April 3-4th, 2020 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour Treeleaf ZAZENKAI - REMEMBER DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!

**Jundo** · 04-03-2020, 03:58 AM

Today we will reflect on passages from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo-Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), written in 1242.

[Nishijima Roshi’s Comment]: Kannon is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese name of the bodhisattva called Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit. Avalokiteśvara is described in the Lotus Sutra as someone who always comes to this world to save a person who cries for help. Kannon literally means “Regarder of Sounds,” and this expresses the character of Avalokiteśvara who always responds to the cries for help of living beings in this world. Thus, Avalokiteśvara is usually thought of as a symbol of compassion. But Master Dōgen understood Avalokiteśvara as a symbol of a life-force that is more fundamental to living beings than compassion. ... ]

- - - - -

Great Master Ungan Muju asks Great Master Shūitsu of Dōgozan, “What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do by using his limitlessly abundant hands and eyes?”
Dōgo says, “He is like a person in the night reaching back with a hand to grope for a pillow.”
Ungan says, “I understand. I understand.”
Dōgo says, “How do you understand?”
Ungan says, “The whole body is hands and eyes.”
Dōgo says, “Your words are nicely spoken. At the same time, your expression of the truth is just eighty or ninety percent of realization.”
Ungan says, “I am just like this. How about you, brother?”
Dōgo says, “The thoroughly realized body is hands and eyes.”

[Dogen comments] The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion described now is Bodhisattva
Regarder of the Sounds of the World. ... He is studied as the father and mother of all the buddhas. Do not learn that he is a lesser expression of the truth than the buddhas. : he is
the past Tathāgata Clarifier of the Right Dharma

... Kannon is present in Ungan, who has been experiencing it together with Dōgo. ... The Kannon expressed by other buddhas is only twelve faces. Ungan is not like that. The Kannon
expressed by other buddhas is merely a thousand hands and eyes. Ungan is not like that. The Kannon expressed by other buddhas is just eighty-four thousand hands and eyes. Ungan is not like that. How can we recognize that it is so? Because when Ungan says “The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion is using his limitlessly abundant hands and eyes,” the words “limitlessly
abundant” ... means countless. It is an expression of “infinite abundance”—of diversity without restriction. Given that the diversity is originally unrestricted, we should not limit it even with a measure of limitlessness. We should learn in practice the arithmetic of “using limitless. ... It is already beyond the bounds of countlessness and limitlessness.

Dōgo says, “He is like a person in the night reaching back with a hand to grope for a pillow.” ...
[O]n this basis we should learn the use of hands and eyes. We should examine the difference between nighttime as it is supposed in the light of day and the nighttime as it is in the night. In sum, we should examine it as that time which is not “day” or “night.” ... “The nighttime,” too, is not necessarily only the nighttime of the “day and night” of human beings and gods. Remember, what is now being discussed is neither grasping the pillow, nor pulling in the pillow, nor pushing away the pillow.

... Remember, hands and eyes do not hinder each other; at the same time, their use doing what is the ineffable functioning and is the use of the ineffable. When the ineffable expresses the truth we should not expect to be able to express the whole of hands and eyes—although the whole of hands and eyes has never been hidden. ... Unhidden hands and eyes exist at that concrete place and unhidden hands and eyes exist at this concrete place, but they are not the self, they are not the mountains and oceans, they are not the face of the sun and the face of the moon, and they are not the mind here and now as buddha.

When Ungan says “The whole body is hands and eyes” he is not saying that “hands and eyes” are “a body” that is “everywhere.” “Being everywhere” is the whole world, but the very moment of the body-hands and body-eyes cannot be pervaded by “being everywhere.” Even if there is, in the body-hands and body-eyes, the virtue of being everywhere, they cannot be hands and eyes that would rob from a street-market. [At the same time] the virtue of hands and eyes should not be seeing, practicing, or preaching that recognizes “rightness.”

Dōgo says, “Your words are nicely spoken. At the same time, your expression of the truth is just eighty or ninety percent of realization.” ... At the very moment [when Ungan speaks] he can express himself in a hundred thousand myriad expressions of the truth, but his power is so wonderful that, utilizing a bit of his power, he simply expresses the truth in the state of “eighty or ninety percent of realization.” ... We must learn through experience that the said “eighty or ninety percent of realization” is like saying “hundreds of thousands” or like saying “limitless abundance.”

Dōgo says, “The thoroughly realized body is hands and eyes.” These words do not mean that “hands and eyes,” as hands and eyes each existing independently, are “a thoroughly realized body.” “The thoroughly realized body” as “hands and eyes” is expressed “The thoroughly realized body is hands and eyes.” So [Dōgo also] is not saying that “the body” is the same as
“hands and eyes.” “Using limitlessly abundant hands and eyes” describes the limitless abundance of using hands and using eyes, in which state hands and eyes are inevitably “the thoroughly realized body as hands and eyes.”

Ungan’s “whole” and Dōgo’s “thoroughly realized” are both beyond relative comparisons; ... So the Kannon of which Old Man Śākyamuni speaks is only a thousand hands and eyes, or twelve faces, or thirty-three bodies, or eighty-four thousand. The Kannon of Ungan and Dōgo is limitlessly abundant hands and eyes—though it is beyond discussion of abundance and scarcity. When they learn in experience Ungan and Dōgo’s Kannon of limitlessly abundant hands and eyes, all the buddhas realize Kannon’s samādhi as eighty or ninety percent realization.

**Jakuden** · 04-03-2020, 05:47 PM

Thank you Jundo. I will be there with the bells and possibly a cat

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

**Jundo** · 04-03-2020, 05:56 PM

Our "Hokey Pokey" Ritual today will, of course, be GHEN CÔ VY... also know as the "Vietnamese Hand Washing Dance" ...

https://youtu.be/Owcdxs_7dWw

This is an English version ...

https://youtu.be/6TM-yilncgI

Gassho, J

STLah

**Sekishi** · 04-03-2020, 06:13 PM

Reminder to everyone:

If you are prompted for a password when joining, please use: dogen

Gassho,
Sekishi

**Shonin Risa Bear** · 04-03-2020, 09:45 PM

When Dogen uses Dogen, it is like reaching behind your head for a password.

gassho
doyu sat today/lah

**Jundo** · 04-03-2020, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Doyū

When Dogen uses Dogen, it is like reaching behind your head for a password.

gassho
doyu sat today/lah

**Sekishi** · 04-03-2020, 10:49 PM

There is a chance there will be a "waiting room" that people will be placed into before the Zazenkai tonight (zoom is rolling out new security stuff). If so, we will muddle through. ^_^

Gassho,
Sekishi

**Sekishi** · 04-03-2020, 11:21 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm afraid Zoom is overloaded and it simply will not let us livestream tonight. We are recording the Zazenkai and will hopefully post it later tonight.

Gassho,
Sekishi

**Yokai** · 04-04-2020, 01:12 AM

Thanks Sekishi for all your IT dedication

'Zen and the Art of Website Maintenance'

Gassho, Chris stlah

**Doshin** · 04-04-2020, 01:59 AM

Thank you all and thank you for the talk Jundo.

Question for the technical savy....I kept getting messages on zoom of limited bandwidth and the sound is distorted (hence I dropped off). My hypothesis is because so many in our area are in stay at home and are streaming (we are a point source microwave internet in the mountains). It off course is a non problem as we say but the technical side of me is curious..

Doshin
St

**Tai Do** · 04-04-2020, 03:03 AM

Thank you, Jundo, Jakuden, Sekishi and evrybody for today's Zazenkai.
May you all be well and have a good weekend.
Gassho,
Mateus
Sat/LAH

**Jakuden** · 04-04-2020, 03:06 AM

Love you all

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

**Sekishi** · 04-04-2020, 03:07 AM

Originally posted by Doshin

Question for the technical savy....I kept getting messages on zoom of limited bandwidth and the sound is distorted (hence I dropped off). My hypothesis is because so many in our area are in stay at home and are streaming (we are a point source microwave internet in the mountains). It off course is a non problem as we say but the technical side of me is curious..

I suspect you are correct Doshin. I've had a number of video conferences with clients this week who simply could not have video turned on at all (e.g. they were really complicated phone calls) because everyone is at home and using the internet.

If you (or anyone) has issues like this, try just turning your video off. It sometimes makes things better.

Gassho,
Sekishi
#sat

**Sekishi** · 04-04-2020, 04:36 AM

Hi all,

Well unfortunately recording the Zazenkai directly and then uploading to youtube means we lost the video of the participants (its just Jundo in Tsukuba). But we were there.

The video is up now (see the top of the thread).

Thank you to all who sat today and will sit later.

Deep bows,
Sekishi
#sat