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Joyful Mind, Grandmother Mind, Magnanimous Mind: Dogen's Three Hearts of Practice - Bansho Sensei · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Good morning, everyone. Morning, everyone here at Grey Vows Inn Monastery and those of you of you who are joining us online. Today I'd like to talk about three minds of practice, three hearts of practice. And this is from a teaching of Dogen Zenji, first ancestor in Japan, great teacher Ehei Dogen. Joyful mind, grandmother mind, magnanimous mind joyful heart grandmother heart magnanimous heart and we say this in mind or heart or heart mind or mind heart.
• 1:17
  And the reason one of the reasons why we do that is that in the original, in the Japanese and Chinese that Dogen wrote in, he was from Japan, studied in China and so much of and he wrote a lot in Chinese at the time but that symbol for mind is the same symbol that's used for heart. It's it's completely the same. And if you see the symbol, it looks like a heart. You'll just have to trust me on that. It looks like a heart.
• 1:57
  So that's why we say heart mind or mind heart because in the English language the way that we think about the mind is one way and the heart differently. Right? We can't help that. This is this is our own language so we do our best to bridge that. So Dogan, E.
• 2:16
  H. Dogan was, lived in the '12 he was born in 1200 and he was very moved to start the spiritual path young. Both his parents died when he was young before he was 10 and he had a great so he was moved by just the impermanence of things. I mean you lose both your parents young it leaves just a deep impression. So he went to he was ordained as a monk, as a boy, and grew up studying in a very, at the in a very kind of scholastic way absorbed the teachings did all kinds of practices and was dissatisfied.
• 3:17
  His his deep questioning was not satisfied. And his deep question was, if the teachings say that we're awake, enlightened from the beginning why do we have to why would we have to practice? Why do we have to practice if we're already awakened? So that compelled him to leave the monastery in his early twenties and seek seek the answer to his questions. So he found that no one in Japan could satisfy his questions.
• 4:02
  So he got on a on a boat and took the perilous journey to China. So when he was in China he met a cook. So this is from Dogen's writings called this is called the Tenzo Kyokun which is the instructions for the Tenzo, instructions for the monastery cook. So he tells a story about meeting this tenzo as part of, his path. So he, is on a ship for various for he he was kind of stuck on the ship.
• 4:58
  He's like stuck in customs. So he spent a lot of time on on this boat from Japan once he arrived. And so he met a Chinese monk. He says, I was on my ship while I was talking with the Japanese captain an old monk arrived who looked about 60 years old. He came straight onto the boat and asked one of the crew if he could buy some Japanese shiitake mushrooms.
• 5:25
  And I invited him, the Chinese cook, the old monk who was the cook at the monastery, I invited him to drink some tea and asked him where he lived. He was Tenzo at the monastery at Auwang Mountain. He said, I am from the Western part of Sichuan and left home forty years ago. So that means he left home, he became a monk. This year I am 61 years old.
• 5:53
  I've spent time at many monasteries in various areas. Last year after the end of the summer practice period I was appointed the Tenzo of the temple, the cook. Tomorrow is the fifth day celebration and I do not have any special food to serve. I want to make noodle soup but I do not have any mushrooms. Therefore I came here to try to buy shiitake mushroom shiitake to offer the monks from the 10 directions so all the monks who've come to practice at his monastery.
• 6:26
  Dogen, the young Dogen asked him, what time did you depart from there? From your monastery? The Tenzo said, after lunch. How far distance from here to there? The Tenzo said, About 12 miles that he walked.
• 6:45
  I said, When are you going to return to the temple? The Tenzo said, as soon as I finish buying the mushrooms, I will go. Dogen said, today unexpectedly we have met and also had a conversation on this ship about Buddhism. Is that not a truly fortunate opportunity? Allow me to offer food to you.
• 7:08
  The Tenzo said, It is not possible. If I do not take care of tomorrow's offering, it will be done badly. I said, this is Dogan saying, I said, in your temple aren't there many workers who know how to prepare meals the same as you? If only one person that Tenzo is not there will something be deficient? The Tenzo said, During my old age I am handling this job so in senility I am doing this wholehearted practice.
• 7:38
  How could I possibly just give away my responsibilities? Also when I came here I did not ask permission to stay away overnight. Dogen says, I then asked the Tenzo, Venerable Tenzo, in your advanced age, why do you not wholeheartedly engage the way through Zazen? Why or penetrate the words and stories of the ancient masters instead of troubling yourself by being Tenzo and just working. What is that good for?
• 8:08
  Says the young, young, young whippersnapper. The tenzo laughed loudly in his face and said, oh, good fellow from a foreign country. You have not yet understood wholeheartedly engaging the way. And, you do not yet know what words and phrases are. Dogan then writes, hearing this, I suddenly felt ashamed and stunned.
• 8:47
  And then asked him, what are words and phrases? What is wholeheartedly engaging the way?' Bansho said, 'If you do not stumble over this question, you are really a true person.' Dogan says, I could not understand at that time. So don't we have that same attitude or those same thoughts as the young Dogan that the work and the way that we're called to do and be, oh that's not wholeheartedly engaging the way. I should be engaging in in in studying the words of the great masters and of course that's true. That's valuable.
• 9:50
  But but the mistaken notion that that the activities of the cook, the activity, the bodhisattva activity, the giving, the generosity of being in your old age and walking 12 miles to get the right mushrooms. How do we, forget or think that that's not have the entertain the thought that that's not wholeheartedly engaging the way. We we wholeheartedly engage our life with our life, in our life. So yes we sit at Zazen, we come to Sashin, but you in your life, in your responsibilities, in your monastery is wholeheartedly engaging the way. So we do leave, Sashin, those of you who are here sitting in retreat or those of you who came today and go off how can I take this into my life?
• 11:08
  You take your life into your life just like that. Just like that. When we can we sit Zazen, we study the masters, we learn what we can and we practice with Sangha and we show up in the way that we need to. So Dogan wrote this as part of his instructions for how the cook practices. How the cook that is a whole meditation hall.
• 11:51
  A whole Buddha field is the kitchen. A whole Buddha field is the kitchen. So it's a very beautiful way to see how our activity of our life is is the wholehearted engagement of the way we show up. So it's a quite wonderful thing to perhaps consider is is something that you might read of the old masters. So, Dogan then at the end of this essay where he talks about all kinds of ways to talks about practical matters and also the the spirit and the the oneness of of being in activity, in that case in the kitchen, but the oneness of our life and the great way.
• 12:55
  He ends with talking about these three minds, joyful mind, grandmother mind, and magnanimous mind. Here's what Dogan says about joyful mind. He says, What I call joyful mind is the happy heart. What I call joyful mind is the happy heart. You must reflect that if you were born in heaven, you would cling to ceaseless bliss and not give rise to the way seeking mind.
• 13:44
  This would not be conducive to practice. Then he says, Now I have the fortune to consider. We should consider. Now I have the fortune to be born a human being and prepare food to be received by the monks in his case. We must be very happy about this.
• 14:10
  Moreover consider if you were born in the realms of hell, hungry addiction, hungry ghosts, animals, the jealous God realm, or other eight difficult births. Even if you desired refuge within the sangha's power, would never actually be able to prepare pure food. You never you wouldn't be in in alignment with that with the the functioning of the way. You should engage and carry out this work with the vow to include 1,000 or 10,000 lives in one day or one time. This will allow you to unite with your virtuous karmic causes for 10,000,000 lives.
• 14:54
  The mind that has fully contemplated such fortune is a joyful mind. So, Dogan says, the joyful mind comes from well, first of all, even before that, one of the things that really stuck out for me is what I call joyful mind is the happy heart. So the great ancestor Dogen says that there's a happy heart in Zen. Did you know that? I wish I, my younger self would have heard that teaching when when I was doing when I was practicing Zen as grim and serious business.
• 15:49
  The happy heart. He says, always have a joyful mind. What does that mean? Is joy a feeling? Is it emotion?
• 16:06
  What are ways that we feel joy? One way is to enjoy, enjoy what we're doing. Even the most so as we go forth cultivating joyful mind, even the most, mundane task we can enjoy. We can look for into what can I enjoy about this? This is one of the things that gets illuminated in sashined, the joy of just doing very simple things.
• 16:36
  Our life becomes very simple and we can really enjoy. And change one letter to I, enjoy. We can do all these things in joy. It can be in our life in joy. We find the small things.
• 17:01
  What can I enjoy about mundane tasks? I enjoy the lines that happen when you vacuum. I really enjoy that. I always have. I enjoy that.
• 17:19
  I enjoy the motion of the body that happens when you're backing, when you really get in one of the long intersecting hallways. It goes on and on, and you're just rotating the hips. So, we read this and and and even the things that we we don't like so much. I do not like dusting. I do not like dusting.
• 17:45
  I don't know why. I don't have karmic affinity with dusting. But one of the things that I can, one of the things that brings me, if I look for the joy in it, one of the things that I do enjoy about it, when my mind is not in aversion about it, or I let my mind wander and I'm just, one of the things that I do enjoy is that I come across things that I forgot were there. You know, I look past this object all the time, Oh, here it is. And, that's the kind of thing is the joyful mind is just really being in joy with those things.
• 18:34
  The other reason to cultivate a joyful mind is its effect on others. There's a saying, they call them the slogans, one of the slogans in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous or Al Anon, Alateen, one of the slogans is, Attitudes are contagious. Attitudes are contagious, is mine worth catching? That was my favorite one when I was a teenager and probably needed that a lot. Attitudes are contagious.
• 19:13
  So so a joyful mind, people when you're around somebody with joy you see someone who's joyful it's contagious. It has an effect. Enjoying our life has a beneficial effect on other people. I think you can probably imagine or think of someone you know who's who's joyful just where they are. Our own mood is lightened and changed.
• 19:42
  Maybe they they just simply enjoy their life what they're doing. Maybe they find it easy. We can have that idea. Oh, this is just easy. They're just that way.
• 19:54
  But maybe they've actually gone through great difficulty and they're joyful all the same. So how do we cultivate this happy heart? The happy heart, joyful mind. Well, Dogon says it's gratitude and really being grateful that we've been born as human beings and can practice the way. One of the Tibetan teachings is the four thoughts that turn the mind to the Dharma and one of them is really being in clarity that it is a complete miracle that we're here.
• 20:41
  Complete miracle that you're here. It's an absolute impossibility for all of us to be in this room. Like if you had to write a math equation and do line up, it would be absolutely impossible to line up everything for us to be here. And so, with being born a human, We could have been born all kinds of things. We're a bunch of molecules in space, in energy, and here we are, we have this life.
• 21:20
  And how many human beings are born and like never hear these teachings, never learn to meditate, never learn, never they never hear the teachings, they never hear about ways to work with their mind and unburden their heart. So this is, if we really, if we see this and really take it in, there's joy there. It's like this is wonderful. This is wonderful. So one of the ways that we can do that is to do the practice of gratitude.
• 22:03
  It's a very, again, sort of in the going forth, we leave retreat, we leave the monastery, we leave Sunday program, how
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: do I
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: take this with me, how do I bring this into my life? Practice joyful mind and the way to that is gratitude. And so, do a gratitude journal. For 99, you can get a little notepad and a pencil and write down, keep it by your bed and write down what you're grateful for at the end of the day. And put it on your pillow so that when you before you put your head down, there it is.
• 22:46
  So something something very simple. And you can share it too. Johmaan had a practice where she would she had a friend and they would, text each other, at the end of the day three things that they were grateful for. It took forty five seconds, one minute, but it's cumulative. Then our mind turns towards gratitude, and the joyful mind reveals itself.
• 23:14
  So we don't have to force ourselves It's like, oh I need to be joyful. How do I find joy? It's like we just pay attention. Pay attention, be open and and joy of itself is revealed. So another way to practice joy is you can borrow someone else's joy.
• 23:38
  You can borrow someone else's joy. One of our teachings is, one of the four aspects of the awakened heart is sympathetic joy, taking joy in others' joy. So taking joy in someone else's success, someone else's excellence. I think this is one of the reasons why some people, some of us, can get interested in sports, watching sports because you have nothing to do with anything that's happening. But you watch this thing happen, you watch the World Cup and there's all this joy happening.
• 24:37
  Or we watch the Olympics and we learn about all the athletes and their stories and then we see them succeed and we're happy. That's sympathetic joy. So you can borrow someone else's joy. So look around you, who's succeeding, who's doing well, who's doing excellent, who made an awesome quilt, who made excellent cookies, Right? Who painted a painting?
• 25:03
  Who read to their child? We can borrow that and add to it. So that's that's joyful mind. So next is grandmother mind and heart. Grandmother mind and heart.
• 25:34
  So what Dogan says about this, As for what is called nurturing mind, it is the mind of mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. Even impoverished, for example, as considering the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as mother and father. No matter anyone's material conditions, very poor and destitute people firmly love and raise an only child. What kind of determination is this? Parents earnestly consider their child's growth without concern for their own wealth or poverty.
• 26:24
  They do not care if they are cold or hot, but give their child covering or shade. In parents' thoughtfulness, there is this intensity. So in this particular translation it's translated as parent. The original Japanese is Roshin. Roshin.
• 26:46
  Rho means old, and shin is heart, mind. So it's often translated as grandmother to really point to the connotations of the of it. So I think about the so it's it's this there's an intensity to it, to this nurturing mind. This nurturing mind. In the nurturing, in the grandmother's thoughtfulness, there's this kind of intensity.
• 27:27
  I remember the first time I beheld my own mother relating to her first grandchild. And it was like there was this like force field, kind of warping reality around around her and her. It's amazing. Just amazing. So this is the is the grandmother's heart.
• 27:59
  The nurturing of of all beings. So we don't only sort of clearly see reality with this great sort of wisdom sword, there's this great heart that's part of it. So a little story about why Dogan thought this was very important. In our, there is a Dogen had a new monk named Tetsugi Kai who is in our lineage. We chant his name every day.
• 28:30
  Dogen Zenji, Kounejo, Tetsu Gikai. Gikai was, Dogen had moved from Kyoto after he'd come back from Japan and was trying to establish a community of practitioners he moved, he had to move to the mountains and he went to this area that's very cold and full of snow in the winter and Gikai was a new monk but Dogan could see that his heart was sincere and his practice was solid and he asked him to be the Tenzo, the cook. One writer says, this is scholar Badaford talking about this says, the winter just after the move and Geekai was responsible for securing a supply of food and preparing all the meals. Now you can't just go to Fred Meyer, right, or Cash and Carry. Like it's a big thing to be out up in the mountains and you have to feed a community of monks.
• 29:35
  Feed community of anyone. So this is a very important job. The early histories claim that Gi Kai did this all alone, and that he had to walk very far across windy mountain paths through deep snow carrying buckets of supply for each day's meals. And even if he had others, it was still a huge responsibility because if you don't find the food and bring it back, people starve. They're hungry.
• 30:05
  So no doubt that him knowing the area was a great help for the monks and his appointment as the cook meant that Dogon really trusted him. And yet Dogon continued to push Gi Kai Even though his understanding of the Dharma was clear, he pushed Gikai. And Gikai, in his own writings, records that on three occasions where Dogan admonished him for lacking grandmother mind. And he wrote his quote in his writing is, I will not forget these admonitions even though I do not yet know their cause. So, we can imagine Dogen just admonishing him to have grandmother mind, but doing it in a way that turns Gi Kai back on his own practice.
• 30:59
  Where's the block? Where's the block? Gikai was so stellar that, he ended up finishing the construction of the monastery Eheji which is still there from the December. And you know, there's some thought that with his insight and skill and administration people thought that he would be succeed, Dogan, but Dogan died and he still needed to work on his grandmother heart. Dogan would say about this, grandmother heart, grandmother mind, grandmother mind.
• 31:54
  You can understand all of Buddhism but you cannot go beyond your abilities and your intelligence unless you have Ro Baishin, grandmother mind, the mind of great compassion. This compassion must help all of humanity. You should not think only of yourself. Ruobai Xin. How One of the exhortations in of the Chinese monk, Hongzhi, that we read during our retreats is, all beings are our ancestors.
• 32:36
  All beings are our ancestors. So, how how to see this? How do we see this? Bit by bit. One of the ways that we do this is really encourage people to handle what we call inanimate objects with kindness.
• 33:09
  That's why we don't shove the bowls down the table during when we're eating, we pick them up. It's why in the monastery in in Japan, they train you to do orioki and handle all the implements with two hands. So you pick up your spoon and place it. You pick up your chopsticks and place them. It's a it's it's bringing, it's practicing kindness with whatever is in your life.
• 33:43
  In that case, it's a spoon. Right? Regarding all things with kindness. The other way that we can practice this is when we encourage people to practice meta, meta, loving kindness practice, which is really about establishing unconditional love. Compassion responds to suffering.
• 34:08
  The heart is open and responds to suffering. And that's an essential emergence expression of awakening. And this element called of love loving kindness metta, regard it offers kindness no matter what. Is there suffering or not suffering? Does this person deserve kindness or not?
• 34:36
  Do I like them or not? Grandmother loves their grandchild no matter what. Oh, isn't that cute? I was like, mom, you wouldn't let me do that. Yes.
• 35:05
  So this practicing meta is a way that we can actually align ourselves with this nurturing mind. So if you haveand these words kind of just point to this. So we might have a sometimes parental mind that helps us, but if we have, if hinders our engagement because maybe unresolved stuff with our parents, forget about it. We didn't have a, maybe we never knew our grandparents, they died before, we didn't know our grandmother or really know them or they weren't in our life. So that's, you know, these are just pointing to.
• 35:42
  So maybe you just say nurturing mind. Always have a nurturing mind. How can we nurture our life, everything in it? And then finally, magnanimous mind. Magnanimous heart.
• 35:58
  Daishin. Daishin. This is translated as magnanimous heart, magnanimous mind. The symbol, the Chinese characters are great heart. Great heart.
• 36:17
  Here's what Dogan has to say about the great heart. As for what is called magnanimous mind, this mind is like the great mountains or like the great ocean. It is not biased or contentious mind. It is like the great mountains or the great ocean. The great heart.
• 36:45
  Where's heart? Wholeheartedly engaging the way. This is so magnanimous mind, ocean it's ocean mind, mountain mind, open, spacious, it's natural mind, unbiased, not in argument with the way things are. So there's a, an old Chinese fable about this kind of mind, about a Chinese farmer. It goes like this, Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away.
• 37:39
  That evening all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate. The farmer said, We'll see. The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it.
• 38:02
  In the evening all the neighbors came back and said, Oh, isn't this lucky? What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses. The farmer said, We'll see. The following day his son, Zelda's son, went out to try to break one of the horses, start to train this wild horse.
• 38:29
  And while riding it he was thrown off his horse and broke his leg. The neighbors came and said, Oh, this is terrible. What bad luck, this is so bad. And the farmer responded, We'll see. The next day, conscription officers from the emperor came around to draft all the young men into the army to go to war.
• 39:00
  And they showed up and they said, Do you have any sons? Yes. We'd like to see him. And they saw his broken leg and they rejected him. And again all the neighbors came around and said, Isn't that great?
• 39:22
  And again the farmer said, We'll see. So this is the unbiased mind, the we'll see the resting mind. This is the mind of Zazen that we cultivate in Zazen. This is the silent in silent illumination. It's not being in argument with how things are and what's happening.
• 39:53
  Aligning with the way things are in our zazen. And as we said, it's what Ajon Samedo always says to remind himself in this practice, right now it's like this. So the old farmer instead of we'll see he could instead of we'll see he could use Ajon Sameto's phrasing, right now it's like this. Horse ran away, right now it's like this. Now you have eight horses, right now it's like this.
• 40:28
  Your son broke his leg, right now it's like this. So same thing with all the things in our life, right now it's like this. Right now it's like this. Not worrying about, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen with the harvest? What's, what am I gonna do?
• 40:46
  What's gonna happen next? What's gonna happen in my practice? What's gonna happen Right now it's like this. This is this magnanimous mind. Right now it's like this.
• 41:00
  So as we go forward please nurture your joyful mind, your nurturing mind, and your ocean mountain mind, and then offer it to everyone you come encounter encounter with. Offer it to all beings, whoever comes forward in your life. Thank you.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.