Next Dogen said, If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the Way. The idea of single-minded effort is another way of talking about shikan, as in shikan taza. Shikan is just doing whatever you are doing wholeheartedly, with your whole body and mind, doing it completely like a good bonfire that burns itself out. Whatever we do, if we do it with our undivided attention, whether we are driving or standing in line at the grocery check-out counter, it can be practice, or negotiating the Way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Here Dogen is repeating his reference earlier in the text to the exchange between Huai-rang and the Sixth Chinese Ancestor Hui Neng on the non-defilement or non-duality of practice and realization. Carl Bielefeldt pointed out that for Dogen, the emphasis in practice was less on avoiding delusion or defilement and more on whole-hearted participation in practice which is inseparable from enlightenment.

Going forward [in practice] is a matter of everydayness. This refers to an exchange between Joshu or Chao-chou and Nansen or Nan-chuan, found in Case 19 of the Mumonkan. One day Chao-chou asked his teacher, "What is the Way?" or "What is Tao?" Nan-chuan replied, "Ordinary mind is the Way." Chao-chou asked, "Should I try to direct myself toward it? Nan-chuan said, "If you try to direct yourself, you betray your own practice." Chao-chou then asked, "How can I know the Way if I don't direct myself?" Nan-chuan said, "The Way is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine Way, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation?" With these words, Chao-chou had sudden realization.

In this context, "Tao" means the Buddha Way, the way of practice and enlightenment, as well as fundamental truth. Chao-chou was asking about the fundamental truth of Zen, and Nan-chuan answered, ordinary mind which actually means Original Mind or mind before discursive thinking and discrimination are engaged. Original or ordinary mind is not consciousness any way you happen to find it or everyday mind with its conditioned habits of thought. It means unconditioned nature or mind-just-as-it-is unclouded by discrimination, which is another way of talking about Buddha Nature.

Chao-chou then asked, "Should I try to direct myself toward it?" Or, how do I go forward in practice, how do I make effort? And Nan-chuan responded from the position of non-duality saying, "If you try to direct yourself, you betray or undermine your own practice." We cannot reach the Way or fundamental truth by consciously striving or directing ourselves toward it as if it were a clearly defined goal. Treating enlightenment as an achievement means approaching it through ordinary dualistic consciousness. Kaz Tanahashi points out this paradox in Zen saying, "...isn’t freedom from attainment an essential element for achieving breakthroughs?" Chao-chou asked, "How can I know the Way if I don't direct myself or make effort?" Nan-chuan said, "The Way is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is blankness or complete ignorance."

This kind of "knowing" and "not knowing" involves perception, association, categorizing, analyzing, labeling, naming, and so on – the functions of discriminating consciousness. Original Mind is outside the realm of dualities, it involves neither thinking nor stopping thought, making effort nor giving up. Nan-chuan said, "If you truly reach the genuine Way, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of right and wrong?" With these words, Chao-chou had sudden realization. However, Mumon's commentary added, "Even though Chao-chou may be enlightened, he can truly get it only after practicing for thirty more years." And "thirty years" is a metaphor meaning no fixed time or forever. There's practice before we are conscious of realization and there's practice as an expression of our realization, and these can’t be clearly separated from each other, they mutually support and inform each other in an ongoing, endless process.

Suzuki Roshi talked about making effort, giving it a little different slant. He said, "Strictly speaking [from the position of the Absolute] any effort we make is not good for our practice because it creates waves in our mind. It is impossible, however, to attain absolute calmness of our mind without any effort. We must make some effort, but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make. In this realm there is no subjectivity or objectivity....it is necessary for us to encourage ourselves and to make effort up to the last moment, when all effort disappears." When we "forget ourselves in the effort we make," this is effortless effort.

Going back to the "Fukanzazengi," In general, this world and other worlds as well, both in India and China, equally hold the Buddha-seal, and over all prevails the character of this school, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting. I want to look at the term "Buddha-seal." Kaz Tanahashi said that this means the Buddha-mind seal or Buddha’s mind of enlightenment. The Chinese character for "seal" is mudra in Sanskrit. The literal meaning of mudra is a stamp or seal, to stamp or to seal, as well as imprinting. It also has the meaning of a bodily or hand position which is used in meditation and other ritualistic activities, and it’s used in Buddhist iconography to identify particular Buddhas.

In esoteric Buddhism, such as Shingon Buddhism, mudra also means imprinting certain qualities on the practitioner through the imagery used in meditation or visualization, "just as a seal leaves an impression on clay." Mudra, as a hand gesture, is sometimes seen as helping to actualize certain inner states in the practitioner. I think this is very much like the emphasis on the non-duality of body and mind in Zen. Suzuki Roshi said something like when the body is upright, the mind is upright. Dogen also used the term "seal" or Buddha-seal" in other fascicles, and in the Jijuyu Zammai he wrote, "When...you sit properly in samadhi, imprinting the Buddha-seal in deeds, words and thoughts, each...thing is the Buddha-seal and all space without exception is enlightenment."

Next Dgoen wrote, ...overall prevails the character of this school, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting I think the phrase, total engagement, is the essence of Dogen’s zazen. This is mind totally engaged, body totally engaged, whole being totally engaged and unified, moment by moment, in non-doing. And, again, it brings up the meaning of shikan, doing nothing else but the activity of the present.

Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are persons, still they (all) negotiate the Way solely in zazen. Why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? Maezumi Roshi said,"the seat that exists in your home" refers to the diamond seat where Shakyamuni Buddha sits, which is our zazen. The very cushion on which we sit is the seat of Buddha, so we don’t need to go anyplace else. The seat of the Tathagata is always right here now." Dusty realms of other lands refers to the objects of our six senses which is a way of talking about conditioned experience. "Dusty realms," also refers to the parable of the lost son in the Lotus Sutra in which the son of a wealthy man sets out to find his fortune, but instead becomes impoverished. After many years of wandering, he ends up at home without knowing it. Through skillful means, his father seeing his son’s destitution and fear, hires him to take care of his pigs, then gradually gives him better and better jobs until at last he reveals that he is his father and that his son is at home and heir to his estate. This is a metaphor for our inherently enlightened nature, which we have always had, but which we need to recognize and realize – making it real in our own lives.

If you make one misstep you go astray from (the Way) directly before you. This is reminiscent of the first section: And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth.

You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your time in vain. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha Way. Being born as a human is considered to be extremely difficult and rare in Buddhism. This is illustrated in an early sutta where Buddha asked, "Suppose someone threw a sea yoke with one hole in it into the sea, and the east wind carried it to the west, and the west wind carried it to the east, and the north wind carried it to the south, and the south wind carried it to the north. Suppose there was a blind turtle [at the bottom of the sea] that came up to the surface once at the end of each century. What do you think, would that blind turtle put his neck into that yoke with one hole in it?" A monk answered, "He might sometime or other at the end of a long period." Buddha went on, "The blind turtle would take less time to put his neck into that yoke with a single hole in it than a fool, once gone to perdition (rebirth in the animal realm) would take to regain the human state. Why is that? Because there is no practicing of the Dharma there, no practicing of what is wholesome...." (Majjhima Nikaya Sutta, 129) Now we have a human body and access to Buddhist teaching and practice, so don’t waste this precious opportunity. We don’t know when it will end.

Impermanence is a common theme in Buddhism, and in Zen monasteries a verse is often written on the wooden han which signals zazen, "Time passes quickly, don’t waste time" or "don’t waste your life." Dogen wrote, Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? A spark from the flintstone is a metaphor for the swiftness with which human life comes and goes. And, of course, if you are depending on a spark for fire, you will be pretty careful with it. Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightening – emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. This reminds me of the well-known verse at the end of the Diamond Sutra:

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,
A mock show, dew drops, or a bubble,
A dream, a lightning flash, or cloud,
So should one view what is conditioned.

Please honored followers of Zen. Long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not be suspicious of the true dragon. This refers to the well-known story of six blind men who try to understand what an elephant is by each feeling a different part of an elephant. The man who felt the trunk thought the elephant was like a snake; the one who felt the tail, thought it was like a rope; the man who felt the ear, thought it was like a fan; the one who felt a leg, thought it was like a tree trunk; the man who felt the side of the elephant, thought it was like a wall which illustrates how having a partial understanding can be very far from the real thing.

...do not be suspicious of the true dragon: "dragon" can be a metaphor for zazen or the enlightened person and it also refers to a story about a man who lived in early China and who loved dragons, or at least images of dragons. In Asian mythology, dragons lived both in underwater palaces and dwelt in clouds with the power to cause rain, and they were considered a symbol of good fortune. This man had collected paintings and carvings of dragons which he had throughout his house. One day when a real dragon heard of the man’s love for dragons, he came to visit. But when the real dragon appeared, the man was terrified. Don’t be fooled into thinking that reading about Buddhism and fantasizing about Zen practice are enough – jump in and taste the truth for yourself through your own living practice. There is a saying in Zen, pictures of rice cakes cannot satisfy hunger.

The "Fukanzazengi" ends, Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. Revere the person of complete attainment who is beyond all human agency. Gain accord with the enlightenment of the buddhas; succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestors’ samadhi. Constantly perform in such a manner and you are assured of being a person such as they. Your treasure-store will open of itself, and you will use it at will. Treasure store is another metaphor for Buddha nature or the enlightened nature inherent to all things.

Dogen’s teaching in the "Fukanzazengi" illustrates his love of zazen and his view that just sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting, is the activity or manifestation of our inherently enlightened nature. To experience this, we have to let go of discursive thinking, including all conceptualization and fabrication – letting go of our made-up world that has the function of interpreting our experience, rather than allowing us to meet our experience directly. Dogen referred to dropping this barrier as the dropping of body and mind – letting go of the boundaries of our body and mind that separate us from everything else. This is available to us when, moment by moment, we are able to bring our whole body, whole mind, whole being, to what we are doing. In Sounds of Valley Streams, Francis Cook said that "...Dogen was not so concerned with some one-time enlightenment, which presumably continues on to pervade all subsequent experience, as he was with a strenuous effort to evoke an enlightened response with each fresh occasion."

So, in Dogen’s Zen, once is not enough – we have to live enlightenment, rediscovering and reconnecting with boundless mind, boundless heart, over and over. I would like to end now where I began in the first talk, quoting from Dogen’s text "Bendowa," "Since it is already the enlightenment of practice, enlightenment is endless; since it is the practice of enlightenment, practice is beginningless."