We continued this week with Zuimonki, Dogen’s early teachings that are much less formal and much easier to understand. His friend collected these and wrote them down. One could easily base one’s whole practice on Zuimonki since it is so accessible.

Dogen instructed students of the Way:

The reason you do not attain enlightenment is because you hold onto your old views. Without knowing who taught you, you think that mind is the function of your brain, thought, and discrimination. When I tell you that mind is grass and trees, you do not believe it. When you talk about the Buddha, you think the Buddha must have various physical characteristics and a radiant halo. If I say that the Buddha is broken tiles and pebbles, you show astonishment. The views you cling to are neither what has been transmitted to you from your father, nor what you were taught by your mother. You believe them for no particular reason. They are the result of having listened for a long time to what people have said. Therefore, since it is the definite word of the buddhas and patriarchs, when it is said that mind is grass and trees, you should understand that grass and trees are mind. And if you are told that Buddha is tiles and pebbles, you should believe that tiles and pebbles are the Buddha. Thus, if you reform your attachment, you will be able to attain the Way.

Roshi tells us if he were to pass out paper right now and ask us to draw a picture of the Buddha, chances are none of us would draw pictures of political figures, entertainment personalities, family members, etc. The list of people we would not draw is very long. And if we looked at our pictures, he says they would all be kind of similar. Now why would everyone be drawing the same picture? No one told you this is the definitive one. It is your attachment, your belief, that this is what Buddha is, this is what Buddhism is. But we are taught that is not what it is.

If we were to do another quiz and say there are three possible answers, that right now given the current temperature that we’re experiencing, would you say that: a) the sun is now in its rotation closest to the earth, given how hot it is, b) it is the exact same distance as it always is from the earth, or c) it is furthest away from the earth right now? Chances are the majority of us would say a), it is obviously closer, that is why it is so hot. But last week was called the ‘aphelion,’ the period of the year when the sun is the furthest away from the earth. This is contrary to what we would all believe, and if he did not just say that, most of us who did not learn this in school would go through the rest of our life believing that in the summertime the sun is obviously closest to the earth. It is not true, it is the opposite.

Why do we believe that, Roshi asks? We have some set of notions and assumptions that make us believe those things that are actually not based on reality at all. The reality is that it has everything to do with the position of the earth on its axis tilt, facing the sun. The distance is actually further away. If you look at all the most modern telescopes, both terrestrial and in space, they are getting better with detail and how deep they go into space, but one thing that has not changed dramatically in these iterations of the telescope is the width that they are looking at. It tends to be a very, very thin slice of the sky that it is looking at. It goes incredibly deep with incredible detail now, and they are all on computers now. So they are looking at this tiny, tiny slice of the universe, it gets as much information as it can, and then it takes a little ‘click,’ and it gets the next tiny little slice, and then gets the next tiny little slice. It goes that way for a long time until it gets a fuller picture, and then the computer puts it all together.

The difference between these computers and us is, we get this tiny little slice of our reality, but then we never move on. We believe these are the truths of life, this is who we are, this is what is right, this is what is wrong. We build up this whole view of everything that we function on, but we never move on from it. We just stay with that. Think of that tiny little slice of the entire universe, it is not even close to being the entire universe. That tiny little slice is who we are? It is not even close to what we are.

So what does Dogen say? He says it is fine to have those images of what the Buddha is, but it is not the whole picture. It is also broken tiles and pebbles. It is also grass. So if you look at the pain and suffering and misery and the horrible things that people do in their lifetime, it is always because of their attachment to ideas. This goes both ways. People believe that certain races or genders are superior to others, they are attached to that idea, and all of their judgments are going to be based on that. Then there are others who believe the opposite. But guess what? They are just as attached to their views, so they create just as much pain, suffering, and conflict. Because they are not moving on. They are not going to the next slice, then the next slice, then the next slice. What you believe about yourself is true, but guess what? What your brother and sister think about you are also probably true, and what your neighbor thinks about you is probably true. We have to take this all in, this is the Way. This is our practice.

Even back then, through history, human beings attaching themselves so strongly to a world view, to an opinion, to a morality, and it just winds up causing more pain and suffering in their own inability to become wise. Because that is the difference. We have this view like the telescope where it is gathering data. What do we want in our lives? We want to have a full life, all of us. We want to be wise. Well it is kind of ironic because, arguably, the most important reality is our relationship right now to the sun which gives us life. That is the most important truth. Yet, Roshi says if he were to say, “Are you aware that the sun is further away than it was just a couple of months ago?” you would say “No.” So the most important aspect of our lives, the sun, we are not even in touch with. But what are we in touch with? How upset we are with a family member, or about people’s actions surrounding holidays and birthdays, etc. All of these other things are our reality, but you cannot calculate this, it is not real data. It is not something you can show him, it is not real.

The most real thing in our life, which is our relationship with the sun right now, many people don’t have a clue about. The one thing that is absolutely not in reality are all these concepts that we are basing all our decisions on. Dogen is saying, “Stop!” All those things that we are thinking about, that we define ourselves with or are making decisions from are not real. You cannot put them in his hand. You cannot measure them. They are getting us angry, and you can probably measure our cortisone levels with how upset they are making us. But the actual concept itself does not exist. We have generated it, and we cling to it. And that is not our life, that is not presence. We want to let go of all of that nonsense, and get back to reality. What is the reality? The reality is how close we are to the sun. The reality is you can get in and out of surgery quickly, how beautiful is that? The reality is that someone made us tea and it is really delicious, and thank you very much. Those are the realities of our life that we need to be basing our presence on.

Roshi tells us as we go through our day, and we are judging how happy we are, or the quality of our life, we have to let the nonsense go, the stuff that has no substance. That thing you are thinking about that is taking up a majority of your day, can you put that on a physical scale and weigh it? Can you? No. So why are we spending so much of our life, our presence, our living, based on something like that? That is what Dogen is saying. It is not the Way. It is not our practice. So when he says it is “broken tiles and pebbles,” we just say, “Yeah, what else is it? What else is it, what else? This is so cool! It is so many things! Our lives are so many things, so many beautiful things.” Then just being aware of that will take up all of our existence, and we can let go of who did or did not take out the trash this week, or clean the dishes, and all that nonsense. That is Dogen’s very simple, very beautiful, very, very practical teaching for us this week.