Buddha Nature 2.0: Embodying the Four Perfections with Dōgen

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered under the largest supermoon in two years, Sensei Kodo reflects on fusatsu—the full moon ceremony of vow renewal—his own marriage vows, and the absence of regular ceremony in our lives. He notes how ceremony awakens in us something our culture has largely forgotten: “We hunger for ritual.” Drawing on Taigen Leighton’s essay from the book Zen Ritual, Kodo describes zazen as an “enactment and expression of awakened awareness,” suggesting that wholehearted zazen might be a ritual expression of—rather than a method for achieving—the four great bodhisattva vows, or more simply, our vow to awaken. Kodo also explores the four perfections of Buddha nature through self-annihilating paradoxes that resist easy understanding. How can something be eternal if it’s impermanent? What is intimacy when there’s no separate self? Sharing that giant sequoia seeds must be burned before they can sprout, Kodo reflects: “That to me is that expression of life within the destruction… the lotus blooming on a sea of fire.” The talk moves between observation and inquiry, closing with a poem by Ryokan: “The moon in the water. You try to scoop it up, your hands are wet. That is all.”