Good morning. Let me explain what they're doing, okay? As you must know, or many of you know anyway, we have a Zen Center policy against filming television, newspaper interviews, etc. Most of us who have been in Japan have stayed out of the newspapers in Japan, even though they ask a great deal. And here we've stayed out of all, almost, particularly in recent years, American newspapers and television, though we get many requests. But, Suzuki Yoshi did let Japanese television occasionally film us, And so I remember one time, the first time it was done. I don't think it was television. It was some newspaper man from Japan. He began taking pictures with a flashbulb during Zazen. And several people got up and walked out of Zazen, never to return, because they felt it was their private place, which is correct.

[01:34]

These people are from NHK, or we say in America, in English, Japan Broadcasting Company. And it's the equivalent of maybe England's BBC. And they took a film of Tassajara when it first started many years ago. and they asked us if they could take a film of Green Gulch. Not so much to film our practice, but to film the way we are trying to live here and grow our own food and integrate practice and work. Can you hear me in the back? Even though that camera is buzzing. And Chino-sensei also asked us to let them film here. As it was expressed to me, Japan right now, as you know, is in quite a difficult crisis. And their material culture is very fragilely based, you know. Because they have no resources, very few resources of their own other than their

[03:03]

the people themselves. So everyone is, I think, quite scared maybe in Japan right now. And so it interested these people from NHK that most of Japanese life is not very concerned with possession. Actually, the idea of the high culture in Japan is not how to get high, but how not to come down. So you don't have any possession around you that will bring you down. So you only have exquisite things. Maybe one, not ten or fifteen. So anyway, that's maybe some corruption of the idea of no possession. Anyway, there's this idea of few possessions. So, anyway, much of that feeling came from Buddhism. So the fact that we are

[04:28]

returning to that kind of feeling though we practice together and try to just take care of ourselves at some subsistence level is something that in Japan they think would be interesting to hear from America as an opposite from what they usually hear from America. I'm talking about this partly because there is a deeper feeling or process we're involved in of some meeting between the Orient and the West. And if any of you who've traveled in the Near East or in Africa or in Japan or other places in Asia, I've traveled in those places. And there's a very, very deep-seated feeling of resentment or hatred of the West for what the various Western countries, in particular Western companies protected by the government, the companies often exceeded, in South America too, exceeded what the countries would do. Anyway, the way

[05:55]

most of the world was pushed around by our armaments, has something to do with Buddhism coming to the West. And Dr. Konsei, you know, the famous Buddhist scholar, expressed it by saying that Japan, for example, tried to imitate the West, and in imitation there's some affection or love, and it can be turned either way. It can be either affection or competition. And they tried to be one with us, maybe, by trying to industrialize, etc. And every time they tried to come up to our level in, say, weapons, we came up with something bigger. If they came up with guns, we came up with super guns. And finally we came up with the atomic bomb. So the way Dr. Kunze expresses it is that the Orient finally gave up trying to beat us materially and maybe consciously or unconsciously tried to change us around spiritually by sending Buddhism or Hinduism to the West.

[07:22]

And maybe that's so, actually. Maybe something like that's occurring. Anyway, for myself, I feel some extraordinary gratitude to Japan for producing Suzuki Roshi and for nurturing Buddhism across so many centuries and helping us in so many ways. We're helped. We're a successor of Buddhist culture in Japan and China and India. And we are helped, you know, not just by Suzuki Roshi coming, but by many things that go along with our practice, even such simple things as our bell and drum, etc. So, from this feeling of gratitude, you know, actually, we agreed to allow them to make this film for national television in Japan, in Japanese language. So they've been filming various aspects of life here at Green Gulf.

[08:47]

and they'll give us a copy of the film. We can look at it sometime. What I want to talk about this morning is what I've been talking about actually for the last month or so in various ways is Bodhidharma's visit with the emperor and his coming to China.

[09:59]

First, I'd like to talk about the context of the story itself, which is, you know, this kind of story gets pared down until it's something essential. And maybe it's not so interesting to most of you, actually. I feel at Tassajara, where we are concentrated just on practice, this kind of story is helpful. And maybe for a mature Zen student, it's helpful. But to understand it, really, you must be able to sit in the dark. Just sit in the dark. I don't know if you know exactly what I mean, but without seeing anything, no particular object of your practice, no seeking for anything. This story is, you know, these stories are maybe many of, for many of us, our first contact with Zen Buddhism. But actually, when we look at them carefully, they're rather boring, except for maybe mature Zen practicer. For our

[11:37]

You know, these stories are meant to cut through our complications, the briars and thorns, thickets, literally wisteria, I think it is, words, the complication of our lives. And the explanation of complication or the understanding of complication is rather complicated, and our lives are rather complicated. understanding, understanding is rather complicated. So when we're enmeshed in the complication of our lives, unable to experience it, you know, this kind of story has some value. Have you ever wanted to meet somebody, you know? Or have you ever had that feeling of hoping to meet somebody who will change your life, seeking for a teacher or a lover or having that unexplainable urge to encounter someone. Anyway, that feeling, which also corresponds to, in Jungian,

[13:07]

psychology to anima or animus. Seeking for that missing part, you know, is the background for this story of Bodhidharma and the Emperor. For it was a great meeting between two persons and also between China and India. Maybe not so different as our meeting between Japan and America, a meeting which actually all of you are engaged in. So, I told you about already, we talked about or I explained the introductory

[14:08]

word by Engo to this story of which begins about behind the mountain there is smoke so we know there's a fire and behind the fence there's ox when we see the horns. That introduction establishes the two characters who are going to meet. First part of introduction describes Bodhi, describes the emperor. The second part describes Bodhidharma. And it says they're both pretty good, you know. And it describes them in terms of their practice. They're not described so much, this is emperor, this is Bodhidharma. But it describes two kinds of practice, or two understandings of Buddhism. And it shows the meeting between these two. it sets the stage for this meeting, this encounter between these two men. And it's not just an encounter between a worldly emperor, a great political figure, and a great saint, but an encounter between two Buddhists, both who are quite good,

[15:28]

So as you know, most of you, the details of the story. Bodhidharma comes to see the emperor and the emperor asks him, I have done many good works and translated many sutras and had translated many sutras and have had many temples built. What merit is there in this. And Bodhidharma says, no merit. So then Bodhidharma, you know there are other parts to the story, but Bodhidharma leaves and he goes to further into China where he does his famous sitting for nine years facing a stone or a wall. So Bodhidharma is coming to China to meet someone. And emperor wants to meet someone. They both want to meet someone. So what is the difference between these two men who are wanting to meet someone? And I would like to say that

[17:17]

All of you have noticed how in physical nature many plant forms and cloud forms and galactic forms and life forms repeat the same patterns at various levels of organization. Well, in our own life we encounter same patterns at different levels, or we rather encounter things which have both similarities and opposite characteristics simultaneously. Yesterday in San Francisco I talked about a word called Sokofui, And Soka Fui means not to be attached to, but not to be separate from. Not to be attached to, but not to be separate from. This is an important idea in Buddhism. Maybe again, it's like indeterminacy in physics.

[18:47]

very basic to our to our practice is something indeterminate something that you can't find out and don't try to find out but already are you know like you can't you can't work pi out in numbers but pi exists you know mathematical pi So Sokufui means having some allowing contradictions. Zen is ordinary life and yet is the same as ordinary life and yet not the same as ordinary life. We are Buddha and yet not Buddha. Sun and moon are one and not one, and sun and moon are not necessarily one, and sun and moon are not necessarily two. This is the way Sugyoshi expressed this kind of feeling. So what I'm speaking about is that the difference between Bodhidharma's encounter with

[20:20]

emperor and emperor's encounter with Bodhidharma is Bodhidharma is seeking a person who does not seek outside himself. An emperor is seeking outside himself. But if you're seeking a person, you know, maybe, why not just if we meet our, if what we're actually seeking is ourself, why meet someone? But there is this profound contradiction in our life that meeting ourselves is one with meeting others. And we meet ourselves by meeting others. Bodhidharma meets himself by meeting the emperor or hui ko. And by meeting emperor he kept trying to express I wouldn't say he tried, but if you analyze it, it looks like Emperor Bodhidharma kept trying to get the Emperor to meet himself. But I don't think Emperor was trying to do that. Bodhidharma was trying to do that, just that's the way it is. So Emperor, by trying to meet some saint, didn't understand that Bodhidharma was that saint.

[21:46]

Here was that opportunity to change his life or to meet the person he's always wanted to meet and China has always wanted to meet. Emperor prepared the room for Bodhidharma and Bodhidharma owned the room, we say. And here was the chance and the emperor missed it. Because the emperor was looking for a saint to approve of him not to be one with. Bodhidharma was just to be one with anything or anybody. But Emperor wanted to be approved of, so his practice was quite good, you know. He knew when you held up one, he knew three. He understood, you know, how to practice. But still, he tried to. He was interested in the merit of his practice, so he was seeking outside himself. And as I've been talking, you know, like last, not yesterday, but a week ago, Saturday, how we sabotage our practice by seeking ourselves in the stars or astrology or in some reader or some person.

[23:12]

Not that what they say is wrong, not that the stars are wrong, but we're already sun and moon and stars and the reader and etc. But, as I expressed it, sun doesn't rise for you. You rise and sun rises. Sun rises in you. Sun does not come up in the morning for you and you don't have to get up in the morning for the sun. You include the sun. This... The rigorousness with which you understand this and apply this to your life is the real success or failure of your practice. Real non-dualistic practice. Not partly. Most Buddhism is just seeking well-being. And so has many contradictions and compromises about astrology and various things within it. But strictly speaking, we should practice completely non-dualistically. But not slight dualistically. Of course, that's the idea again of Sofu Fui.

[24:35]

So, anyway, Bodhidharma left the emperor who was seeking outside himself. He finally left the emperor to be there by himself. And the emperor's minister, who actually had died some years before the date Bodhidharma was supposed to have come, to the extent which Bodhidharma might have really existed. So the story is not quite right, but anyway, for us the story is real. The minister said to Bodhidharma, said to the emperor, do you know who that was? And emperor answered, I don't know. Just like Bodhidharma answered when asked, I don't know who Bodhidharma is. There's no Bodhidharma here, no self nature here. Nothing here to be described, but emperor

[25:48]

answered to when the minister asked, do you know who that was? Emperor said, I don't know. And so he said, do you know that was the person who you've always wanted to meet? Kanzeon himself, Avalokiteshvara, bringing you the great heart seal of Buddhism. Actually, Bodhidharma gave him the great heart seal, but minister and emperor did not understand that. So this is about, you know, this story is from many points of view, a very fundamental story, it's about our big meeting, you know, with ourself or with our lover or with our teacher, with our culture. What is nature of our meeting with ourself, with our own past, with the effects of our activity? So,

[27:11]

Did Bodhidharma find, if he didn't meet with Emperor, did he find someone to meet with? And of course, you know, there was the second patriarch, Uyghur, who heard that Bodhidharma was meditating at such-and-such a place, Shurinji, and We co-went there, and I think most of you know the story. But the story is quite different than the meeting with the emperor. He came and stayed there, standing in the snow, early in December. And he thought to himself, you know, many Buddhas and patriarchs over many eons of time have offered themselves to practice. The marrow of their bones even they've offered to practice. They have been willing to sacrifice anything. Am I not also such a man, such a person? He thought. So he stood there and finally by morning I guess snow was about as deep as it was at Tassajara this winter, two feet.

[28:43]

And no one stood all night in the snow in Tassarapa. They stayed in the zendo because so many branches were falling down everywhere. Anyway, he stood there all night in the snow. And Bodhidharma said, What do you seek? What kind of meeting are you seeking? Who do you seek? Are you seeking outside yourself? What do you seek, he said, that you stand there? and Uri and Uriko said, Please show me the gate of sweet to do, the kanromon, which is also a mantra which was chanted in Alan Watts' funeral ceremony.

[29:46]

Please show me the gate of sweet dew and enlighten all beings," he said. And Bodhidharma said, are you begging for this with an arrogant, who are you to be standing there begging for this with superficial mind and arrogant heart. He meant, are you just asking a question or are you really serious about this? Are you just asking a question in your head because you're curious and would like to know and decide whether you really want to practice Buddhism or not? Or are you putting your mind and body on the line And so we go, supposedly, cut off his arm at the left elbow and offer it to Bodhidharma. And Bodhidharma said, all Buddhas who have sought... When you're ready to make this kind of

[31:13]

offering of yourself, putting all your self, mind and body in one basket, all your eggs in one basket, not keeping your foot in any other door. Right now you will feel the cool breeze that knows no boundaries. as Togen said, Suzuki Ueshi, that pervades everywhere. But you have to give up seeking outside yourself. And this means, you know, very deeply, something very deep, not to seek outside yourself. And yet it means to meet everyone as if they were you or Buddha. So we don't have to go to Japan, you know, to study Buddhism. As the famous saying about these two stories of Bodhidharma and Emperor and Hui Kuo are, Bodhidharma did not come to China, and the second patriarch, Hui Kuo, did not go to India.

[32:40]

It means right here in America each of us has the opportunity to understand this deep teaching and realize our own being, being faithful to ourselves and realizing it for others, you know, simultaneously. Do you have some questions or anything you'd like to talk about?

[33:29]

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