The Mind is Lost In Confusion - Fukan Zanzengi (Part 2)

The Mind is Lost In Confusion - Fukan Zanzengi (Part 2) - Kanshin Allison Tait - May 3rd 2026 - Suggested Donation $5

Transcript

Chant And Recording Setup

SPEAKER_03 2:31

The before Dharma Top chant is on page two of your chant book and also in the chat box for those of you joining us on Zoom. An unsurpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tatagata's words.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Hello. Let's see. Are we recording?

SPEAKER_03 3:30

We are. Wonderful. So is the sound better now for those of you online? You can hear me white? Great.

Dogen’s Meditation Manual Begins

SPEAKER_03 3:40

So uh last week I started a series of talks on, thank you very much, a text called uh the Fukan Zazengi of Ehe Dogen. So um we've gone over a couple of rather dense and confusing texts recently. Uh Fukan Zazengi, despite being written by uh our founder, the founder of the Soto Zen school in Japan, Ehe Dogen, who is generally not known for his clarity, the clarity and uh easy easiness of his writing, Fukan Zazengi is actually quite approachable. And it is Dogen Senji's manual of Soto Zen meditation. Uh large portions of it were taken directly from a Chinese meditation manual that uh Dogen was introduced to in his travels in China. Um, that was before copyright was invented, so you were allowed to do that back then. Um and uh the first paragraph, which I read last week, is uh you know, it's it's uh a basic tenet of of our school, of all schools of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism, but it's also a little bit uh difficult to grasp and a little even if we grasp it, it's hard to believe it. And even if we believe it, it's hard to accept that it applies, you know, to my own life. So I'll go over it again just for that reason. The way is basically perfect and all pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? Well, this is in your your uh chat books, I think it's on page 20. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? So, this is uh a basic tenet, as I said, of our school, which is that of you know, uh original enlightenment, that uh our basic nature is completely indistinguishable from the nature of a fully enlightened Buddha. That uh enlightenment is just an expression of who we already are right now, it's not some special state that's outside of a normal human life and normal human activity, it's just us expressing our true selves in every moment. So it is never apart from one, right where one is. So how do we learn the truth of this state of these statements,

Proving Buddha Nature By Sitting

SPEAKER_03 8:00

of this, you know, basic tenet of our school? And uh, as far as I know, the only way to prove it is to practice sazad over and over again. And at some point, we have uh a direct experience. Uh there's this, you know, sudden insight. Oh, it's that what they've been saying all along, it is actually true. And maybe I can't explain it, but I know it's true based on you know this these experiences I've had in sitting meditation, that myself and all beings, everyone in the Zendo, everyone I meet, everyone in the world, everywhere, uh actually there they are already Buddhas, and I can tell. And then, you know, we leave meditation, we we go back to being basically an asshole most of the time, and then we have to sit meditation again and remind ourselves. There's um an expression of Buddha nature uh in a very famous koan, um, where the uh the conversation between the sixth ancestor and his dharma brother. Uh and uh the famous ko on, what what was your original, before you were born, what was your original face? And uh the sixth ancestor asked his Dharma brother this question when his Dharma brother was having a spiritual crisis, and uh all of a sudden his Dharma brother knew the answer. And he said, I know what you mean, and I understand how my own nature is the nature of awakening. So I can't express it, but I know it's true. So it's just like if someone drinks a glass of water, they know right away if that water is cold or warm. Mark Twain had a famous saying that a man who carries a cat by the tail learns a lesson he cannot learn in no other way. Which is maybe another expression of the same thing, right? So that's the first paragraph of the Fukunza Zengri of Dogen Dogen's manual for Zen Meditation. And then the next paragraph takes a turn. And yet the way is basically perfect and all pervading, and our own nature is already the nature of enlightenment, and yet one of the elders in our sangha, uh Diane Saint-Marie, she uh had a uh soliloquy that she performed in in several different milieus, including once for us uh on an evening class, which was uh absolutely fantastic and hilarious and poignant, which was why is it so hard to be a human being? Right? In a way, it isn't hard because I am a human being, right? So what I'm doing is being a human being, whether you know I'm fast asleep or I'm confused or I'm you know crossing the road, I'm being a human being. At the same time, it's really hard to be a human being. And Diane Say Marie, in in her kind of opening to her uh soliloquy, she she cursed uh quite passionately and at length about how hard it is to be a human being. And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. Right? And I think we've all had that experience where you're we're sitting, and then I realize, oh, I'm actually doing it, I'm actually sitting zazen. And then, of course, as soon as I have that thought, I'm not sitting zazen anymore. And then I'm like, oh, why did I even think that? Now I've ruined my Zazen. And then I think, oh, I'm the worst Zen student that ever existed. It was a while, a couple of years ago. Um, it's unusual for me, but I I was having a real problem with um uh insomnia. I was having a lot of trouble falling asleep at night. And uh it was really stressful because you know, the later it got the more the less time I had to sleep, the cranker is going to be in the morning, and you know, you you can't watch the clock, but you can't not do it. And then I would actually start to fall asleep, and I'd be like, oh, it's working, I'm falling asleep. And then I would wake myself up because I got too excited about falling asleep. Um, you know, if there's the slightest discrepancy,

Why Being Human Feels Hard

SPEAKER_03 13:30

the way is as distant as heaven from earth, right? If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Is uh a very famous Zen saying that uh nobody likes to hear. Uh it's the uh opening of uh a classic poem to Xin Shinming. The great way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. I was like, yeah, thanks. That's really great advice. So there's a a story that uh Zenke Blanche Hartman, a student of uh our founder in America, Suzuki Roshi tells of uh her Zazen experience. My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, had asked us to try counting our breath from one to ten and back again. And many people found it difficult, and their questions to him revealed that they saw it as a technique, one that they hoped would be perfect, that they would perfect someday. Actually, there's a story about the time I had been working on counting my breath. I was participating in a one-day sitting, and I sat one period where I counted every breath, and I went to see Roshi, my teacher, and said, Roshi, I can count my breaths now. What do I do next? I thought he would say, Good for you. Instead, he got very fierce. He said, Don't ever think that you can sit zazen. That is a big mistake. Zazen sits zazen. Don't ever think that you can sit zazan. That is a big mistake. But in another lecture, Suzuki Roshi said, when you count your breathing, one, two, three, it means right now, right now, right now. It means you never lose your practice. You will not be so rigid as to try to do it in the future, but right now. When we are investigating Zen, we're just investigating how to live this life. I don't know of anything more urgent for me to investigate than how to live this life. Whether or not there is rebirth or anything else, I get only one chance to live this life. And I'd love to not make too big a mess of it. You know, that's uh again, a very fierce teacher from our founder in the West, uh Suzuki Roshi, Zazen Sidzazen, right? That uh again, it's it's like, you know, when I'm sitting zazen, I have this thought, oh, I'm really doing it. And then of course, now I'm involved in my you know, everyday pattern of thinking again because I just had this thought. Now I'm really sitting zazen. So to you know, remember it's you know, this isn't something that you know is this is this is just me expressing my true nature, right? And it's not even me expressing my true nature, it's my true nature expressing itself through me in the practice of zazan, which is what zazen sit sazan is. You know, we're not uh uh uh there was I knew someone who was an educator and he said, I think education is more about drawing out than uh putting something in to a young mind. You know, we're drawing out the wisdom and compassion that's already there, we're not trying to add anything new or different or better, just you know, allowing our true self to express its nature through our practice of Zazan.

Insomnia And The Discrepancy Trap

SPEAKER_03 18:34

And then uh Dogen Zenji continues with a cautionary tale. Suppose one gates pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. Right? We you know that's sort of a pitfall to having that direct personal experience of Buddha nature, is that it's so profound and meaningful, and then it feels like again, it feels like I'm sitting zazan, I have accomplished something, I have become enlightened, right? Which again isn't it, it's his zazen sitsen, and my true nature expresses itself through my practice of zazen. Uh, and you know, if if that happens, you know, don't feel too bad about it. It's you know, we kind of all go through that at some point. Um but also be careful. One is making the initial partial excursions about the frontiers, but is still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation. I think this is why Dogen Zenji and so many of our teachers say that this is, you know, Zazen is a group practice, even though it's so deeply personal. Um, and you know, in a way, no matter how many people around us, it's a solitary practice, right? Just sitting facing the wall and you know being alone inside my own body and mind as I always am. But uh I think having people around us uh can can help us shake us out of that you know dangerous mind state of uh raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky because our our Dharma brothers and sisters are pretty good at helping bring us back to Earth. Uh this is this is a tangent, but um I when I was posting uh the Instagram story for this particular Dharma talk, uh there was uh another story I wrote was uh a group of young uh Maasai men um from Africa and they did a skit about uh uh this is what white people sound like when they're hiking. And they were they they had this, they kept passing each other on the trail, and they would say, Hi.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Hi. Don't forget to hide drink, hi.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

They're like, I don't understand why why people keep saying hi when they're hiking, but and uh one of the comments on it was like uh somebody remembered being uh hiking in the in the Andes, and they were, you know, with their trekking poles and their gear and everything. And uh at some point, this uh group of grandmothers and grandchildren went racing past them in their flip flops, and they were wondering what was going on, and uh when they got To the top of the hill, they realized what it was because the grandmothers and their grandchildren had to run ahead to set up a food and drinks stand to offer refreshments to all the Western hikers when they reach the top of the mountain. I think practicing with other people can help us in the same way, right? You know, when you get to the top of the mountain and you find a grandmother and flip-flops there already, it's like, oh, okay. I'm making the initial partial excursions about the frontiers, and I'm still somewhat deficient in the vital

Zazen Sits Zazen Right Now

SPEAKER_03 22:40

way of total emancipation. So it's uh it's a real gift that the community gives us to uh uh hopefully kindly but you know always necessarily point out to us when we're falling into this particular trap. I have a a story from uh a book by Ajahn Brahm, which is the I think the greatest title of any Dharma book ever written. It's called Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? So in Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung, Ajahn Brahm reminisces. In my fourth year as a monk in Thailand, I was practicing long and hard in a remote forest monastery in the northeast. I've never been to Thailand, and after reading Ajahn Brahm's book, I'm not sure I want to go. But my fourth year as a monk in Thailand, I was practicing long and hard in a remote forest monastery in the northeast. Late one night, during an extended period of walking meditation, my mind grew exceptionally clear. Deep insights came cascading like a mountain waterfall. I was easily understanding profound mysteries that I'd never fathomed before. Then the bing one came. It blew me away. This was it. Enlightenment. The bliss was like nothing I had known before. There was so much joy, and at the same time it was also peaceful. I meditated until very late, slept very little, and rose again in time to begin more meditation in the monastery hall, well before the 3 a.m. bell. Usually at 3 a.m. in the hot and humid Thai forests, I would struggle with dullness and sleepiness, but not this morning. My body was effortlessly upright, mindfulness as sharp as a scalpel, and my concentration focused easily. It was so wonderful being enlightened. It was also so disappointing that it didn't last very long. In those days in Northeast Thailand, the food was disgusting. For instance, once our single meal of the day consisted of just a ball of sticky rice with a medium-sized boiled frog on the top. There were no vegetables or fruit, just frog and rice. And that was our only meal of the day. I started by picking at the meat on the legs and after at the frog's innards. A monk sitting close to me also started picking at the frog's organs. Unfortunately, he frogged he pressed on the frog's bladder, and there was still uret inside. So the dead frog peed all over his rice. And he stopped eating after that. Usually our main dish was rotten fish curry, and it was made of rotten fish. The small fish caught during the rainy season would be stored in earthen jars and used throughout the years. I found such a jar once while cleaning around our monastery kitchen. It was full of crawling maggots, so I tried to throw it away. The headman of the village, the most educated and refined of them all, saw me and told me not to throw it out. But it's got maggots in it. Even more delicious, he replied, and took the jar from me. The next day we had rotten fish curry as our one meal of the day. The day after my enlightenment, I was surprised to see two saucepans of curry to flavor our sticky rice. One was the usual stinky rotten fish curry, but the other was an edible pork curry. Today I thought I will for a change have a good meal. What a way to celebrate my enlightenment. The abbot chose his food ahead of me. He took three huge ladlefuls of the delicious pork curry. What a glutton. But there was still plenty left for me. However, before passing the pot over to me, he began to pour my mouth watering pork curry into the pot of rotten fish curry. Then he stirred it all together and said, It's all the same anyway. I was speechless. I was fuming. I was incensed. If he really thought it was all the same anyway, then why did he take three whopping portions of pork curry for himself first before mixing them together? What a hypocrite. Moreover, the abbot was a local boy who grew up eating stinking rotten fish curry, and so he should like it. What a fake. What a pig, what a cheat. But then a realization hit me. Enlightened beings do not have preferences over food, nor do they call their abids a pig. I was so angry and that must mean I wasn't enlightened after all. The fire of my anger was immediately dampened by sodden depression. Thick dark clouds of dismay rolled in on my heart and completely obscured the sun that once was my enlightenment. Downcast and gloomy, I slopped

Pride After Insight And Sangha

SPEAKER_03 28:40

two ladles of smelly rotten fish and pork curry onto my rice. I didn't care what I ate now. Nothing mattered anyway. Finding out that I wasn't enlightened had spoiled my entire day. So this teacher spoke Cantonese, and uh um uh at the after the Dharma talk, um, which had nothing to do with this topic whatsoever, but uh a member of the audience had a question about lucid dreaming. Uh and the questioner asked this question in Mandarin, and the translator working with the monk was having a really hard time thinking of the Cantonese term for lucid dreaming. So he gave a translation that he thought was correct, and the monk didn't understand it. And then people in the audience started shouting all these different suggestions for translations of lucid dreaming. Um, and uh the poor translator was getting more and more flustered, and the monk was getting more and more confused, and then finally this monk slapped the table and said very loudly, uh in in uh Cantonese, he said, if you know that you are dreaming, probably it's a good time to wake up. And for some reason, that just hit me right in the heart, and I realized, oh, you know, all of my self-congratulations over this insight. It really does it really matter, right? That's just like realizing I'm dreaming. It's not the same as waking up, and this is also, you know, uh an important teaching of our school and of all the schools of Mahayana, is that uh enlightenment or this realization of universal human nature is uh the initial partial excursions about the frontiers. Um being enlightened isn't really all that important. What is important, what's called bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, is feeling this great love and sympathy for all beings always everywhere. And not only that, but behaving like someone who feels a

Enlightenment Meets Rotten Fish Curry

SPEAKER_03 33:10

deep and abiding sense of love and sympathy for all beings everywhere, always. This is how you know we express the true self that we already are that is awakened. There's uh a story from the Buddhist lifetime when uh he gave a Dharma talk, and uh a member of the audience came to ask him a question about lucid dreaming. No, it wasn't about lucid dreaming. He came to ask him a question, and uh this uh audience member was not Buddhist. Uh, he followed some strange uh niche Indian religion that nobody else in the audience had ever heard of or practiced. So he asked a question from the context of this strange cult he was in, uh, and the Buddha answered him from the perspective of the beliefs of this strange cult. And uh the non-Buddhist student said, Thank you very much, bowed and left. And uh the Buddha's monks were were very upset. They said, That guy's in a weird cult with weird beliefs. Why didn't you set him straight? And the Buddha said, It doesn't matter that he's in a strange cult and has strange beliefs.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Couldn't you tell that this was a really good person?

SPEAKER_03 35:01

Said he is like an excellent horse that runs at merely the shadow of a whip. He doesn't need to be set straight, right? It's like a horse that you you don't have to beat it to make it behave. You know, you just have to shift your weight, and the horse understands what you're asking and doesn't complain and does it.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

So why would I try to correct his beliefs? He's doing fine.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Uh Suzuki Roshi in his book Z and Mind Beginners Mind gives an even uh really lovely uh uh alternate view on the story of the the excellent horse. Comes up a few times, but uh this is you know I think the first instance of the the uh the teaching of the excellent horse that uh doesn't need the whip to run, you know, he doesn't need the Buddha Dharma, he's already expressing his Buddha nature in his everyday activity, even though he is so confused with strange cult beliefs. Somehow, with this terrible detriment, he figured it out. And the Buddha's like, well, you know, if he's already figured it out, any correction I give him will just confuse him now. So instead he said, Good job, you're doing really well. Suppose and yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. The least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. One is making the initial partial excursions above the frontiers, but is still somewhat deficient, the to vital way of total emancipation. Next week we will mention

Lucid Dreaming Versus Waking Up

SPEAKER_03 37:30

the Buddha, but let's end it here for now. So the after Dharma talk chant is also on page two and also in the chat box for those of you on Zoom. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddhas Way, beings are numberless. I vow to save them, delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So uh I think Sarah has announcements today. I want to add to those announcements. We have a uh Zazankai one day sit coming up on Sunday, May 24th. Uh, it says in the newsletter and our website that it's the May 25th, but it is Sunday, which is the 24th. Um, so sorry. And you can sign up online.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

There we go. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for attending here in person and online. Um, please consider a donation in the donation box, which is right over here behind me, or online at the website Seattlesotozen.org under Ways to Give. Um, there's books for loan in the lobby on the table. And thank you, everyone, today, for your service positions. Um, join us at Fuel next door for some coffee or tea afterwards. And if people could stay and help put away the cushions,

The Excellent Horse And Compassion

SPEAKER_01 40:10

that would be appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Like uh Gail Sayers book, I am third. Um it's an arcane football reference. The first Sunday of the month is um also devoted to a little brief introduction to Zen, and I'd just like to thank the folks that came today for the first time who haven't been here before. It's been wonderful sitting with you all.

unknown 40:53

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

And thanks to Daiho today for uh uh leading the group.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

And uh thank you for everyone who uh had a service position today. Um I think it was Jordan uh Kiosen and Tokushu and uh Laura and Sarah as Jiko. Is that everyone? And a oh right, and our two Dankos. Thank you, Kaikyo and Amy. And again, thank you, Daiho Chris, for leading the beginner's orientation.

Closing Chants And Announcements

SPEAKER_02 41:45

People can stand.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

I'm going to do three more prostrations, and then uh if you're able uh to stick around to put the Zendo away and uh join us for coffee, you're welcome to.