Talk Notes:
2026-06-15 Sansui-kyo talk 2 at Samish
In the 1990's at Samish, Norman was the only priest and he was in the zendo a lot more than some of us remember from recent years. He was the doshi for every service for one thing. I'm pretty he'd sit in the zendo for a day or two each time before starting dokusan to help settle the space and make sure we were on track. The group grew slowly over the 90's, there might be some old paper registration sheets in the files somewhere but I don't know how many of us there were. Around 25 or 30.
And it was absolutely an international group. While there were weekly sitting groups now going steadily in Bellingham and Vancouver, when Norman came to town it was one sangha. We'd all cross the border in whichever direction we needed to. This was not just before Trump it was also before 9/11. A border crossing didn't feel like a big deal at all. So you'd pretty much always see Kate and Michael, Rick Spencer who passed this year sadly, and other committed Canadians like Claire Talbot, Dan and Martha Chesluck, Flo and Susan, and several others along with the Bellingham regulars.
Oh back to the first year, one infamous thing stemmed from how I had found it so helpful and interesting having roommates at Green Gulch and San Francisco Zen Center when I was at sesshin. I felt like I learned some much being with these other guys in close quarters as we silently navigated sesshin together. So in that first year, even though we were surrounded by 47 rustic cabins, I insisted that everyone have a roommate. To my amazement now, they went along with it and we squoze into the A row and a few of the B row cabins. I guess it does give people who were there that first year something to laugh about to this day. I've heard Heidi Epstein tell that story many times.
Thinking of Heidi makes me think of a sweet and sad memory, but also reminds me that Samish was the place for all of the regional jukai ceremonies in those years. We'd usually have the jukai on Friday afternoon, then break into a reception and party on Friday evening. And then the idea was to get it back together and be in sesshin mode to get up early on Saturday morning for zazen and the shosan question and answer ceremony with Norman.
Back to Heidi - I think maybe just a few of us know her? - such a wonderful person. She lives here in the valley on Beaver Marsh Road. She's an artist and wise woman. I think she was a teacher for many years too. Heidi and her husband Mark had a daughter, and when she was 16 or 17, the tragedy all parents fear the most deeply struck their family. Their daughter was killed in a car crash. Many of us here have lost siblings and know what this can do in a family. Some of us here have lost children and you know even more deeply.
So when Heidi was preparing for jukai, she didn't just sew a rakusu for herself. She also sewed one for her daughter. And Norman prepared all of the usual materials for Heidi's daughter too. Gave her a Dharma name, did calligraphy on her rakusu, made her a lineage paper to welcome her into Buddha's family. Spoke to her during the ceremony. It makes me cry remembering this all of these years later. And what a brilliant and touching idea Norman had. I wonder how he even thought of offering that or if somehow Heidi thought of it.
I was kind of hoping we might see Heidi here for one of the talks. Maybe we will yet and I can ask her. Heidi's been such a lovely support for me. Kind of a grandmother in the Dharma. She'd come to dokusan each year and give me such love around the ways I was growing and changing over the years, over the decades. I don't think i've appreciated her near as much as I could have and I resolve to do better.
So in the 1990's Samish was an important place for the emerging sanghas. We did have our challenges. Of course. Differences of opinion, minor power struggles, some degree of vying for Norman's attention. I remember there was a keen competition to be Norman's jisha every year. People tried their best to not act like they were obsessed with doing that but there was a little group of people who really, really, really wanted to be his jisha. And then they'd all do their best to put on a cheerful face and act like they weren't totally crushed if they didn't get the gig. It was a thing. I felt like I had to decide who to give the golden ticket to every year and who to disappoint. Kind of sweet in retrospect though!
I appreciated so much in Kanho's talk yesterday including her reflections on Norman's continued presence here. That's right: it's a conventional truth that Norman is at home in Muir Beach, California, this week instead of coming up here for the umpteenth time and we can for sure feel his presence here. His steadiness in the practice. His patience. His enjoyment of the practice and the sangha. And mostly his trust in the Dharma.
Norman never felt like we had to be too fancy or elaborate about anything, although he does deeply appreciate the traditional forms we pull off in our "pop up monastery." No, just do the practice. Do sesshin. And do it together. Left to his own devices at the Everyday Zen retreats they do in the Bay Area things the forms and rituals are even simpler than how we do them here.
He appreciated that the practice can be challenging for us and that to some extent it needs to be that way, but not too challenging. Never difficult for difficult's sake. He asked me to make the schedule more gentle about five years in or so. I'd started with pretty much the schedule I remembered from my days at San Francisco Zen Center. I remember shortening the majority of the zazen periods from the standard 40 minutes long to 30. "If you're sitting all day you get plenty of zazen time, it's okay if the periods are a little shorter and it'll be easier especially on the older people" I remember him saying. And some years later we also shifted the start time in the morning back a bit - from 5:30 to 6:00. So just FYI that this is the gentler schedule!
I remember many times going to see him about this or that worry or concern with an improvement in mind. With a fix in mind. An extra orientation for newer people was one idea. And each time he'd say, "No, that's okay, they'll be ok." Keep it simple. (Although maybe a few of the newer people right now are like, "umm... that might have been nice!") But what I remember in each of those conversation a sense of my tension and worry falling away into a sense of trust. It works out. The Dharma takes care of us. Do less in leadership, not more. And recently I heard myself saying much the same thing to a someone about exactly that topic!
And of course he modeled kindness and compassion and acceptance through and though. You didn't have to try harder, you didn't have to be perfect, you didn't have to be tougher or smarter, just be yourself. Just do your best with the body and mind that you have. Just show up. It's enough.
Over the years he didn't give me either much criticism or much praise. Just a warm kind of acceptance and appreciation. When I'd have the occasional shift or realization, he'd pretty much say a version of "oh that's nice" and if I was really excited about whatever I felt I'd realized and was going on about it, he'd add, "oh that's nice, let's talk about something else now."
It's not about accomplishment. There's nothing to get. That we're growing and changing in all the ways we need to. Trust the process. Trust the Dharma. These are the gifts from my teacher. Our teacher. Nothing flashy. I suppose it took some decades for me to recognize the gifts I was being given and how precious and important they are. And I hope I'm able to offer these same gifts from this lofty teacher's seat he's invited me to crawl onto for those who will benefit from them.
Continuing with Master Dōgen's riff on mountains and waters now. As Chris mentioned yesterday he was deeply inspired by Su Dongpo, also known as Su Shi, 's poem:
This mountain stream, is Buddha's long, broad tongue This vast mountain, is Buddha's formless body All night long: listening to 84,000 sutra verses When the light returns, how will I explain it?
We got to sample his essay Keisei Sanshoku "Valley Sounds, Mountain Colors" where he quotes this directly and riffs on it, and it seems like those images were strongly in his mind as he wrote this piece.
Or: I wonder also if he ran into these quotes from Masters Daokai and Yunmen and this whole long essay sprung forth from that. Daokai saying to the assembly, "The green mountains are always walking; a stone woman gives birth to a child at night." And Yunmen's saying "Eastern mountains travel on water." I imagine him reading those saying and picking up his brush, grinding the ink, and starting to explore the Dharma universe of walking mountains and flowing waters. I also imagine some of these essays coming very quickly to Dōgen and he did produce quite a few of the chapters to his Shobogenzo during his late 30's and early 40's so they much have.
Sometimes people suggest reading Dōgen more like poetry and less like prose and it does have it's poetic elements but to me these pieces read the most like riffs. Maybe I'm remembering being out in the woods, often late at night, with my quirky friends when I was younger - maybe some substances were involved! - just riffing on our lives and this world.
Dōgen fired up on the Dharma, riffing with us as his buddies sitting in the circle. We can enjoy Dōgen in that same kind of way. Brilliant, interesting, and it's okay if you don't quite follow it all. You get the gist somehow.
And you can also study Dōgen very closely. There's SO much we can unpack with careful reading and that's great to do too, but as Chris was saying trying to read him like an essay with a premise and four logical arguments leading to a conclusion just isn't going to work. These riffs are a lot circular, fluid, and beyond conventional ways of thinking.
This is because probably more deeply than my stoned friends could, Dōgen find a way to speak to us from beyond the conventional point of view. Even with a different language, culture and time he can do this. He speaks to us from beyond the world concepts and conventions. He speaks to us from the ultimate side, sending us postcards from emptiness with his flowing brush. And he's inviting us to join him there. He knows it isn't easy for us, so he shifts in and out out the relative and ultimate to invite us across again and again. He's always encouraging us to go beyond our usual way of thinking.
And it's also hard to quite get your mind around how deeply steeped in the Chinese Zen literature he was. These essays are full of quotations and references, often he just slips them into his sentences. An amazing recent resource for Dōgen studies is a new translation of the entire Shobogenzo sponsored by Sōtōshu, Standard University, and others - it's been in progress for 20 years or so actually. As these scholars went through Dōgen yet again with the benefit of being able to search the Chinese Zen writings on the computer, they found a whole bunch more quotations slipped in. And being Dōgen, sometimes he'd mess with the quotations, flipping things and playing with the words, so it was some serious scholarly detective work.
Dōgen also has entire complete journeys through the material embedded in his pieces. I feel like what we labeled section 4 is example of that.
(4.1 & 4.2)
Green mountains thoroughly practice walking and eastern mountains thoroughly practice traveling on water. Accordingly, these activities are a mountain’s practice. Keeping its own form, without changing body and mind, a mountain always practices in every place.
Don’t slander by saying that a green mountain cannot walk and an eastern mountain cannot travel on water. When your understanding is shallow, you doubt the phrase Green mountains are always walking. When your learning is immature, you are shocked by the words “flowing mountains.” Without fully understanding even the words “flowing water,” you drown in small views and narrow understanding
So like the green mountains we thoroughly practice our way. "Keeping its own form without changing body and mind" is quite clear: you be you. Practice with the body and mind you have.
Don't slander by saying this can't happen. If you can't believe that mountains walk and travel on the water how will you ever believe that you are Buddha? To the conventional mind both seem impossible right? So that's not he mind we need here. The small views and narrow understanding we need to worry about are not about reading some old essay, they are about how we understand ourselves.
4.3
Yet, the characteristics of mountains manifest their form and life force. There is walking, there is flowing, and there is a moment when a mountain gives birth to a mountain child. Because mountains are buddha ancestors, buddha ancestors appear in this way.
This one's a little harder. Why the "yet" there? Mountains manifest their form and life force. They walk and they flow. That's good encouragement for us. Maintain your form, or the form, and keep your energy up. Practice virja paramita - enthusiastic energy beyond any limited views of what energy is. And actually someone was telling me they felt like really letting themselves into the fullness of practice is exciting and scary much like giving birth. Giving birth to a new form of the timeless form that we are. The last line is clear enough because ordinary being are Buddhas, Buddhas can appear. How else could they?
So much of the logic I'm seeing (or reading in!) here mirrors the opening of Genjo Koan that we chanted this morning:
Genjo koan
As all things are buddha dharma, there is delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, buddhas and sentient beings. As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack; thus there is birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.
Maybe you can also Quigyuan's "I thought that Mountains were mountains; then I saw that mountains are not mountains; now I see that mountains are mountains." In that passage. I'll read it again:
As all things are buddha dharma, there is delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, buddhas and sentient beings. As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack; thus there is birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.
Anyway section 4 goes on with a longer paragraph:
4.4
Even if you have an eye to see mountains as grass, trees, earth, rocks, or walls, do not be confused or swayed by it; this is not complete realization. Even if there is a moment when you view mountains as the seven treasures’ splendor, this is not returning to the source. Even if you understand mountains as the realm where all buddhas practice, this understanding is not something to be attached to. Even if you have the highest understanding of mountains as all buddhas’ wondrous characteristics, the truth is not only this. These are conditioned views. This is not the understanding of buddha ancestors, but merely looking through a bamboo pipe at a corner of the sky.
This is CLASSIC DOGEN. You start to have a glimmer, a glimpse, a sense of insight. You get excited maybe! Oh my he's saying, isn't that nice, but you're still outside looking in my friend.
This is much like Norman's "oh that's nice, let's talk about something else." Isn't it?
The trick here is to hear this as encouragement. Not discouragement. And that's exactly how I heard Norman's statement in the dokusan room long ago. Acknowledgment with wise restraint. Don't get excited. Half-way there is a wonderful thing. And it's just half way there.
And there's no second half in this journey. We are feeling into the space that's beyond half, beyond that kind of separation, beyond you and me. The space where mountains dance on the waters and you are I drop our story so completely all we can do is grin like idiots not remembering who we are but glad beyond measure that we don't.
4.5
Turning circumstances and turning mind is rejected by the great sage. Speaking of mind and speaking of essence is not agreeable to buddha ancestors. Seeing into mind and seeing into essence is the activity of people outside the way. Confined words and phrases do not lead to liberation. There is something free from all of these views. That is: Green mountains are always walking, and Eastern mountains travel on water. Study this in detail.
This passage reminds me of a famous Suzuki Roshi story that I heard from the source. Forgive me if you'd heard this one multiple times. Blanche Hartman who was an early San Francisco Zen Center person used to tell the story of feeling really awkward about things Zen in her first years, especially zazen where he felt like a tangled and distracted mess. At one point zazen suddenly felt much easier, clearer, she felt grounded and open - wonderful, she felt like she'd figured it out at least! So she went, all excited, to see Suzuki Roshi in dokusan. And he immediately was quite upset and angry, hollering at her (in a loving one was must assume, but hollering): "You don't do zazen. Only zazen does zazen!" I think at the time a very difficult moment for her, for sure, how would you feel? But also one that she kept unpacking and learning from for many years.
So "turning circumstances and turning mind" is trying to make it all happen. Doing Zen. Doing zazen. Getting it right, figuring it out. "Confined words and phrases do not lead to liberation." Words are all we have to discuss all of this - and the great master Dōgen is using a lot of them here. There are also many famous stories like this where the teacher made the other choice:
Jingde chuandeng lu (vol. 14)
One day, the monastery director invited the master Yaoshan Weiyan (藥山惟儼, 745–827) to deliver a Dharma talk. After the assembly had gathered, Yaoshan sat in silence for a long while, then returned to his quarters and closed the door.
The director followed him and asked, "Master, you agreed to give a teaching — why did you leave?"
Yaoshan replied, "For sutras, there are sutra masters; for treatises, treatise masters; for precepts, precept masters."
In other words for a matter of true seeing a silent talk is best. Not the choice Dōgen made. Nor is it the choice Norman made, and it seems I am in that lineage. Someone told me recently, "your talks are always about 10 minutes too long." To this I say, yes!
So to get my last 10 minutes in let's go back to the end of section 4:
I found that the word "confined" in "Confined words and phrases do not lead to liberation" was puzzling me. Some words and phrases are more confined? All words are confined? I'm confined if I use words and phrase?
So I went to a few other translations. One has:
Clogged by words and clogged by phrases is not the speech of liberation.
And another has
"Sticking to words and sticking to phrases" are not the words of liberation
Which helped me see he's talking about don't be confined or clogged by, or stuck to, words and phrases. Don't get stuck in the conceptual world. Instead return to the teachings: "the blue mountains always walking’; they are “the East Mountain walking on the water.”’ We should give these words detailed investigation.
So I guess a case where each translation is probably reasonable but looking at them together I found a bit more clarity. And if you do that too much you get totally lost down many rabbit holes. So use your scholarly powers judiciously. Sometimes better to just keep going and not worry about.
So I think we have the gist of section 4 here don't we? Be yourself though and though and practice whole heartedly. Don't try to be someone or something else. Don't try to figure it all out. Don't doubt the incredible reality of who and what we and this universe really are - and don't try to define what that is either. If you get excited about your great realizations along the way, forget about all that. Keep going. Keep practicing. Listen to our teachers and don't put another head on top of your own.
At least that's one take on this section. The best is get into this on your own or with a friend or two, read it out loud. Write some of your own phrases. Maybe you join Kanho Chris and company online on Tuesday evenings - they are into this every week forever. I guess when they finished with Shobogenzo in another 4 years they'll have to decide whether to go on to the recorded teachings from 'Dōgens later year - the Eihei Koroku - or just start over on page 1 of the Shobogenzo.
Okay I think I've taken care of the extra 10 minutes now. And then some, maybe. Thank you for your kind attention. At one point, probably here in this room, I remember Norman saying well I hope this has at least been entertaining and a diversion from the pain in your knees. I hope so too.
