We were happy and honored to invite Andrea Martin as our Guest Teacher for a dharma talk at the beginning of March. Andrea became a student of Katagiri Roshi in 1978 and received the lay Buddhist precepts from him in 1980. She heads the Dainin Katagiri Archives and is author of the biographical essay "Ceaseless Effort: The Life of Dainin Katagiri." Andrea has edited two books of Katagiri Roshi’s teachings: Each Moment Is the Universe (2007), and The Light That Shines through Infinity (2017). She was recognized as a lay teacher by Ted O’Toole in 2020.

Full Transcript

And so, the guiding theme of this book is expressed succinctly in the subtitle: "The Energy of Life." It's that energy is the cosmic or spiritual energy that animates the universe. The book revolves around how Katagiri Roshi spoke of that energy as an essential element of Zen Buddhism and the practice, the philosophy and the practice of Zen Buddhism.

As you know, Zen, although we, for me I always initially associated it with Japan, actually developed in China. And so I've become increasingly interested in Chinese culture as I've worked with this material and how Buddhism met and was influenced by Chinese culture at its root formation. So that influence is really baked into Zen in so many ways obvious and subtle, but it's less prominent in Zen compared to some of the other wisdom teachings and practices that we've inherited from East Asia. For me it was kind of exciting to look at Katagiri Roshi's teachings and see how some of those same ideas are present there. If you just sort of scratch the surface you see them.

But spiritual energy wasn't really my first idea for the book. I was very interested in Katagiri Roshi's teachings on light. I was interested because I didn't understand them. He used the word light in ways that didn't, you know, conceptually I couldn't really understand what he was saying. Was it a metaphor, or was he talking about something actually visible? I really wanted to study that, and that's where I started from. But there wasn't enough material. I did have some material but it wasn't enough to flesh out a book.

And then one day I was watching some scientific-based TV show. I don't remember what it was anymore and I heard the narration say that light was a way of transmitting energy through space. And I thought, oh, okay, energy. That's the way I can broaden the question of light into something that I can work with. So I started to explore the whole idea of energy.

And there was one particular talk that I had, it was kind of a leftover because I had found it during my process of producing the first book that I did about time, but it didn't fit in there. And then I read the verse, it was his commentary on the verse of offering incense. That is a four-line gata or verse that is associated with the ritual of offering a stick of incense at the altar. I don't know that it's ever spoken. I think it's something one says to oneself, as you offer incense. And I kept going, I kept wanting to go back to that talk and see how I could use it and it turned out to be a bit of a seed I think in the book that we have now.

So the verse is, "Sila samadhi paramita, incense radiant light of the Buddha's immense throughout the Dharma world. Homage to the countless Buddhas in the 10 directions permeates into seeing and hearing and manifests Nirvana." What I especially loved was the second line of the verse "radiant light of the Buddha's immense throughout the Dharma world." And Shambhala gave the title to the book, "The Light that Shines Through Infinity" and I was amazed, almost shocked to see it because I think that that title actually is an echo or resonates with the same idea that the radiant light of the Buddha's immense throughout the Dharma world.

And so when I came up with the idea of energy, then I recalled an encounter I guess you could say I had with Katagiri Roshi. And also with his wife Tomoe as part of the same situation. It was an evening gathering at Zen Center. I think it was in 1986 or so. And it was a shosan - it's an evening gathering where the students gather around the teacher with tea, and it's like a free open forum to ask the teacher whatever you want. And I had a conversation with a specific question that had to do with my father-in-law. He was living in my home, and I was helping take care of him. He had cancer. And I came to a point where the doctors were saying things like, maybe it's time to stop treatment and let him go. And so I came with that question, how do you make a decision like that.

So, I don't know what kind of answer I was expecting. I suspect it was more about Buddhist ethics. But at all what Katagiri Roshi said he started talking about my father-in-law's life force energy. And then Tomoe-san, his wife jumped in. And she started talking about his three energies. It was very hard for me to follow what she was saying because I didn't have a background for that information. I did my best I could and then I managed to say something. I said something like so I should just do the best I can to take care of them and let the universe take care of the rest. And Katagiri Roshi nodded very solemnly. And it turned out, I, we were never called on to make any final decision about my father-in-law and he just, he did pass away in our home very simply and quietly.

And so, so that was another seed of the book. And then as I started to look into the reading or listening to - I asked, I auditioned many tapes to select material for the book. And I began noticing how often Katagiri Roshi was talking about the triple treasure. When he was talking about energy, it connected aspects of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha directly to the energy of life. And I became interested in how that energy that we receive from East Asia is baked in in the sense of the Buddhist Buddha Dharma Sangha. And in a way that became the structure around which I imagined the book.

I have since learned that, according to traditional Chinese medicine there are three life energies in the body. And some of you this is not new to but it was new to me when I found it. Jing, Chi and Shen. And they are known as the three treasures. And that's related to Taoist philosophy. So Jing is the essence, the set amount of original energy, given to a person at conception. Jing energy enters our tissues and becomes the root of our body. Chi is vitality, it's the cosmic energy associated with the air or breath. It animates life, furnishes functional power for movement and change and links us to the universe as a whole. Chi energy is important for us because it can be enhanced after we are born. So that, that is the primary energy that Katagiri is talking about in his teachings, in my opinion. The third one, Shen is spirit or mind energy is developed when Jing and Chi are in balance. It's said that when our Shen is strong we have peace of mind and glow with spiritual light. I loved that answer almost to my question about what spiritual light is could be found in this. These three energies.

When Buddhism arrived in China, they needed to do a lot of tricks with translation, finding ways to correlate Indian teachings with the Chinese thought process and the indigenous spirituality. So, they ended up associating the three treasures with the Buddhist triple treasure of Buddha Dharma Sangha. And I can't say that the two systems exactly line up. In the book, Buddha Dharma and Sangha are understood to be three aspects of one integrated system of constantly flowing life energy.

I read an excerpt from the second page of the book that I think captures the essence of the whole book. "Shakyamuni Buddha taught that a magnificent event is unfolding in every aspect of everyday life. Vivid living energy is constantly at work, creating and supporting your life. It is just like a fire that is eternal and boundless. Whoever you are, your life is very precious, because the original energy of life is working in your life."

For me it was a surprise to hear Katagiri Roshi say that this is what Shakyamuni Buddha taught. I think of Shakyamuni Buddha teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, like a physician diagnosing an illness and prescribing a remedy or a cure. In other words, it starts with what's wrong with us, what we can do about the situation. But Katagiri Roshi does something completely different from that. He sees Buddhist teaching in a deeper way, and he starts with what is right with us. We are precious, and our life is supported by the universe.

This claim that this is what Buddha taught is I think based on the Mahayana Nirvana Sutra, where Shakyamuni Buddha said, "all sentient beings without exception have the Buddha nature." Later on in Chapter four of the book, which is titled "Light of the Self" Katagiri Roshi says, "but his teaching constantly tells us how sublime human life is, and how great our human capacity is. In Buddhism, this great capacity is called light. Each and every one of us has this light." So this is correlating light with our Buddha nature. It's telling us that something wonderful is already alive within us. It may be hidden from our view at the moment, but it's something that we can discover through our spiritual practice.

And Katagiri Roshi says at the beginning on the second page, "doing something as spiritual practice is to invoke the life force energy, deepen your own life and use it to grow your life. Growth gives you room to cultivate wisdom and compassion, love and generosity, enough to create a wonderful world for you and all beings." That statement brings out another aspect of Katagiri Roshi's teaching, which is creativity. The cosmos is constantly creating and recreating itself. So every moment, there's a possibility of doing something good. That is the teaching of karma. Katagiri says, "each moment is a unique opportunity to create your life anew." And I say because all life is one interconnected being developing your life contributes to developing the whole world.

At the ending of that opening section he says, "whatever practice you do, Buddhist practice, Christian practice, or non-religious practice. When you become aware of the magnificent energy of being arising in your body and mind, you feel fully alive. You are boundless and broad, compassionate and kind. That is the guideline for living as a human being." So I, I understand that knowing this full aliveness of life is Katagiri Roshi's wholehearted hope for everyone. And the reason he's teaching us in the first place. The idea that there is this energy of life within us that we can become alive to is his compassionate response to the troubles that we face in our human life. And the yearning that draws us to spiritual practice, saying, "Here it is, it's right here for you."

This outlook is so attractive. And then when you get into the book you encounter some really complicated philosophy. In this book I, and in the, in the last one too I previous one I didn't withhold any of the complexity of Katagiri's teaching. In the beginning Shambhala kind of wanted the books to be more accessible but they had also said that after a while after people knew Katagiri they wanted to see the whole range of his teachings represented. So, you will you will find that in the book, and some of it is very difficult to penetrate. I just want to advise you not to fret too much about that, if it should be that way for you. Because when we were students of Katagiri. There was vast amounts of it that were really almost incomprehensible, partly because of the way he presented it and partly because we had no preparation for this philosophy that he was offering us. So we sat and listened and opened ourselves up to it as best we could, and something did stick. So, be patient with yourself, and don't worry if you don't understand every word that's here.

So I'm not going to delve into all the philosophies that he represents to you in the book he does cover quite a range of the various philosophies that evolved into the Zen that we have now, including a lot of Dogen's material. So, just a little bit. As you know the Mahayana movement emerged in India, after Buddha's lifetime. And the practitioners took the teaching to deeper places and wanted to express it in writing, they developed new sutras that they claimed came from Shakyamuni Buddha, a little hard to believe but some did. The very influential one was the Avatamsaka Sutra, the flower ornament Sutra, which contains the image of Indra's net. This was particularly influential for Soto Zen Buddhism.

According to the lore that was created around this Sutra. Shakyamuni spoke the Sutra immediately after his enlightenment, while he was still engaged in his vision of ultimate reality. But anyone who heard it couldn't understand what he was saying. So he essentially regrouped and came up with his more approachable teaching of the Four Noble Truths. This is the lore around the Sutra. But the lore says this teaching wasn't lost, it was kept safe by the Nagas or somebody. And when the world was ready for it, it appeared. And it became influential in China and developed into the Huayan School, which was a very distinctively Chinese school that influenced the formation of early Soto Zen.

The Huayan understanding of emptiness and interdependence treats the natural world as possessing intrinsic value, which is consistent with Daoist views. Dogen's view of time and space was greatly influenced by that school. And as Huayan did, Katagiri had a point of view based on weaving together the many different strands of Buddhist philosophy and bringing them together into one coherent whole worldview. He did emphasize the Yogacara teaching quite a bit in this book. That's the Eight Levels of Consciousness. And there are many others that you'll meet along the way. But the Huayan vision of the universe as one dynamic, interconnected, interpenetrated totality of existence in which everything is influencing and being influenced by everything else was his one core vision that he wanted us to understand we were living in a world like that. And that was our world.

The philosophy sometimes sounds abstract. But Katagiri often said, "I am not talking about an idea, I'm talking about something real." So when I began editing his teachings, I tried to imagine them as a description of my life. I tried to find every possible way to relate what he was saying to my own experience. And that was the only way I could really do it because I'm not, I don't have a natural affinity to philosophy for its own sake. So finding ways to make it feel like real life was my way of finding a way to almost, I don't want to say tolerate, but be willing to engage in some of these philosophies that I personally found quite difficult to penetrate. And I, I penetrated them to the extent that I felt that I was representing his views accurately. It's very difficult to edit someone's teachings and I always feel a bit of an urge to apologize to him for what I've done because I'm not him and I did do everything I could to make sure I was representing him accurately but I'm not, I can never know for sure if I was.

So, in a nutshell to look at this philosophy that he offers is to understand that he's giving us a creation story. It's a creation story without a creator. In the story, the universe is constantly and eternally creating and recreating itself as a series of unique moments. The moments begin and end so quickly that our consciousness cannot perceive them. It's the way it is for us when we're watching a movie to us it seems like the movie is one continuous action, but technically the movie is a series of still images that are traveling past our eyes and brain so fast that our brain turns it into continuous motion.

Dogen claimed that the universe is created dissolved and recreated 6,400,000,000,099,180 times a day. The number comes, although I can't say the exact derivation of the number, it does come from an ancient Indian system for measuring time as instance of existence, called ksanas. For Dogen being aware of this moment to moment creative process is essential to understanding the meaning of the Buddha way.

When a moment begins the universe is in a state of vast emptiness or formlessness, in which all life exists as energy, but there are no individual or solid forms. And that energy starts to move and reconstruct itself into the material or phenomenal world of individual beings like like us, according to the causes and conditions that are ripening in that moment. We appear for a moment. And then our individual form dissolves back into that original formless energy. And the next moment, the cycle begins again, but you and I that appeared are a little different, because the causes and conditions that have ripened and produce that moment are different from the ones that created the previous moment so there's change. And that is the basic teaching of impermanence and interdependent co-origination. This constant movement of life between form and emptiness is what Katagiri Roshi calls the rhythm of life. Total dynamic working, the Buddha way or Dao.

In China, the spirit of this energy flow was depicted in paintings of landscapes, using black ink on white paper. The sky, clouds, and water are the unpainted white areas that represent the underlying reality or source. The material world emerging from that is depicted by trees, plants, rocks, mountains, and small people and structures. Chinese poets gazed at landscape paintings as a form of meditation, imagining themselves living within the landscape and emerging from the source of emptiness and dissolving back into it. They then expressed that experience by writing poems. As I understand the Taoists, there was also wine involved.

In Zazen, we might become aware of that creative aspect of our life energy that's living through us and giving shape and form to our lives from moment to moment. In Buddhism, the triple treasure can be understood on many levels of being. In this book, Katagiri Roshi looks at it in a very deep way, to find the triple treasure in this creation story. Think of Buddha as the original energy, Dharma as that energy's creative phase when interdependent courage and nation is at work, and Sangha as the energy's embodied phase, when it appears as our human material world of individual beings.

Sounds abstract. But this way of understanding life is based on transcendent experiences in which things are seen and understood in a different way. I think Katagiri talks about things from that point of view. It's very lyrical, tender, and moving, at least I feel it that way. It's like reading a poem or hearing a song being sung to you. And it is a way of being in the world that cherishes the world. It's just so touching for me every time I encounter his teaching.

He reassures us it's there and then says our usual human consciousness imposes a barrier, wall, or veil on our ability to see things that way. So Katagiri is always giving us suggestions for how to develop our awareness of that natural spiritual energy. Because when we connect with it, we realize how sublime human life is. And we can enjoy just the awareness of being alive. It's just the most fundamental sense of being alive and it brings with it the kind of deep satisfaction that we're seeking.

Katagiri had lots of slogans or mottos to remind us how to get unstuck from our habits and go a little deeper. Recalling them is always helpful for me, especially if I feel like I'm living a little too much on the surface of my life. I use these mottos to shift a little deeper. So I want to say something about three of them.

The first motto is "relax your frontal lobe," and I associate this with the treasure of Buddha. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for cognitive and social learning. We can relate to it as Vijnana, where Vi is to divide and Jnana is to know or observe. So although the essential nature of reality is that it is indivisible, the human mind produced by Vijnana is the delusion that there is an observer and something observed. On that basis, our human minds are very good storytellers, always building up the surface of our lives through habits of thinking, feeling, and acting.

But wisdom and compassion ask us to go deeper into our minds and our lives. So "relax your frontal lobe" means to let go or withdraw attention from that inner narrative about ourselves, the ego identity, which distinguishes us as something different from something else, and let in a spacious awareness of just being present in our lives. It's letting your awareness tune into the energy in your body. Everything is arising within your body as the energy of Buddha. The wisdom of letting go is having trust in life and basking in Buddha's warm heart. You can rest and restore yourself there. Then bring the energy back up into the surface of your life. Doing that seems to make life feel more real and more worthwhile.

The second motto is "let the flower of your life force bloom," and I associate this with Dharma. Blooming is opening yourself to the energy of the moment that is arising in you right now as Buddha nature. In Japan, the blossoming plum tree is a symbol of Buddha nature. Japanese plum trees are not the same as the plum trees we have in North America. They have a bent and gnarled trunk with complicated asymmetrical branching patterns. They blossom in late December or early January before the leaves appear. When the blossoms appear on these craggy, bent trunks, the ground is still covered with snow. And then one day, all at once, millions of scarlet red plum blossoms appear. Katagiri talks about this in the book, about how startling it is. It's a shocking scene of life force energy bursting forth into the material world.

It reminds me to live wholeheartedly as a practice. The big sense of the word practice is to receive and use this creative Dharma energy that is becoming you. The whole universe is constantly doing this. You can do this in any aspect of everyday life, being mindful of its living presence when washing the dishes, walking the dog, playing sports, or just moving around your home. It's also useful in difficult situations.

One of Katagiri Roshi's teachings in this book is to stand up straight and be master of yourself. He said, "First, accept yourself as a person who has a great capacity. Then, in whatever situation you may be, calm your mind and take care of your life positively."

One time I served as Katagiri Roshi's attendant on a trip to another state. We were walking in town and Katagiri Roshi was wearing his robes. A group of people on the other side of the street started jeering and heckling him. I felt this fear arise in me that it seemed like a dangerous situation. I didn't know what would happen. Katagiri Roshi just maintained his calm and dignified demeanor and kept steadily walking. His settled state of mind helped me to settle my own state of mind.

The third motto is "walk together hand in hand," and this to me is Sangha. I love the image of walking hand in hand. Walking is a rhythmic activity where one foot is in front, then the other and the other behind, and then they change places. So walking in Buddhism can be a metaphor for the rhythmic movement of life energy between form and emptiness. We are all traveling together on this Buddha way. Saying that we are walking together reminds me that even though I have the form of a separate individual, my life is always interconnected with other lives and Buddha's life.

I've done only a little Tai Chi, but I quickly became aware of the energy in my hands. Reiki healers and other healers use their hands to transmit healing energy. Before sitting in Zazen, we place our hands on our legs with the palms up. It's a receptive gesture. We settle into the sitting posture and receive the energy of the universe around us. Then we put our hands together to form the cosmic mudra and place it on the dan tian, the energy center on our abdomen. Perhaps at the end of Zazen, when we again put our hands palm up, we can release some of the energy of our Zazen back into the universe as a compassionate expression of appreciation.

Holding hands with someone is such a sweet thing to do. When you're with your parent or grandchild, with a grandparent, or two people drawn together, instinctively hold hands. We're taking refuge in each other, offering their energy to each other, exchanging trust and safety. This is a vision of mutual care and support that for me is the essence of sangha.

In conclusion, I think that Katagiri Roshi's teaching is an invitation to see ourselves in a bigger way, to learn how to live in harmony with the way things actually are. His demeanor was firm but gentle and his voice was kind. I hope that you can get a sense of his warm heart through the words that he gives you in this book. His manner of speaking was so warm, people who remember hearing him always say, "Yes, that's right, I remember that." And he deeply respected the difficulty of life. But at the same time, he was always reminding us about the beauty of life, trying to help us see the deeper significance of our lives to appreciate ourselves. We can always participate in a creative universe. And whatever we do, there's always hope. And we can always make a difference.

I edited this book during a time in my life when my life was very difficult. And the work of editing and communing with Katagiri Roshi in a sense to edit his words were a tremendous support for me. He helped me to see my life in a more positive way. And I hope that whatever the circumstances of your life are, that this book will do something like that for you, that it will be a refuge for you and a support for you that helps you see your life in a positive way and see your role and your interconnection with all of life.

Thank you so much for giving me a chance to revisit Katagiri Roshi's teachings to think about what I wanted to say to you today.