’s about methodically cultivating the ability to pay continuous attention to our experience of whatever is happening in this moment.  It’s the continuous observation that’s important, because whatever we’re paying attention to is constantly changing; steady attention in the midst of change makes the mind concentrated and stable, and also observing qualities and characteristics whatever it is enables some insight and understanding 

Mindfulness is seeing all dharmas as they are with their true nature, before we have personal reactions and start writing stories.  This is seeing without making the distinctions that are driven by delusion, clinging and the three poisons, but it’s more than just observing external dharmas.  It’s also paying attention to what we’re doing and how we’re doing it:  remembering to practice, remembering the teachings.  Am I being skillful or not?  Am I making right effort?  Am I staying on the path?  Am I getting distracted by craving and aversion?  It supports the ongoing discernment and inquiry that we do in our moment-by-moment practice.

Mindfulness is important for seeing one reality from two sides and expressing two sides in one action.  We need to settle into that place where all dharmas are serene, where we’re not pulled around by the distractions of the body, and we also need to use this body to actively work to liberate beings from suffering.  There is both quiet and activity.

It’s easy for us to sort of ignore the body unless it’s giving us trouble.  We stand, sit, walk and lie down without paying much attention to how that happens.  Kodo Sawaki said: When we’re not sick, we forget our bodies.  When my legs were strong, I walked and ran, forgetting my feet.  Lately, because my legs are getting sick and weak, I begin to appreciate that they’re really great things.  When we’re healthy, we forget our health and just work.  When we think of a certain thing, there’s usually something wrong with it.  When our mind and its objects do not arise, there’s nothing special. (1)

Uchiyama said the same thing in his commentary on the Bendowa:
It is good for your stomach when you forget the existence of the stomach and let it function well.  Also, suppose that you have a small injury on the tip of your little finger.  The finger you usually forget will suddenly become a big problem.  The best condition for all parts of the body is that you forget the existence of the body and let each part function in accordance with necessity in each situation.  This is called nonaction.  Just the ordinary reality of life that has nothing special is best. (2)

Here we have a paradox.  Mindfulness of the body has always been an important dharma gate in the Buddhist tradition, and yet Sawaki Roshi and Uchiyama Roshi are telling us that it’s best to forget the body.

Some early Buddhist practice emphasized analysis of things as way to understand that they are impermanent or unsubstantial.  Only conditioned things like the body can be intellectually analyzed.  We can have ideas about conditioned things and describe them, but we can’t do any of that with emptiness or awakening or pure mind; we can’t understand them that way.  We can analyze the parts of the body, the sensory inputs that come in through the sense gates, and we can look carefully at the relationships between these elements in order to try to understand the body and ourselves.  However, the elements and relationships change and we can see that the body is not a fixed and permanent self,  and we can’t analyze our way to understanding emptiness.  For that, we need direct experience.

For early Buddhists, when it comes to mindfulness with the body, the practice was to pay attention to the breath—not to change it, but to simply be aware of it: when breathing in or out with a short or long breath, to be aware that one was breathing in or out with a short or long breath.  Then you were to be aware of the experience of the body when breathing in or out and short or long, and then to calm the body while breathing.  You become aware of things that arise and dissolve in the body, and finally you contemplate how the body exists and give up clinging to anything.  Then you do the same thing when sitting, standing, walking or lying down (the four postures of the body),  knowing when you’re doing these things,  seeing how the body arises and dissolves, and ceasing clinging.

Next you move on to all daily activities: eating, wearing robes, using the toilet, moving around, paying attention to those and the impermanence of the body.  Contemplating the impurity of the body in order to destroy the delusion of beauty, you envision the body as bag of skin containing a collection of bones, muscles, sinews and organs, or imagine all the various fluids created by the body.  Finally you imagine the body as a corpse and all the various ways it decays or is eaten by animals and the bones scattered around.  All this is to break the enchantment with the body.

In the early teachings, practicing mindfulness in the body led to achieving each of the four dhyanas in Sanskrit or jhanas in Pali.  These are four stages toward understanding the true nature of reality and reaching Nirvana.  They mark a shift away from outward world of the senses.  The first is detachment from the external world and becoming aware of joy and ease that pervade the body.  The second is concentration that lets go of intellectual investigation.  The third is that joy dissolves, and only the sense of ease remains.  The fourth is that ease also dissolves and leaves only equanimity.  Then there are further spiritual exercises having to do with contemplating infinity and the unreality of things, and then even letting go of that.

Buddha said that developing mindfulness in the body was a sort of first line of defense against Mara, or delusion, because it resulted in skillfulness that comes from clear knowing.  He gives a lot of examples that compare someone without mindfulness in the body to something that can’t withstand invasion.  If you throw a heavy rock into a pile of wet clay it gets in easily, while a ball of lightweight string thrown at a hard wooden door just bounces off.  If you pour water into an empty water pot it goes in easily, while if the pot is already full the additional water just spills over.

If all that isn’t enough, the Buddha said there are ten benefits to practicing mindfulness in the body

[1] going beyond displeasure and delight
[2] going beyond fear and dread
[3] enduring unpleasant bodily feelings: cold, hunger, bug bites, hurtful language, various physical pains
[4] attaining at will the four jhanas or heightened mental states
[5] having supranormal powers like appearing and disappearing, walking through walls, flying through the air
[6] hearing both human and divine sounds whether far or near
[7] being able to read minds and knowing when someone is experiencing craving / aversion, delusion / awareness, distraction / concentration
[8] remembering his previous lives and circumstances of that
[9] seeing people’s karma and the conditions of their rebirth; why they were born in various circumstances
[10] existing in pure awareness

This isn’t an approach to practice that we particularly take up at Sanshin.  In fact, Dogen had some fairly harsh words for those who try to regulate themselves with these practices.  However, he is completely in favor of knowing that a long breath is long and short breath is short.  Of course, being Dogen, it’s not as simple as that.  He also says that his teacher Tendo Nyojo taught that whether the breath is long or short, it doesn’t come from anywhere or go to anywhere, so there’s actually no distinction between long or short.

Anyway, our practice is not about withdrawing from the world but about seeing how samsara and Nirvana are not separate and learning how to be completely engaged in what’s happening without losing sight of the true nature of reality.  Yet we can certainly identify with becoming aware of physical sensation and seeing how we write the self-involved story line.  We can pay attention to how our own body is impermanent and interconnected and see how that also applies to everything else we encounter.  We’re intimate with the body as the ground of our practice, and that makes it a great dharma gate for investigating the truth of Buddha’s teachings.

Uchiyama Roshi says:  This self is not some fixed body, it’s constantly changing.  Every time we take a breath we’re changing.  Our consciousness is always changing, too.  All the chemical and physical processes in our body are also constantly changing.  And yet, everything temporarily takes a form.  This is our true self.

By paying attention to the body, we get to see firsthand how we live in the middle of both form and emptiness.  This body is real, and it’s also true that it’s just a collection of five skandhas that comes together for awhile and then dissolves.  If the body is not separate from the rest of the Buddha way, then it’s a really important part of our practice.  Also, of course, we have to pay attention to what the body is doing because it’s one of the three places where we create karma.

In Opening the Hand of Thought, Uchiyama Roshi makes the point that even though awakening is already here, we often live blindly.  We get caught up in thoughts and think they’re the only reality.  Our job as practitioners is to determine how to live in the midst of it all in a wholesome way.  He says:  The important thing is to find a sane way to live out the reality of life.  This is what a true spiritual practice is about: not spirit or mind separated from the body and the world, but a true way of life.  This is what zazen is—a practice of living out the fresh reality of life. (3)

We can see in our zazen that we take the posture and appear to be sitting completely still, but at the same time we’re breathing and blood is flowing.  We’re making micro-adjustments to the posture all the time just to stay upright.  There is form and emptiness, and there is stillness and activity.  We get to be personally aware of all of that and have that direct experience.

If we fast-forward from the early teachings in India to 13th century Japan, we see that the four foundations of mindfulness were important to Dogen.  He wrote about them in several places, and we can look at two discourses here from the Eihei Koroku.  First, number 284:

Although people in the past who left the world to become teachers said that the body and mind of ancient buddhas become attached to grasses and trees, they never said that [mindfulness of] body, sensations, mind and phenomena are the eyeballs of the ancestral teachers.  (4)

According to Dogen, early teachers said that ancient buddhas manifested concretely in the world just as grasses and trees do.   However, they never said that the four foundations of mindfulness are the very stuff of these buddhas, or that mindfulness of these four things is itself Buddha or awakening.  That’s a shift from doing body-based mindfulness practices in order to gradually achieve the goal of not clinging to the body and eventually to stop clinging to anything in the world.  Dogen says again here that practice and awareness are not separate from awakening.  We aren’t practicing in order to get a reward later.  Being mindful of the body from within the body is itself awakening or Buddha.  

Uchuyama Roshi frequently talked about the life force, which is the complete functioning of reality in this moment, and how we need to live out this true reality from within this body and mind.  That means that we recognize that there’s something more to our lives than being individuals within individual bodies.  He says:  The force that makes my heartbeat sends blood flowing through my whole body and allows me to breathe so many times per minute.  It is not something that I control or activate.  The power that performs these functions works completely beyond my thoughts,  Can we say this power is not me because it comes from beyond my thinking mind?  It is neither a “higher power” nor some “other power,” nor is it my personal “self-power.”  It is the energy of life.  

The other Dogen discourse we can look at for this is number 310:  
​
Our Buddha (Shakyamuni) said to his disciples, there are four foundations of mindfulness on which people should depend.  These four foundations of mindfulness refer to contemplating the body as impure, contemplating sensation as suffering, contemplating mind as impermanent and contemplating phenomena as non-substantial.

I, Eihei, also have four foundations of mindfulness: contemplating the body as a skin-bag, contemplating sensation as eating bowls, contemplating mind as fences, walls, tiles and pebbles, and contemplating phenomena as old man Zhang drinking wine, old man Li getting drunk.

Great assembly, are my four foundations of mindfulness the same or different from the ancient Buddha’s four foundations of mindfulness?  If you say they are the same, your eyebrows will fall out (from lying).  If you say they are the same, you will lose your body and life. (5)

Because he’s talking about all four foundations, we’ll come back to this when we talk about each of the other three.  For now, let’s look at Buddha’s contemplating the body as impure and Dogen’s contemplating the body as a skin bag.  The pattern for each of these is that Dogen takes the Buddha’s conclusion about whatever it is and replaces it with a concrete example of emptiness, if you will.  Buddha says the body is impure so that practitioners will work on letting go of attachment to it.  It’s full of nasty, smelly stuff, it gets sick and dies, and the physical sensations that arise from it set off the entire 12-fold chain.  Clinging to the body is a real hindrance to achieving Nirvana.

Dogen, however, says the body is simply a collection of bones and organs contained within our skin.  We don’t have to mortify it or ignore what’s happening with it in order to achieve a goal.  In fact, as we saw at Gate 50, he considered the sense organs and what arises from them to be instances of prajna.  The body is simply the body.  Yes, clinging to it is not helpful, but it is not in itself impure; it’s part of this one unified reality, not outside of Buddha’s way, so rather than thinking, “Ugh!  Skin bag!  Not pretty.  Corpses are unpleasant.  Yuck!” Dogen says the body is just as it is, beyond what we think about it.  When we see it through the eyes of Buddha, we don’t need to get stuck in ideas of purity and defilement.  We can just pay attention to what the body is doing and what we’re doing with the body and see impermanence and interconnection.

Recognizing the body as the ground of our practice is really important.  This gate statement says that mindfulness of the body allows us to settle down in equanimity because all dharmas are serene.  When we encounter or experience things, we recognize that information is coming in through the sense gates; we’re forming opinions and judgements about those sensations, and taking actions and creating karma based on that.  When we see clearly what’s happening with the body, we can keep from being swept away and caught up in hindrances, and that includes both attachment to the body and hatred for the body.

Body image is a big part of our identity, but it’s difficult to see the body as it is.  Things would be better if only I was thinner or better looking or my back didn’t hurt.  Or maybe, I’m good looking or healthy, so I’m better than others and need to go all out to protect my looks and health or else I’m no good.  There’s lots of craving and aversion associated with the body, but when we have a clear view of the body we can better use it to take skillful action.

Dogen said to those serving as tenzo: Rejoice in your birth into the world, where you are capable of using your body freely to offer food to the three treasures.  We pay attention to the body not to withdraw from the world but to be bodhisattvas in the world.  In order to do that, we need to see everything as ourselves.  In other words, we need to see that our bodies are not separate from anything and they function together with the entire universe.  Uchiyama Roshi says that when we really get that mind and object are one, everything we encounter in our lives functions as a part of our bodies.  So where does the body begin and end?  Mindfulness of the body means mindfulness of all dharmas.  Seeing and carrying out all of our activities as though everything was a part of our bodies is a description of samadhi.  If we can see this way, then all actions of our bodies are practice, and everything we do is both an offering and a chance to study a dharma gate.

In the training temple there are gathas or short verses for many of the daily activities of life, verses for using toilet, shaving head, brushing the teeth, etc.  The form is to name the activity, say “I vow with all beings,” then name some relevant aspiration.

Washing the face, 
I vow with all beings 
to attain the pure dharma gate
and be forever undefiled.

Brushing the teeth in the morning,
I vow with all beings,
to care for the eyeteeth
that bite through all afflictions.

These are helpful reminders to pay attention to what we’re doing with the body, to see those activities as practice and as offerings.  Doing formal meals using oryoki is another good example, but really all of our forms are about behaving with dignity and decorum, maintaining awareness of what we’re doing and the effect of that on others.  It’s how we maintain harmony in the sangha.

Dogen wrote a book on forms and regulations in the training temple because these things are important dharma gates.  Being in a training temple is about paying attention with body and mind and practicing through the daily tasks of living.  It’s about not getting lost in thoughts and forgetting the real stuff of our lives.  Of course, we can do that wherever we are.  There’s always an opportunity to practice serenity and equanimity through paying attention to the body.  It’s a chance not only to have a personal experience of settling down in this moment, but also to bring peace to others by being aware of what’s coming in through the body and of the action of our bodies in the world.

Notes
​(1) Uchiyama Roshi, K. (2014). Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo. United States: Wisdom Publications, p.165.
​(2) The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dogen's Bendowa, With Commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. (2011). United States: Tuttle Publishing, p.191.
​(3) Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 39.
​(4) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications. p. 270.  
​(5) Dogen's Extensive Record, p 287.

[51] Realization of nonappearance is a gate of Dharma illumination; for[with it] we experience the truth of cessation.
無生忍是法明門、證滅諦故。

This “realization of non-appearance” is a very old teaching.  The Sanskrit word is anutpattika-dharmaksanti, the  recognition and acceptance that nothing really arises or perishes, which is another way to say that all conditioned phenomena are empty.  In later texts we encounter this as teachings about life-and-death or birth-and-death, arising and perishing or coming and going, or appearing and disappearing.  It shows up in early texts like the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, a huge description of stages of the Yogācāra path to Buddhahood.  According to that text, this recognition of non-appearance is realized by bodhisattvas at the eighth stage.

Nagarjuna talks about this too in his Mahaprajnaparamita Shastra.  In that text, someone asks how a bodhisattva can possibly consider all beings to be equal when they’re so obviously different.  A cow has cow-nature and a horse has horse-nature, and those two things can’t be switched.  The same is true for good people and evil people; they have good natures or evil natures and those aren’t the same.  Isn’t it a mistake for the bodhisattva to consider all of these beings the same?

The answer is: yes, that would be a mistake if indeed there was such a thing as a fixed cow-nature or evil nature,  but for the bodhisattva there is no distinction to be made between identity and difference, or difference and sameness.  Then the text offers a verse:
Non-arisen, non-destroyed, unceasing, non-eternal,
Neither identical nor different, without coming or going,
Dharmas resulting from causes escape from all vain wordiness
The Buddha is able to define them; I pay homage to him.

Conditioned things don’t arise or perish, they’re not permanent or impermanent, not different or the same and don’t come and go.  Because they’re empty, they can’t be described accurately in words, but Buddha can see and understand what’s happening there.  The point is: the conditioned things we encounter are empty of any permanent self-nature and therefore cannot come and go.  We can’t put boundaries around them and describe them because there’s no place where we can say this thing ends and another one begins.  If things are not actually separate from each other, then how can we isolate one thing and say that now just that thing is arising or perishing, as distinct from anything else?

Another early text, the Prajnaparamita Shastra, shows how the bodhisattva even accepts that his or her body is non-existent.  That’s not easy to do; we live in this body and it’s pretty hard to give up our idea that we are this body.  If the body does not arise nor cease, then where does that leave us?  It feels like annihilation.

According to this text, when we accept the non-arising of the individual, personal body, there is only the dharmakaya, the dharma body of Buddha which is the same as Nirvana.  Within the dharmakaya there are no pairs of opposites.  There can’t be one side without the other, and yet we can’t distinguish between the sides.  At what point does dark stop being dark and become light?  At what point does young stop being young and become old?  At what point does living become dying?

The gate statement talks about accepting non-arising, but it’s implying that we also accept non-perishing since these two things aren’t separate.  Accepting one part of a pair of opposites means accepting the other as well, so if we accept birth or life or arising, we also accept death.

Uchiyama Roshi says: As long as we think we were born, we will die. Grasped by thoughts, people usually think only of living and put a lid on dying in order not to see it; they don’t understand true life. When we uncover the lid and see that life includes death, we can see true life clearly. As the reality of life, we are born and die within the total, interpenetrating self that has no birth and death. This is mahā—great, boundless vastness. (1)

In Japanese Buddhism, there is the term shoji 生死, or life-and-death.  There are several kinds of life-and-death in the Buddhist tradition.  One is the process of being born, growing older, becoming sick and dying.  This kind of life-and-death is an abbreviation for what Siddhartha Gautama discovered when he left the palace four times and learned about the four kinds of suffering, or dukkha.  

There is also life-and-death seen as one long period of time between our birth and our death.  This is life-and-death seen as moment-by-moment activity: this body and mind are being born and dying (or arising and perishing) moment after moment.  

There is also the day to day life of ordinary people who are transmigrating through the six realms of samsara because they’re pulled by their karma, in contrast to the life of the bodhisattva who is being led by vow rather than pulled by karma and is living in the world of samsara in order to save beings.  In other words, bodhisattvas aren’t living life after life because of their delusion and three poisonous minds but because of their work to liberate others.

Dogen’s teaching is that life and death in samsara is the life of Buddha, not different from nirvana.  He’s talking about arising and perishing before separation into samsara and nirvana.  In Shobogenzo Zenki he says:  Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth-and-death to be avoided, there is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth-and-death.

In order to understand his teaching on arising and non-arising, we have to understand his view of time.  It’s really a complex topic and I’m just going to say a few things about it here.  Something arises and seems to exist for some period of time and then perishes, but Dogen says that each thing exists in its dharma position at this moment; it has its own past and future, but each of those moments is independent.  

It isn’t that there is linear time in which a thing appears, grows, changes and disappears.  In this moment it’s in its dharma position, and there is some continuation that means that the thing functions like itself.  A dog doesn’t become a tree or something else in the next moment, but the position of puppy and adult dog and elderly dog are independent of each other.  The power of puppy is to negate puppy and become dog; that’s its function, and yet that puppy or dog is empty and has no fixed self.

It’s not so easy to understand, but this is how arising and non-arising works.  We have karmic influences that influence this moment, but this moment is new, fresh and independent.  The past is gone; we can’t take action there.  The future isn’t here yet; we can’t take action there either.  In Shobogenzo Shoji, Dogen says: It is a mistake to think that life turns into death.  Life is a position at one time with its own before and after.  Consequently, in the buddha dharma, it is said that life is itself no-arising.  Death is a position at one time with its own before and after.  Consequently, it is said that death is itself no-perishing.  In life there is nothing other than life.  In death, there is nothing other than death.  Therefore, when life comes, just life.  When death comes, just die.  Neither avoid them nor desire them.

Right there is exactly what this gate statement is talking about.  Realization of nonappearance is a gate of Dharma illumination; for[with it] we experience the truth of cessation.  According to early Buddhist teachings,  Buddha saw that the only way to the cessation of suffering was the cessation of rebirth.  In the world of desire, our craving and aversion intersect with impermanence to keep us tied to the wheel of samsara, but even if we manage to loosen those bonds and move to another of the six realms that we might like better, the very fact of our existence means can’t leave suffering behind.  This is the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: existence is characterized by suffering.

According to these teachings, arising or life brings suffering with it.  If beings don’t appear or arise, then suffering ceases.  We can see now how Dogen interpreted this.  Non-arising and cessation of suffering isn’t about leaping free of wheel of samsara and going somewhere else or not existing at all.  It’s about understanding that non-arising is the reality of our moment-by-moment life experience.  In that way, Nirvana, or cessation, is right here in midst of it all.  From a place of awakening, we see that non-arising has already been accomplished right here.  Because things are empty of a permanent self-nature, they don’t arise as independent items we can label and distinguish.  Their dharma position has a before and after, but those are all independent of each other.  Something doesn’t become something else because there is no linear stream of time; there is only this moment, the eternal now.  When we see that, we’re released from the clinging that causes our suffering.

Again in the Shushogi, Dogen says: The most important issue for all Buddhists is the thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death.  If the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death.  Simply understand that birth and death are in themselves nirvana; there is no birth and death to be hated nor nirvana to be desired.  Then, for the first time we will be freed from birth and death.  To master this problem is of supreme importance. (2)

If the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death.  In other words, if we’re seeing with buddha’s eyes, with the eyes of awakening, there is no arising and perishing.  Clearly, Dogen considers this a very important point if he says The most important issue for all Buddhists is the thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death. He’s not just saying we need to understand our individual life stories.  We need to awaken to the non-appearance and non-perishing of everything in the universe.  We need to deeply understand how this works or we’ll never be free from suffering.

Dogen wrote a lot about this because it’s such a central teaching, particularly in his Genjokoan, the first fascicle of the 75-fascicle version of the Shobogenzo.  Okumura Roshi says that the main theme of the Mahayana tradition is seeing one reality from two sides, and that the main theme of Dogen’s Genjokoan is how to live and practice based on clearly understanding one-reality-two-sides.  Okumura Roshi explains that in the word genjo 現成, gen 現 means to appear, show up or be in the present moment, but it also has the feeling of something that was hidden and then becomes visible, a manifestation of something potential into something actual.  However, the larger view is that nothing is actually hidden and nothing really appears; this is the non-appearance of the gate statement.  Jo 成 is to complete or accomplish, so genjo is to manifest, actualize, appear or become.

Okumura Roshi says the term koan 公按 in this case is pointing to the intersection of difference and sameness, so this is all about two sides of one reality, seeing what appears or manifests in the intersection of unity and diversity, and seeing how things like arising and perishing and life and death are and are not opposites.

Nishiari Bokusan was a Dogen scholar in the late 1800s.  He says:  The gen spoken of here is not the gen that is related to hiding or appearing, remaining or perishing.  There is neither hiding nor appearing in the true genjo.  When we say that a hidden thing appears, it usually refers to the appearance that is relative to hiding.  In this dualistic sense, it is the phenomenon of birth and death.  But actually, in the realm of the true genjo, there is no hiding.  Thus there is no appearing. . . . What can be merely hidden or revealed is not the true genjo.  When we say there is no hiding or appearing, it means that there is no arising or perishing, no increasing or decreasing.  The dharma realm of heaven and earth as it is extends from the Kashyapa  Buddha in the past to Maitreya Buddha in the future, unceasingly through the past, present and future, regardless of the creation or destruction of the world. (3)  

Dogen starts the Genjokoan by setting up three important sets of opposites in our practice and tradition:
(1) delusion and enlightenment, 
(2) buddhas and living beings, and 
(3) life and death, or arising and perishing

First he says, There is delusion and realization, practice, life and death, buddhas and living beings.  Then he says, There is no delusion and no realization, no buddhas and no living beings, no birth and no perishing.  Then he says, There is arising and perishing, delusion and realization, living beings and buddhas.  

First we perceive our lives in the usual way: beings are born, things are created, they have some lifespan and then they die or break or become obsolete.  Then when we practice, we see that actually there is nothing we can distinguish as an independent being or thing that’s coming into existence and going out of existence.  Finally, we understand that reality is in the intersection of these two points of view, and that the actual appearing and disappearing is within non-appearing and non-disappearing.

Just like the Genjokoan, the gate statement is about understanding two sides of one reality and practicing with that understanding.  There is our own birth and death.  There is our experience of things coming into our lives and going out of our lives.  That’s real, and also there is nothing we can distinguish as arising and perishing and coming and going, so we are living and dying in midst of non-arising and non-perishing.

I think Dogen understood that even though this teaching is one of the most imporant in our tradition, it’s really difficult for us to understand.  He talked about it over and over and in various different ways using various different examples, and it keeps coming back to interconnectedness and impermanence.  In the Bendowa, he explains that interconnectedness and impermanence are precisely why there’s no soul or atman.  He says if we accept that all things are impermanent, how can we think there’s a permanent soul that goes on somewhere else after the body dies and never perishes?  If we accept interconnectedness, how can we separate the mind from the body?  Yes, body and mind exist in this moment, but they don’t arise or cease, and certainly not as separate from each other.  He says clinging to an idea about a permanent soul or spirit doesn’t free you from life and death; that kind of clinging is the cause of life and death.  (4)

There are a number of other examples in the Eihei Koroku where Dogen talks about arising or non-arising.  In one place, he says:
This very body and mind are not merely the five skandhas.  Our wondrous existence is most excellent, and should not be an object of desire.  Without coming or going, we simply respond to sounds and colors.  Further, we turn around from our center, and move out in the eight directions.  Negating all dualities, our feet are on the ground.  How could there be arising and perishing as our magnanimous energy pierces the heavens?  Although it is like this, do not say that killing Buddha after all has no results.  The genuine cause of attaining buddhahood is zazen. (5)
​
This very body and mind are not merely the five skandhas.  Our wondrous existence is most excellent, and should not be an object of desire.
This very body and mind are body and mind as complete manifestations of reality, beyond our limited view.  We shouldn’t be clinging to life as just something that belongs to the small self or something we own for our own purposes.

Without coming or going, we simply respond to sounds and colors.
In the world of non-arising and non-perishing, we carry out our function in our dharma position.  We do that with this body and mind, including the sense organs that take in sounds and colors, but without getting stuck or being pulled around by our karma.

Further, we turn around from our center, and move out in the eight directions.  
We see and act from broader perspective than just this body and mind.

Negating all dualities, our feet are on the ground.  How could there be arising and perishing as our magnanimous energy pierces the heavens?  
Even though we have a body and mind that functions in this world of samsara and life and death, we also see beyond opposites.  In that way we also live and die in Nirvana as bodhisattvas and we can work to liberate all beings.

Although it is like this, do not say that killing Buddha after all has no results.  The genuine cause of attaining buddhahood is zazen.  
Killing Buddha means going beyond our stories and limited ideas about awakening and being in the middle of real awakening itself.  That’s what we do in zazen.  Even though awakening is already here, even though we’re already beyond arising and perishing and non-arising and non-perishing, we practice in order to manifest it in the world.  As Dogen frequently reminds us, practice and awakening are not two, just like so many dualities that get both negated and upheld in this practice.

Notes

(1) Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary. (2018). United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 57
​(2)  Engaging Dogen's Zen: The Philosophy of Practice as Awakening. (2016). United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 69-70.​
(3) Dogen, E., Zenji, E. D. (2011). Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries. United States: Counterpoint Press, p. 13.
​(4) Uchiyama, Kosho. (1997). The wholehearted way : a translation of Eihei Dōgen's Bendōwa with commentary. Boston, Mass. : Tuttle Publishing, p. 32-33.
(5) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications. p. 271
​

The sense organs are a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with them]we practice the right way.
入是法明門、修正道故。

The kanji here for the sense organs are a Buddhist expression.  It’s not the everyday term for normal five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch; this gate statement uses 入, a word for entry or entrance, to indicate sense organ.  We also find it in 六入 roku nyu, six entries; usually we say six sense gates.

Why six senses rather than the five we usually expect?  In Buddhism, mind is a sense-organ, which we’ll consider shortly.  There are other similar Buddhist terms for the sense organs.  Sometimes it’s six roots 根 or six places 処, but today we have the gateways of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.  These are called gates because stimulation comes in from outside—and we express our thoughts and emotions back to the outside.

In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha tells us that the origin of suffering is craving, and in the twelvefold chain of dependent origination, craving arises from sensations.  Sensations result from the six sense organs being in contact with objects.  The eye sees something, the skin touches something, and sensation arises which is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  When we think of mind as a sense organ, the objects of mind are memories, images, concepts or things we can think about.  Then we start writing a story and running after some things and running away from other things.

These eighteen elements—sense organs, the things they contact, and the sensation that arises—are the foundations for the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance.  Now we can see the entire process: the sense organ comes in contact with an object, a sensation arises, the three poisons arise, craving starts, and we have suffering.  Buddha said that to overcome craving and the suffering that results, we need wisdom.  We need to develop some insight into how the senses work and then exercise some care about how we use them.

In the first talk he gave after his awakening, the Buddha said:
Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the house-life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good; and there is devotion to self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and leads to no good. 

This gate is taking us back to some of the most basic and important teachings in our tradition.  For example, we don’t indulge our greed by grabbing all the chocolate cake or gourmet pink lettuce, but we also don’t ignore the needs of the body by not eating properly.  The middle way is to take care of the body with reasonable, nutritious, appealing food without being caught up in the senses and going to extremes.

In fact, sensory desire is one of the five hindrances.  If we’re looking for happiness or comfort through gratifying the senses and clinging to the thoughts and ideas related to that, it’s hard to maintain focus or settle down while we’re always being pulled around by the senses.  We don’t have to ignore or suppress what our sense are doing, but we do need to pay attention to what’s happening—and what’s happening is that we’re creating suffering.  The enjoyment we get from gratifying the senses ultimately becomes suffering when those sensations go away.

There are several other important themes about the sense gates that show up throughout our tradition.  One is that the world we create using sense-data is an illusion.  Another is that sense gates and everything that goes with them both exist and don’t exist; these are teachings related to emptness.  A third is that although the sense gates lead to the three poisons and suffering, they are also instances of prajna or wisdom.

First let’s talk about the illusory world of the senses.  We’d like to think that when our senses come in contact with something, we get a pure and complete picture of that object.  Especially if it’s a neutral object and we don’t have any strong feelings about it, we think we perceive the reality of it.  However, it’s not possible for a couple of reasons.  One is that the human body is limited.  We can’t see all sides of an object at the same time.  We can’t see some colors of light or some frequencies of sound.  Okumura Roshi sometimes makes the point that humans can’t hear everything dogs can hear, so what seems quiet for us might be very noisy for dogs.

Another problem is that we immediately filter all of our sense data through our previous knowledge and experiences so we can categorize it.  That seems to be chocolate cake, which I know I like, or that seems to be a bat, and I had a bad experience once with a bat in my house, so I’m not so keen.  Our perception of something is our own perception; it’s not like someone else’s, and not like it might be in our own past or future.

Uchiyama Roshi says:  We assume that we are all living together in one commonly shared world.  However, this is not true from the perspective of the reality of our life-experience, which we learn about through letting go of our thought in zazen.  For example, when you and I look at a cup, we usually assume that we are looking at the very same cup, but this isn’t so in terms of true raw life-experience,  I am looking from my angle and with the power of my vision and you are looking from your angle and with your power of vision.  There is absolutely no way we can exchange nor understand each other’s experience.\

This is not only true for seeing; it is true of every perception and sense experience--hearing smelling, tasting and touching.  The world in which we actually live and experience life in its vivid freshness is a world that is mine alone and yours alone. (1)

It’s kind of interesting to consider that each of us is creating our own world moment by moment out of the things coming in through our sense gates.  My experience and your experience can never be exactly the same, and my experience and the true reality of all beings can never be exactly the same.  We have to use our senses to navigate the world, but we also have to see the illusion.  We can be fooled and we can make mistakes

There’s another issue with thinking that our perceptions are completely clear: the senses don’t work separately.  We don’t see something or hear something in isolation from the rest of the body’s functioning, and that influences how we experience these sensations.  Also, all the senses interact with each other and work together.

Okumura Roshi says: Usually we think we see things in the same way that a mirror reflects an image of an object.  We think the object is reflected in our eyes and that our eyes see the object.  Yet “seeing color and hearing sounds with body and mind” means that our lives and our bodies do not function in such a disjointed way.  It is really true that we see things not only with our eyes and year things not only with our ears.  The whole body and mind are involved in the activities of seeing objects, hearing sounds, smelling fragrances, tasting flavors and feeling sensations.

When having a meal, for example, all our senses are engaged.  We see the food’s color and shape with the eyes, smell and taste the food, and even hear the sound of our biting and chewing.  When we swallow, we experience satisfaction in feeling the food move down the throat until it settles in the stomach.  We may think of how delicious the food is and experience gratitude for those who prepared the meal, and we may think appreciatively of the immeasurable work that was involved in growing, harvesting and transporting the food.  These experiences of the meal are not simply discrete products of individual sense organs and their separate objects; we experience a meal engaging the entire body and mind. (2)  

We’ve got all of these sensations coming at us through the sense gates all the time, and we don’t usually stop to sort out what’s going on.  We just experience with the whole body and mind and plunge fully into this moment—and no wonder it’s so easy to cling to a sense of a fixed self and assume we have an independant separate self-nature.  When we look in the mirror, we see our unique faces with all the sense organs, and of course all that exists; no one would argue that point.  Then along comes the Heart Sutra, which says there is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind, and also no objects of those senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind), and also no sense-consciousnesses that arise when each sense organ makes contact with an object.  Yet we’ve just considered that these eighteen elements are the basis for the three poisons and all our craving and suffering.  What’s going on?

The teaching here is that these things have no independent, permanent existence: in other words, they’re empty.  We can identify physical sense organs, our sensations are real, and the objects we experience are real, but these don’t form the entirety of reality.  They’re partial, they’re influenced and distorted, and they change all the time.  

Not only that, who is it that thinks he or she owns these sense organs and the impressions that come from them?  We can really see five skandhas clinging to five skandhas here and now unreliable that dynamic is.  There’s a collection of aggregates called “I” that’s collecting distorted sense data, mixing it with various thoughts and memories and writing a story about the nature of reality.   Hmmmmm.  There are so many ways to go off the rails here.

We need to develop the wisdom to see what’s really going on so we can be skillful in these conditions.  Okumura Roshi has this to say:
Our picture of the world is our reality, but we should understand that it is distorted.  This is the meaning of emptiness.  Our mind is emptiness.  Our sense organs are emptiness.  Things outside us are also emptiness.  Everything is just an illusion.  The fact that we live with illusion is our reality.  When we really understand this and see how illusion is caused, we can see reality through the illusion.  Whatever we see, whatever we grasp with our sense organs and consciousness is illuson.  When we see this we are released from attachment to our limited view, to what we have , to what we think we own.  We may not become completely free, but we become less restricted by our limitations. (3) 

Again, we’re not saying that our senses and sensations aren’t real; they just don’t have existence that’s separate from anything else, and because they’re connected to each other and influenced by other elements around them, they can’t tell us the whole story.  

There are a couple of parts of the Sandokai that can provide some helpful illustrations.  The Sandokai is a poem written by Shitou Xichian in 8th century China.  In English the title is The Merging of Difference and Sameness, and in Japan we chant this poem every other day during morning service.  Sandokai is a poem about holding both individuality and distinctions and also the larger view of nonduality.  In a couple of places, it makes reference to the individual sense gates as real and functioning and yet also as not really independent or separate from each other or their objects or the entire network.

At one point it says, “Each sense and every field interact and yet do not.”  Each sense organ makes contact with objects and sensation arises, but also this never happens, because the sense organ and the object are not separate.  I have ears and I can hear music, and out of that a pleasant sensation arises, but also, there is no separate “I” with something to be distinguished as ears that are distinct from music, and no pleasant sensation that’s separate from the complete functioning of this moment.

Okumura Roshi says: [The sense organs of the body and mind and their objects] are independent and yet work together to create the world.  When we sit in this space, the space and my sitting become one.  When I cook in the kitchen, this body, my self, the ingredients the water, the fire, the untensils, and the space called the kitchen become one being working together.  When we play baseball, the whole universe becomes the world of playing baseball,  Our activity and the universe become one,  It all works together.  If we become angry, this whole world becomes the world of anger.  Everything around us makes us crazy and angry.  When we have a competitive mind, this entire world becomes the world of competition,  Our body and mind work together with the environment to create one world,  In this sense our mind is very important.  A change in our mind could change the whole world.  Our practice is important because it is not just the practice of our mind; it influences the whole universe. (4)  

If I’m working in my shop, seeing and smelling the wood, hearing the lathe going around and the chisel cutting shavings, and feeling the tools in my hand, I can identify each of these things as distinct from each other.  However, I can also see that they’re not separate from the entirety of the scene of what’s going on in the shop, and nowhere is there a separate me.  Early Buddhists said this is why there’s no permanent essence, atman or soul outside of the relationship between sense organs and objects; our lives consist only of these 18 elements.  Then the Heart Sutra came along to say even these things don’t exist as we usually think of them.  Finally, Dogen said they exist but are actually empty (impermanent and with no independent existence), and because of that, the sense gates are actually instances of wisdom or prajna.

That seems puzzling because we’ve just been hearing about how we can be led astray by the illusions of the sense organs and what arises from them.  How do we become able to see the senses as prajna, and how does all this relate to our practice of zazen?

Clearly, this isn’t a practice of the intellect, because even though we know some things about physiology, there’s still plenty we don’t know about what the brain does with the stuff that comes in through the sense gates, and how five skandhas cling to five skandhas and create a self out of that attachment.

Uchiyama Roshi says, Who is seeing?  How can we see?  It’s truly a mystery!  Scientists may explain the function of retinal cells, optic nerves and so forth, but no matter how much explanation is given, we cannot understand the most crucial point.  Eyes are eyes, and things are things, but how does the consciousness of seeing arise?  This is really mysterious and beyond our comprehensive thought.  The root of this wondrous phenomenon can only be called “life.”   Even if we put all the various parts of the human body together, such as head, chest of legs, and connect them, we still cannot create a human being.  Only if life functions there is there a human being.  The ground of such wondrous life is rooted in is prajna paramita.  

Dogen’s advice is that to hear the teaching of Buddha through everything we encounter every day.  In other words, to perceive objects clearly through prajna we have to free our sense gates from defilement by the three poisons.

Okumura Roshi says:  Even though we see things we don’t normally see them as the Dharma.  How can we get this true Dharma eye?  How can we really see the Dharma?  That is the point of our practice.  In the Soto Zen tradition we do monastic practice to transform our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.  The foundation of monastic practice is zazen, and all the activities in daily monastic life are the manifestation of zazen practice: chanting sutras, listening to Dharma talks, eating with oryoki, cooking, cleaning, even resting and sleeping.  Doing all these activities with awakening mind, being mindful and attentive--this is the way we transform our six sense organs into the true Dharma eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. (5)  

He goes on to say that most of us in the West don’t live in a training temple, and we need to find some other way to live with this same spirit.  We have to find other ways to experience what Dogen describes: seeing clearly and knowing that there is no separation between senses and their objects.  Of course, we can do this through all the activities of our practice lives: zazen, work, study and ritual.  We don’t have to be in a special temple or take on some particular status as practitioners.  As long as we’re taking in stimulation through the sense gates and working with it skillfully, we’re doing that practice.

When it comes to our zazen, of course our bodies and minds are fully functioning while we’re sitting.  We’re not turning anything off or suppressing anything that’s happening.  That means our senses are working: we’re smelling the incense, hearing the bell, feeling our cushions under us, and because we’re human we’re taking all those sensations in and creating a world.  Uchiyama Roshi called the appearance of the world as we perceive it through our senses the scenery of our zazen.  We’re aware of that scenery, but we’re not clinging to it or resting in it.  It’s coming and going like the clouds in the sky, and we’re not making anything out of it.

Okumura Roshi did a translation of Keizan Zenji’s Zazen Yojinki, covering things we should be careful about regarding zazen.  Keizan describes how we let go of everything during zazen and drop off body and mind:
Zazen is far beyond the form  of sitting or lying down. Free from considerations of good and evil, zazen transcends distinctions between ordinary people and sages, it goes far eyond judgements of deluded or enlightened. Zazen includes no boundary between sentient beings and buddha. Therefore put aside all affairs, and let go of all associations. Do nothing at all. The six senses produce nothing.

Another translation says “The six sense are inactive.”  In other words, we’re not fabricating stuff out of what’s coming in through the sense gates.  We’re making no distinctions between one thing and another because we’re letting go of thought and simply letting the universe function through us.

There’s another famous image for this: the stone woman and the wooden man.  These two come from the Hokyo Zammai or Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi, a 9th century Chinese poem by Dongshan Liangjie.  This is another one we chant every other morning in Japan.  The line says: the wooden man starts to sing; the stone woman gets up dancing.  In the context of the poem, these are two insentient beings preaching the dharma, which can only be understood by buddhas because the stone woman would be dancing without movement and the wooden man would be singing without sound.  It’s also making the point that in the broad view there is no distinction between sentient and non-sentient beings.  These two beings are simply and completely carrying out their function as wood and stone with nothing extra, just as the bodhisattva simply and completely carries out his or her vows with nothing extra.  Again, the universe functions through all of these beings.

Dogen, as is his way, picks up on this image and gives it a different context.  He gave a dharma hall discourse in which he said:
For nine years Bodhidharma bestowed a single utterance. Until now, people in various regions have mistakenly taken it up. Do you want to demonstrate it without mistakes? Eihei will again demonstrate it for the sake of all of you. The Iron Ring mountains surround Mount Sumeru at the center.  This is just exactly right. Thus it is demonstrated completely. However, is it possible to demonstrate it unmistakably? After a pause Dogen said: The jade woman recalls her dream of the triple world. The wooden man sits, cutting off functioning of the six senses.  Dogen descended from his seat. (6)
​ 
What does all this mean?  For nine years Bodhidharma bestowed a single utterance.  Tradition says that Bodhidharma sat zazen for nine years in a cave without saying anything.  Dogen says he communicated only one thing: thusness.  Until now, people in various regions have mistakenly taken it up.  No one has really understood what Bodhidharma was doing.  Do you want to demonstrate it without mistakes? Eihei will again demonstrate it for the sake of all of you.  Dogen’s going to show us how it’s done.  The Iron Ring mountains surround Mount Sumeru at the center.  This is just exactly right. Thus it is demonstrated completely.  This is a description of mountains in Indian Buddhist cosmology.  Dogen is just describing reality as it is.  However, is it possible to demonstrate it unmistakably? After a pause Dogen said: The jade woman recalls her dream of the triple world. The wooden man sits, cutting off functioning of the six senses.  Dogen descended from his seat.  The jade woman or stone woman is right in the midst of thusness or nirvana or awakening and is also right in the middle of the illusory world of samsara.  The wooden man is sitting zazen right in the middle of thusness or awakening, completely alive and functioning and doing exactly what Keizan described later in the Zazen Yojinki: not fabricating anything out of the sense gates.

We live in the world of the senses and we also go beyond the world of the senses.  The sense gates are an opportunity to study and investigate the world and our own moment-by-moment experience.  The challenge is not to get caught by our senses and lose sight of what we’re doing.

Notes

1) ​Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 128.
​2) Okumura, S. (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 67.
​3) Okumura, S. (2012). Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 133
​4) Ibid., p. 235.
5) Okumura, S. (2018). The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's "Sansuikyo". United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 13.
6) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 206.

Equality of all elements is a gate of Dharma illumination; for it obviates all rules for harmonious association.
大平等是法明門、斷於一切和合法故.

Today we continue to look as aspects of equality, or byoudou 平.  The kanji here say “great equality” 大平, which makes me think of equality in the largest possible sense.  However, if we don’t create separation, if we give up discriminative thinking, then we might also give up the guidelines and rules and laws we have in place to make it possible to live together, and this doesn’t seem to make sense.  If we don’t distinguish between a green light and a red light and we also throw out all the traffic laws, won’t there be chaos?  Yes, there will.  I suggest this gate is pointing us toward good and bad, going beyond good and bad, and what that means for living by the precepts.  This is a real problem, because when we misunderstand the equality of all elements, or going beyond good and bad, we can decide that ethics and morality aren’t important--that there’s no good and no bad, so we can do whatever we want.

We can also decide that people who keep precepts are good and anyone who doesn’t is bad.  It can be a way to justify discrimination against people like fishermen or leatherworkers who kill as part of their jobs, or against people who have disabilities or difficult situations if we think that this is simply their bad karma coming back to them.  That’s a problem for bodhisattvas who vow to liberate all beings from suffering and have compassion for everyone.

Because of wisdom and compassion, the meaning of the precepts changes moment to moment.  That makes it really difficult to know what is good and what is bad.  There is no fixed code of behavior based on the precepts.  One reason that we can’t pin down good and bad is impermanence.  Something that’s useful now might not be later on.  Okumura Roshi has frequently pointed out that a marker is useful as a marker until it runs out, and then when it can’t write anymore, we call this same object trash.  

Sawaki Roshi had a lot to say about good and bad and going beyond good and bad, for instance:  
What adults teach children are often nothing more than out-dated views. The view that good is good and bad is bad has already had its best days. Even a vegetable which was once good is inedible once it’s past its prime.  We’ve got to always be able to see things from a fresh perspective.

Defining a fixed code of behavior isn’t what the precepts are about.  They’re guidelines for carrying out bodhisattva vows.  They also describe what life is like when we live from a place of awakening, before our individual likes and dislikes kick in and when we see the equality of all elements.  That means deeply knowing whether differences are really true and whether or not they’re important.  Seeing the network isn’t enough; we also have to see the individual nodes in the network—oneness and diversity, or difference and sameness—and then we have to see which differences matter in this moment.  The difference between french fries and carrot sticks is important if you’re serving a meal, but the difference between long carrot sticks and short ones isn’t important.

In our daily lives, we can’t entirely go beyond good and bad and see only the equality of all elements.  We have to be able to make distinctions and choices.  Within our relationships with others and with the world in general, we have to decide what’s valuable or meaningful for ourselves and other beings.  There must be some rules or guidelines for how to live in a healthy, wholesome way in order to reduce suffering and have some peace and harmony,

If we see only this one unified reality and think that we only live in a world beyond discrimination or distinction, that’s a problem.  We can decide that going beyond good and bad means we can do whatever we want.  Going beyond good and bad can become an excuse for unwholesome or unskillful behavior.  Historically, this has been a problem in some Western Zen centers.  Teachers have made mistakes, sometimes really bad ones, because they and their students thought they were beyond good and bad.

Not seeing individuals can make it easy to ignore suffering, which is the opposite of what the bodhisattva does.  I recently heard someone on the radio talking about the opera Silent Night.  The story is that enemies meet in a ceasefire during World War I.  German, French, English, and Scottish troops talk and come to know each other, at least a little.  The composer, Kevin Puts, says “Once your sworn enemy ceases to be faceless, war becomes far less possible.”  War is a big impersonal complicated set of activities and circumstances, and within those larger circumstances, individuals are hurt and killed, so we can’t ignore the particulars and see only the broad perspective.  Yet this gate says that equality of all elements makes rules unnecessary, so what’s going on?

There’s a famous verse in the Dhammapada which I’m sure you’ve encountered: Not doing of any evil, doing of all good deeds, purification of one’s own mind, this is the teaching of all buddhas.  These Threefold Pure Precepts in a slightly different form are still part of our precepts ceremonies and ryaku fusatsu today.  Not doing evil and doing good are straightforward enough, but what about the third line about purification of one’s own mind?  It’s talking about going beyond good and bad, not clinging to evil but also not clinging to good, because any kind of clinging is defilement.

The Dhammapada is one of the oldest Buddhist texts, so we can see that this problem of good and evil on one hand and the equality of all elements on the other has been around since the beginning of our practice.  It’s still a conundrum today.  Sawaki Roshi said, “‘Do good, leave the bad.’   There’s no doubt about that, but is it so clear what’s good and what’s bad?  Good and bad go hand-in-hand.”  Yet we have to be able to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome, because wholesomeness lessens suffering and unwholesomeness makes it worse.  Actions that bring about pain to oneself or to other people are unwholesome.  Actions that brings about happiness, joy or pleasure to oneself and to others are wholesome.  This is a key aspect of the principle of cause and effect, which is hugely important to skillful action and is the basis of Buddhist ethics.  

No matter what our faith tradition, we start to understand good and bad from a very young age.  With toddlers, it’s all about self-interest: I won’t do this because Mommy will punish me and I will do that because I want the reward Daddy promised me.  When kids are a little older, ethical judgements are based on the damage done and the intent.  Breaking three glasses is worse than breaking one glass, but breaking them while helping to wash the dishes is better than breaking them while playing around.  After that, there’s some degree of social approval involved.  I won’t do this bad thing because I want people to like me or because it’s against the law.  By adolescence, with luck, we understand that there are things we don’t do because we’re morally obligated not to or because they’re simply wrong.   

However, chances are, until we started to practice, no one ever suggested we go beyond good and bad.  When we live in the world of good and bad, we transmigrate around and around the six realms based on whether we’re doing things that cause suffering or things that help liberate ourselves and others from suffering.  We also have the problem of our clinging to ideas about what good and bad are, particularly what’s good or bad for me.  When we go beyond good and bad to the equality of all elements, that’s Nirvana.  That’s purification of one’s own mind, as the Dhammapada said.  It’s also called awakening, pure mind or Buddha.

So how do we go beyond good and bad?  How do we let go of the yardstick without creating chaos?

We just do good without clinging to those good actions or comparing our good deeds with what others are doing.  Sawaki Roshi says, There is a bad deed, called “doing good.”  For some, doing good is just a decoration.  In other words, it’s just another way to shore up the sense of a separate self, even though we think our motivation is pure.  That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do the good action when we notice we’re clinging to it.  That clinging doesn’t necessarily negate the good action.  There are very few human actions that don’t have at least some tiny bit of self-clinging, which includes avoiding doing bad simply to avoid the unpleasant consequences for oneself.  Under that kind of thinking, I would decide it’s OK to steal your chocolate cake if somehow I wouldn’t get caught.  I would do whatever bad I wanted if only someone wasn’t standing there ready to punish me.  That’s the toddler phase, but adults fall prey to it as well.

Sawaki Roshi again: However much good they do, everything that humans do is bad. If you give, all day long you think, “I gave!” If you do religious practice, you think “I practiced, I practiced!” If you do something good, you never forget, “I did good, I did good!” Does this mean that we should do something bad instead? No, even when we do good, it’s bad. When we do something bad, it’s even worse.

If you do good, you start to work yourself up about everything bad you suddenly see in others. When you have done something bad, you’re quiet, because your own ass itches. People don’t only calculate when it’s a matter of money. In everything they do they try to bargain up or down. That’s because their body and mind haven’t dropped off. Only when body and mind have dropped off does this business not count any more. Dropping off body and mind means immeasurability, or limitlessness.

We need to understand that this teaching about doing good and not doing evil is not a man-made rule.  It’s a manifestation of absolute reality that we actualize with body and mind.  Body and mind dropped off means that the perspective of these five skandhas doesn’t get in the way.  We see with the eyes of Buddha; we see reality as it is before we poke our heads in.  A minute ago I said the same thing about the precepts—they’re not just rules but a description of living from a place of awakening.  This is the same thing

This is another way to say that practice and awakening are not two, one of Dogen’s most important points.  Awakening isn’t a thing or a state, it’s an activity.  It’s the activity of experiencing this moment from the point of view of Buddha, before the small self starts writing stories.  Small self is there, individual karmic circumstances are there, but they’re not the starting point of our experience and we’re not constrained and limited by them.  When we see the equality of all elements as well as individual characteristics, our actions are skillful and appropriate and beneficial without being “good” or “bad.”

Okumura Roshi says, When supreme awakening is expressed in words, what it says is “do not do any evil,” and in fact, not doing evil is awakening itself.  That’s our practice of receiving and following the precepts.

Doing good and avoiding evil isn’t something we do by ourselves based on our own labeling or good and bad, or a personal effort to get a result.  It’s something that arises together with the functioning of all beings.  It’s just the universe doing what the universe does.  It’s just complete practice in this moment.

Now, there’s a real but subtle difference between ignoring good and bad and going beyond good and bad.  It’s not simply using the intellect to convince ourselves that differences don’t exist or aren’t important.  Consciously letting go of preferences or just not acting on them isn’t enough.  We need to be in the place where we see them arising, and yet we’re not pulled around by them because we also see something bigger.  It’s not a matter of being offered tea or coffee and saying either one is OK even though we really want the tea.  Practitioners in dharma centers are sometimes surprised to find that the teacher has preferences.  The people who know what these preferences are sometimes feel like they have inside information, or like they’re seeing cracks in the great leader’s practice.  Wait!  Aren’t longtime practitioners supposed to see everything as equal?  All that stuff is just thinking.  It’s fine to like cherry pie better than apple as long as you don’t make a lot of suffering out of it.  

When we can see the entirety of what’s happening in this moment we naturally realize there’s no ground to stand on.  It’s fine to have plans, values and priorities.  It’s fine to study and commit to precepts.  However, in this moment, what’s happening?  We can’t even stand on the plans, values and precepts.  Sawaki Roshi says: Fortune and misfortune, good and bad – not everything is how it looks to your eyes. It’s not how you think it is either. We’ve got to go beyond fortune and misfortune, good and bad.

In zazen, we experience the equality of all elements without ignoring the particulars.  We let go of thinking, don’t act on the delusion that arises because of our karma,  and experience the world directly, without the filters or mediation of our conditioning.  Again, this isn’t something we need to learn or acquire.  We’re not sitting in zazen contemplating the precepts so that we can decide what to do when we get up off the cushion.  Sawaki Roshi says: Zazen is beyond good and evil.  It’s not moral education.  Zazen takes place where Communism and Capitalism finish.  In zazen there are no opposites, no competing factions, no discrimination between inside and outside or good and bad.  When we come to the end of that kind of separation, what’s waiting for us there is pure mind, awakening or Buddha.  It’s always there if we can just shift our focus from clinging to small self.

Zazen sits in the intersection between good and bad and going beyond good and bad, and the threefold pure precepts also sit in that intersection.  The version we use in our ceremonies is:  
- the precept of embracing moral codes
- the precept of embracing beneficial actions
- the precept of embracing all living beings

Okumura Roshi has explained that a late 17th century teacher called Menzan taught that these three precepts were a way to use the three poisons for good—in other words, to connect unwholesomeness and wholesomeness.  Embracing moral codes is the same as not doing evil.  We can use anger or aversion to harmful activities to keep from going down that path.  It helps us not to do unwholesome things that cause suffering in the world.  

Embracing beneficial actions is the same as doing good.  We can use greed to help us do as many good things as possible; there’s always one more good thing we can do.  Dōgen Zenji said in the Tenzo Kyokun: “You must not fail to add a single speck on top of the mountain of good deeds.”

Embracing all living beings is the same as going beyond good and bad or seeing the equality of all elements.  We can use ignorance to see beyond separation and discrimination and help all beings equally, not just ones we like or feel sorry for.

These three pure precepts also give us another way to look at the other ten precepts:
Don’t do evil: Don’t break the precept and engage in killing or stealing or some kind of misconduct
Do good: It’s not enough just to passively not do bad things; we also have to actively do good.  Don’t just not steal, be generous.  Don’t just not slander the three treasures, take refuge in them and care for them.
Go beyond good and bad: See what’s actually happening in this monent and what’s actually needed, and then  break precepts when necessary.  In other words, don’t cling even to the precepts because nothing is fixed.

The question we have to ask ourselves is not what is the good thing or the bad thing to do in this situation, but what will keep the network of interdependent origination in a healthy condition?  We take action with the same mind we have when we’re in the middle of in zazen.  When we’re sitting, we just sit, with nothing extra; that’s shikantaza.  When we’re helping, we just help, with nothing extra.  The “extra” we’re not adding is what we think good and bad are.  That extra gets between us and the pure mind or a direct experience of this moment.  Because this moment is the true reality of all beings, it includes both individual elements and the equality of all elements.