Mike explains the opening of Genjo Koan through four points of view; for Dogen, being awake simply means being here

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Master Dogen didn't write a book. The Shobogenzo is just a collection of his essays or his talks. And there are different versions. So some versions have more essays in them. In some versions, Genjo Koan is the first. But in our book, it's the third. Yeah, thank you. Because Nishijima Roshi decided to arrange the chapters in order of the date, when Master Dogen wrote the essay or gave the talk. And he wrote Genjo Koan in the middle of autumn in 1233, which is a long time ago.

But in the chapter, he talks from four different points of view. And he often uses these four different points of view when explaining Buddhism. And the four different points of view are an idealistic point of view. That is an idea or a concept, or an outline of the principle he wants to talk about. And the second point of view is some down-to-earth material explanation, often involving maybe a story about people, or a situation. The third point of view is often difficult to understand, because Dogen tries to synthesize the idealistic and materialistic points of view, to try and get closer to a realistic description. And the fourth point of view is a kind of overall, often as a poetic, poetic explanation or a poetic grasping of what he's talking about.

And in this first paragraph, he talks about Buddhism from four points of view. He says, from the first point of view, we distinguish between opposite situations. For instance, in Buddhism, to be enlightened or to be deluded, to be alive, to be dead, to be a Buddha, be an ordinary person. So when we analyse something in our mind, we divide it in, we polarise it, or divide it into opposites. And then from the second point of view, but on the other point, he says that actually, in life, we can't always find these opposites. For instance, the difference between a Buddha and an ordinary person. They both have two legs, two arms, two eyes. They both drink tea, eat food, sleep. So actually, in our everyday situation, we can't find the distinctions which we make in our minds, being deluded or being enlightened. And he said that the teaching of the Buddha is not inside the area where we analyse the world, where we discriminate between opposites. It's connected with the state at this moment. So rather than, we can think about life or death, but in reality, we are either living or we are dead. Now we're living, now we're dead, now we're Buddhas, [unclear, 00:08:13–00:08:18: “Now we're ordinary. Yeah, so more” / “we're ordinary people. So, boring.”] direct, non-analytical teaching based on the present moment.

And then he says, from the fourth point of view, the world is just like it is. Sometimes we're thinking. Sometimes we're involved in the physical world. Sometimes we're just living in the present. Sometimes things are just as we want them. Sometimes things are not as we want them. That's a fact. So that first paragraph contains a kind of statement of his whole philosophy. That's it. Hmm? That's it? Oh, that's it. Nothing, finished.

Interpreter: Yes, that's it, finished.

Mike: In the second paragraph, he talks about, if we try hard to live in reality, we delude ourselves. But if we just naturally let ourselves be part of reality, we are part of reality naturally. We're awake. So if we make a very strong effort to be present here, "I'm here," it doesn't work. It's a delusion. But if we just allow ourselves to be where we are, then we are awake in reality. So he's talking about trying to be something from an idea. And he says that people who know what it is to be deluded are Buddhas. So Buddhas know what it's like to be deluded. And people who are deluded about what is real, so, people who think they have an idea of what reality is, and talk about it enthusiastically, maybe deluding themselves. But people who realize what it's like to be deluded, they can just simply be present.

So, in other words, we need to realize that we're deluded sometimes before we can just be simply awake. This is what he says. And he says, some people who are awake can slowly become clearer and clearer about what is real, what the real world is like, what it's like to really live in the world. And other people become more and more deluded about what is real.

He then says that to be awake, or to be a Buddha, we don't need to notice that. It's not necessary to know, ah, I'm now awake in reality. You don't need to notice it. Even though we might not notice that we're in reality, we carry on experiencing the state of being awake. Being awake, or being Buddha, to Dogen simply means being awake, being here. Not lost in our thoughts, or trapped by our emotions, but just being here. So, a very simple state, which we all know. We enter it and leave it. But people who know the difference between the simple state of being here and the state where we are not here, we are somewhere in our mind, or somewhere trapped in our emotions, people who realize that are able to be in reality and slowly to become clearer about when we're here. If you have questions about the paragraph, you better say as we go along.

Roman: I'd like to ask about the thing you said, that some people who are excitingly explaining what the truth is, or write about it.

Mike: Yes.

Roman: It seems the greater the Buddhist teachers, the more confident or excited they seem to be explaining the truth, including Master Dogen, Shunryu Suzuki, and Nagarjuna. But you said if they do it, they don't know the truth. It sounded like that.

Roman (Czech): Well, I wanted to ask that Mike said something to the effect that those who enthusiastically explain the truth, as if they knew what the truth is, so they are deluded. And I said that it looks like the greatest Buddhist teachers actually always do that, that it looks like they enthusiastically explain what the truth is, what enlightenment is, so...

Mike: It's to do, it's connected with intention. Reality is not extraordinary. It's just here. As the ancient teachers used to say, it's carrying water, fetching... So while we are up here, talking about very abstract ideas of Buddhism, maybe Eli's in the kitchen just making the food. So she's in reality, and we're not.

Interpreter: [unclear, 00:19:06–00:19:07: “Well, that's me.” / “Uhas me!”]

Mike: But we can realize the fact. So this is just a talk. So reality is quite normal. Making tea, cutting the vegetables, cooking soup. But sometimes some of us need it to be explained to us. If we explain it to somebody excitedly, we miss the point. We miss the fact that, no, it's not the— it's not that. It's more simple than that. It's just being normal, being here. Make sure that the soup is not burning.

But of course, if we're making soup and we start talking to somebody, we might forget in our talk, in our conversation, oh, sorry, sorry. The soup is burning. So to be present. So, in some koan story, the student asks the master, "What is the central truth of Buddhism?" And the master says, "Have you finished eating?" And the student says, "Oh yeah." The master says, "Go and wash your bowl." That's reality. He didn't give a complicated explanation, because he said it's everyday life. But we find it very difficult to be in everyday simple life. [unclear, 00:21:53–00:21:55: “Because we are very intelligent.” / “Okay, so we are very intelligent and”] We tend to give different value to different activities, so we could say, oh, we're talking here about very, very important philosophy about life and truth, [unclear, 00:22:21–00:22:26: “But he lives in the kitchen cooking. I mean, not so important.” / “inside in the kitchen cooking so not so important”] But Master Dogen said, the cook is the most important person.

Roman: So it shouldn't be separate from everyday life. So when Master Dogen explains very difficult philosophical concepts, it doesn't mean he forgets what is everyday life.

Mike: I guess so. It doesn't say should or shouldn't. You can write about Buddhism as much as you want. Just don't forget that it's half past five and you need to eat some tea. Or while you're typing at the computer, oh, and your feet have become cold. That's all.

In the next paragraph, he says, when we are experiencing what's in front of us, [unclear, 00:24:24–00:24:26: “Holden.” / “hole hole”] it's very direct. It's not dual, like, for instance, looking at something else, where we can be conscious of ourselves looking at the other thing. So he's talking about experience. Whole experience is complete.

In the next paragraph, he says that the Buddha taught that we are finding out who we are, and to find out who we are is to forget who we are. When we forget who we are, we can become one with everything. When we can become one with everything, we let go of my body and my mind. And we let go of the world. So he's talking about the state when we act fully. We don't think about ourselves. You can say the ego disappears. Just there's somebody acting. So this is a common experience when we're in the flow, whether a musician or a sports person, or in the office, or chopping trees down. The separation between us and the world is not important. It's not there. It disappeared. Okay so.

So he goes on to explain, in the next long paragraph, something we touched, we talked about this morning. When we start looking for reality, we're looking for it somewhere else. We don't realise it's here. So we search out here, and don't realize that it's what we're searching for is where we are. It's easy for us to believe that we have something called a mind, you know, something called a body, and our mind continues without end, separate from our body. But he says, when we come back to reality, to this place, we can see that the world is not centered on us. We're part of something large. You're not at the center of it.