This week and next we will be wrapping up talks from Zuimonki, early teachings from Dogen recorded by his friend. These were casual discussions in passing that were captured with no intent like his other works to be a sort of Everest of spiritual practice. They are simply practical everyday teachings which Roshi finds quite useful and helpful.

This is from Zuimonki Chapter 6, which is the final chapter.

Dogen also said,

The essential point to be careful about in practicing the Way is casting aside your tendency from the past to cling to certain things. If you first change your physical behavior, your mind will be reformed as well. Firstly carry out what is prescribed to do and avoid what is prohibited in the precepts. Then your mind will reform of itself.
In China there is a custom among lay people of gathering at their ancestral shrine and pretending to cry, to demonstrate their filial piety towards their fathers and mothers. Eventually, they actually begin to cry. Students of the Way, even if you don’t have bodhi-mind in the beginning, if you force yourself to practice the Buddha Way, eventually you will arouse true bodhi-mind. Especially beginners in the Way should just practice the Way following the other members of the sangha. Do not be in a hurry to study and understand the essential points and ancient examples. It is good to understand such things without misinterpretation when you enter the mountains or seclude yourself in the city. If you practice following the other practitioners, you will surely attain the Way. It is like making a voyage. Even though you don’t know how to steer the ship, if you leave everything to the skill of the sailors, whether you understand or not, you will reach the other shore. Only if you follow a good teacher and practice with fellow practitioners without harboring personal views, will you naturally become a person of the Way.

At the end Dogen shares an old story that became a koan. He says,

That last story probably deserves its own talk, Roshi says with a laugh. This is how Dogen finished that particular teaching. When Roshi reads this, it reminds him of the fact that in America we’ve made an accommodation, which he’ll leave it to us to decide whether it is a good accommodation or not. Roshi speaks of an experience in Japan many years ago, that was the case wherever he studied. Whether doing martial arts, looking at performing arts, and when in the Zen temple, what would typically happen is he would come into the dojo and the instructor or the senior teacher would simply say to him just one or two words such as, “Watch,” or “Follow.” That would be it, there would be no instruction after that.

Initially Roshi thought it must be because he is a foreigner. He thought they don’t speak English, he doesn’t speak Japanese, that is the best they can come up with because they can’t explain the depth of whatever it is that they were teaching to him, so the best advice was just watch and follow and do your best. He always thought this was the case, until he noticed when other beginners were coming in, they got the same guidance. Everyone was told to just follow, just watch.

That is not the way we do things in America. When people come to the center or dojo for the first time, we welcome them, we give them instructions, we have a video for them, we make them feel comfortable, and we implant in them the sort of intellectual anchors so they can get something out of the practice here, and hopefully continue. Not to say that is right or wrong, but when they were doing this in Dogen’s time, what he was suggesting was that partially the way we are misled in our own life is through our intellect. We think so much, we attach to our thoughts, and we are guided by that, and that is what often trips us up. Often because of what we talked about last week, which is our intellect sees a tiny, tiny little slice of the reality of our life, and does not move on to see the rest of it. Because we do not see the rest of it, things do not go the way we think they should go, and we get very frustrated. “I really thought this through!” “I planned this!” “I had a strategy, and a tactic!” “Why did it go so badly?” Because we were not able to take all the other factors into place. What we are taught in the Way is the intellect is important, but it is only one of our faculties. We have all these other senses, and all these other senses are also pathways to Buddha-mind, to wisdom, and we do not use them nearly as much.

So when you come into a place and you are a beginner and someone says, “Watch,” or “Follow,” you are obviously still thinking, but you have to turn on all of your other senses. You have to really, really watch. You really have to use your eyes. You really have to use your body to start to mimic it and do things. You have to touch things, you have to be fully embodied in order to copy the movements of everyone. What Dogen is saying is, in this Chinese tradition where you sit there and you fake the cry, and it may seem ridiculous, if you do that enough it actually triggers the rest of the body to actually cry. So if you are actually going through the motions of a buddha, you are seeing as a buddha, you are listening as a buddha, you are tasting as a buddha, and touching, that will ultimately become a real thing.

In America we would say “Fake it ‘til you make it,” the assumption there is it is all a fraud. But that is not what Dogen is saying here. He is saying that is a legitimate first step. Embody everything about you, including the mind, but all your senses. Just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and it will become real for you.

He gives the analogy of being on a ship. Yeah, I don’t know how to sail a ship. I know in theory, but I don’t know to pull the ropes and all that. But if I just get on the ship, and the Captain says, “Pull that,” “Tie it over there,” do this, and you just do that day after day after day, by the time you get to the shore you’ll get to the shore, but you actually know how to do it. You’ll become a sailor, without actually studying how to be a sailor. Sometimes people get frustrated, thinking I don’t know what’s going on. You don’t need to know what’s going on! It actually gets in the way to know what’s going on. Just do it! Just bow. Just sit. Just breathe. Let the body take over, and then you will become a fully embodied buddha. Roshi thinks that sometimes we get in the way a little bit in America, where we make it into an intellectual process. Everything is explained to you. This is how you do this, and this is how you do that. We want you to feel really comfortable. But then we rely so much on the brain, we don’t challenge the rest of the body in the senses, to pull their share of the enlightenment path.

It is already the case where most people who come to sit never come back again. It is already the case, even with how comfortable we make them feel. Roshi thinks if we just did it old school, there would be even fewer people that did it, but there is something to be said for us. Ban Roshi would say to him all the time when he’d ask what they were chanting, “It doesn’t matter, just chant.” “Just chant.” “Keep chanting.” “Just chanting.” “It’ll come to you.”

“I want to be a loving, decent person.” Ok, well just act like a loving decent person, even if you’re not, and you will become one. “I want to be a generous person, but…” Just act generous. Give charity, give dana, give things, give your time, and just keep doing that, and you’ll become a generous person in time.

As frustrated as we are wanting to be this kind of person, and we can’t seem to get there, this instruction from Dogen is really useful. Just do it! Even if you don’t feel it, like “I want to like everyone and I really don’t!” Act like you like everyone, and eventually you’ll like everyone! “I want to have a better sense of humor, I don’t find anything funny.” Well start laughing at everything, and eventually you’ll find everything funny! It is really practical, simple advice, but it is very, very true. Even in all the fine arts he studied in Japan, if you are doing Noh Dance, and you ask why you are doing something, they’ll say, “We’re not going to explain it to you, just do exactly as your teacher is doing. Do it over and over and over again, and do it for years, and eventually it won’t be your teacher’s, it’ll be yours. That movement. But we’re not going to explain it to you. Just keep doing it.”

So for many of us who are always questioning, “How am I doing in my practice?” “How am I doing, am I there yet?” We just want to keep being there, wherever ‘there’ is, we want to accomplish this thing. STOP! Stop. What is it you want? Well just BE IT NOW. And even if you’re not it, just be it. Just do it. That is all you need to focus on. And eventually, we’ll be there. We’ll get it. Including being the Buddha.