This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Last night, the rain falling on the rooftop and on all of Tassajara was... encouraging words, the eloquent and encouraging words for last night's sitting. And I couldn't help but be noticing the words of the Mountains and Water Sutra of ascending and descending water and all these images just coming to play in the blessedness of that rainfall, which was nothing special really, just a rainy night.

[01:05]

I have been noticing that I've been seeing landscapes, san sui, you know, mountains and rivers, mountains and waters, that word together just means landscaper in Chinese. and is the name of landscape paintings are mountains, waters, mountain waters. And I keep seeing mountains and waters everywhere, like there's this slat of the floor down here. And yesterday there was this beautiful scene of mountains with surf of a lagoon gently washing on the shore and other mountains around it. And I had never seen that before, but there it is somewhere down there. Maybe Aaron's been watching it, too. It was like Hawaii or something. Really, the surf was just like... And then I thought, you know, when we look at wood, aren't the rings, you know, according to how much rain there was that year, there's different... So I thought, well, there is water in this wood.

[02:19]

Right there, it's waters. And also my teacup. It has mountains and waters on it. This might become seriously dangerous, I don't know. While I was up in Green Gulch for that week, I had a phone Skype doxon with Dario Girolami, the guiding teacher of the group in Rome that's affiliated with us. And he had listened to one of the talks online, as people can do, And I'm not sure exactly which one, but it was about the stolen woman giving birth in the night, birth to a child in the night. And, you know, there was an association with it which did not occur to me, but which was very strong for him as an Italian person, which he talked about with his group, which is the story of Pinocchio.

[03:28]

which is a very important favela, a very important fairy tale in Italy. It's, you know, it's like the Wizard of Oz or something very, or even deeper than the Wizard of Oz, but drawn on. Anyway, I just thought I'd share with you in Pinocchio, for those of you who don't know the story, Pinocchio is a burattino, is a puppet. made of wood, and he wants to be a real boy. He wants to be turned into a real boy. He has various misadventures and doesn't practice the precepts. He lies and his nose grows, and there's lots of stories. Also, he loses friends. They have retribution for their activities, too, and he feels very badly. Anyway, at the end, he ends up in this whale. in the dark, in the whale. And inside the whale is Geppetto, his father who made him the toy maker.

[04:33]

And anyway, in the body of the whale, in the dark, he becomes a real boy, and he's born as a real boy. So that's what Dario's Dharma talk was about. I just thought it was so great to take these teachings and you meet it with your own karmic life and your own, you know, classic values and what's important to you and images and make it alive for that group in Italy to relate to a stone woman giving birth or a wooden boy giving birth being born in the night from a whale. So this is how the teaching continues alive as it moves and is passed on all over the world.

[05:36]

I wanted to mention one posture thing before we continue with our study. which is, this is something my yoga teacher Patricia Sullivan mentioned, and I think I've mentioned it in a session before, but she said to, this is in terms of the head and having, you know, the head in the proper position and the ears in line with the shoulders, to imagine at the base of the skull that there's an eye, an eye at the base of the skull, and you... don't want that eye to close. You want the eye to remain open. So it's a wonderful visualization to think of that eye right at the base. And if you lift your chin or are not in alignment with your ears or not in alignment, the eye closes. Can you picture that? So that's just an image to work with in terms of your head.

[06:47]

alignment of the head and shoulders, neck. Also, I just wanted to follow up on the koan that I mentioned yesterday about Lu Tiamo, Iron Grinder Lu, and the koan is very short. I don't even need to read it, but... And I can't find it, so I won't read it. Iron Grinder Lu comes to visit her teacher, Guishan, and he says, Old cow, you've come. And then she says, Over in Taishan, that's this mountain far away, tomorrow there's going to be feasting and celebrating. Are you going to come? And then Guishan just falls on the ground and sprawls out on his... plunk, and she leaves.

[07:50]

So that's two, it's teacher and disciple, but they are adepts, both of them, and playing, I feel, together in the Buddha fields. So Today, this particular paragraph or so that I wanted to talk with you about, speaking of associations, I just had, it's just chock full of associations with this particular paragraph. And I've brought some koans that are embedded within it and also ones that it reminded me of and poetry and... from here to eternity and just, anyway, so I'll have to calm down, Linda, just see what you can do with this.

[08:56]

We can't sit here all day. But I really found this particularly useful, not useful, but it reverberated, it resonated in so many different ways for our practice. So, in fact, there's so many stories that I probably won't get to them all, but let's just begin. So this is this last part, the last section. As you remember, there's five sections, the intro, two on mountains going along with the quotes of mountains constantly walking, stone woman gives birth to a child at night, and the east mountain moving over the water. So those two mountain parts, So intro, two mountains, water, and then this last part is about, it's kind of the mountain way of life and sages and wise people.

[10:02]

This wise man, you know, when we, Zirach copied this and put it in the, we didn't really, we just put it in, we didn't go over it for, uh, gender-inclusive language and so forth, but Tom Cleary and Kaz both translate this character that we have in here as wise men, Bielfeld had as wise men, as wise people. So I think we could easily change that if we wanted to, but anyway, we'll just finish with how we have it copied. So... I think I'll read maybe a section and then go back the way we've been doing it sentence by sentence. From the distant past to the distant present, mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages.

[11:04]

Wise people and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind. And through these wise men and sages, the mountains have appeared. However many great sages and wise people we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. So this opening sentence, from the distant past to the distant present, mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages. This translation that Carl Bielfeld has as distant past to the distant present is taking this term that, this is one of these things that Dogen kind of played with.

[12:09]

He took an idiom which means in all ages and at all times. And he split it and put cho in front of each of the words. So distant past to distant present is a translation of cho-co, cho-con. And the cho means to transcend or to go beyond, which Bielfeld translates as distant. And the ko is the same ko as kobutsu that we met, the old buddhas, this ko, ancient, old. So this transcending or going beyond ancientness or distant past, and then cho again, transcending or going on. Kon, that same kon that we also met in the first sentence, ni kon, the immediate present, the mountains and rivers of the immediate mountains and waters.

[13:13]

of the present, or this . So this is now . So it was translated timeless is another way it could be translated. So from the distant past to the distant present, Mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages. So in this timeless way or beyond the past and present, transcending beyond timeless, transcending distinctions between past and present, the mountains have been a dwelling place of great sages. And taking these two words, this ancient and the ko and the kone, the present and the ancient, brings back that first sentence.

[14:22]

It reverberates, brings back that first sentence of the mountains and waters of the immediate present are the manifestation or the expressions of the old Buddha. So it puts together again the present and the eternal or the flowing and non-flowing, if you will, this very moment and eternity being non-dual, this very moment, this immediate present being not separate from ancient past. This kind of intersection of the present moment or genjo koan, this appearing and being connected in past and present. So from the distant past to the distant present, mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages.

[15:26]

And these mountains and waters, as the expression, as we've been talking about, and now we've finished with the water, we haven't finished with the waters, but that section where... The mountains and waters are both the mountains that we see and can climb and know of as mountains and as full expressions of the entire thing, the entire interconnected reality. So they've entered, they've made the mountains, they've made this... interconnected reality of all beings. They've made it their dwelling place. They've made it their life. They've made it where they live. So dwelling place can also, it means dwelling place or abode, and it's synonymous with another word, okuri, which is equivalent to body and mind.

[16:42]

The dwelling place is also the bodies and minds. So wise men and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind. This dwelling place is their own body and mind. And The character that Bielfeldt translates as wise men and Clarion Kaz translates as wise people is Kenjin, and it's a technical term for the Sanskrit badra, which refers to those who have not yet attained the cognition free from outflows, anusrava jana, and therefore still lack darjana marga or the vision of the way. The wise people have, you know, they're wise, but they haven't fully cut off their dualistic thinking.

[17:51]

And the sages is also a technical term, seijin. So we've got kenjin and seijin, wise people and sages. And that's the term for arya, those who have attained darshanamarya or have seen darshanamarya. seen through duality. So that's what these wise people, wise men and sages, that's what it's referring to. So these wise people and sages have made the mountains. Wise people and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind. So this, yes, the mountains themselves, going to the mountains literally and also entering into the reality of all existence, entering into interconnected life, life-ing moment after moment.

[19:01]

They've entered and made that their dwelling place. made that their body-mind, the wise people and the sages. So this is from Bielfeld's different commentaries from different teachers on this through the ages, and here's a commentary where it says, mountains are the realm of the sages, freed from motion and rest. And, you know, this theme of constantly walking and completely peaceful and settled in our Dharma position at the exact same time, or genjo koan, difference and equality, this, the fundamental point is The way we exist is both walking and constantly at rest.

[20:07]

So the mountains are the realm of the sages freed from motion and rest, freed from one-sidedness, being and non-being. And therefore the sages and the mountains are one. There's no dualism. No... active sage and passive mountain, which is one way to think of it. I walk in the mountains, I'm the active one, and the mountains just sit there. But understanding the mountains as the dwelling place of the sages and the wise people, it's their abode. They live in this realization. Wise people and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind, their own rooms, their own abode.

[21:11]

They've made the mountains their own body. They have become the mountains. They have become completely the interconnected whole. And through these wise people and sages, the mountains have appeared. And this appear, once again, through these wise people in stages, the mounds have appeared. This appear is genjo, again, which, as you've seen, has come up many times in San Suikyo. And I think we've said before, the English appear is maybe doesn't give it as much oomph as... As Dogen does this genjo, he uses it almost more than any word in Shobo Genzo, this complete manifestation of in each moment as form, as a concrete sage or person appearing and connecting universal and koan, genjo koan, connecting.

[22:26]

the uniqueness, the difference, and the equality. The English word appear doesn't, maybe, unless we, maybe we can, as soon as we see appear, if we think genjo, we can be closer to what's being said here. Through these wise people and sages, the mountains have appeared, so they have been manifesting through their life, through their words, through their actions, the reality of all existence. So they help to make appear the mountains. They have become the mountains, and then their actions then manifest and make it possible for other people to see. we get to this very interesting part here.

[23:38]

So if they've become the mountains and through them the mountains or the reality of all existence is being manifest through them because they are it, how come, you know, in this section we don't meet anybody? So however many great sages and wise people we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, No one has met a single one of them. There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. So in this section, there's two other stories that Dogen is just like Pinocchio. He's... resonating and alluding to that if we're not as familiar with the koans and the stories, we may miss that.

[24:39]

So we have commentators who help us to say embedded in here, there's allusions to other things. So however many great sages and wise people we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. So there's two stories of Dungshan in this One is a story. Let's see, where did I put it? It's on the back of a page. So Dungshan asked a monk, where have you been? And the monk said, walking in the mountain, on the mountain. Dungshan said, did you reach the peak?

[25:41]

The monk said, I reached it. Dungshan said, were there people there? The monk said, there weren't any people. Dungshan said, in that case, you didn't reach the peak. The monk said, if I haven't been to the peak, how would I know there were no people? And Dungshan said, why didn't you stay there? And the monk said, I would stay there, but there is someone in India who would disapprove. Dungshan said, formally, I doubted this fellow. So the fellow is not named, so we don't know who it is. But this is alluded to in this. However many great sages and wise people we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them.

[26:46]

So this is alluded to in that, this particular story, walking on the mountain. Did you meet? There wasn't anybody there on the peak. And also this point here where he says, why don't you stay there? You know, we talked about going up and coming down, these virtues, backward step of going up the mountain, Sesshin, going in, ascending the mountain, and then coming down from the mountain. So he reached the peak and Dengshan said, why don't you stay there? And he said, I would have, but there's someone in India who would disapprove. And I just felt so, you know, just as we know, Shakyamuni came down from the mountain to teach with gift-bestowing hands and to live out the world of the mountain, to live out the reality of the mountain life. Somebody in India would disapprove if I would have stayed there.

[27:48]

I just... I found that very moving, actually, which is an admonition to us all not to stick to our... what we might view as some kind of accomplishment or attainments or, you know, let go of the attainment. We just chanted in Ehe Koso, attain Buddhahood and let go of the attainment. He said he would have, but, you know, he's too connected with... His teachers and Chakyamuni Buddha to have stayed there. And I feel Dung Shan, you know, gave him props, you know, formally, I doubted this fellow. Not anymore. There's another long story of Dung Shan and somebody else walking in the mountains, which doesn't quite have that same point about not meeting anybody,

[28:50]

but it's about how you enter and the road to get in there, which I might bring up later, but maybe not. So... So once the sages, the Buddhas and ancestors, enter the mountains, they kind of disappear. They become one with... the mountain life, right? There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. There's two, as I said, two stories that these sentences are alluding to in this last part about the trace. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. And that's another Dungshan story, which is... The master, Dungshan, always instructs the students to follow the way of the birds.

[29:56]

And then a monk says, I still don't understand what is the way of the birds. The master answered, you don't meet anyone. So this birds, the way of the birds, they fly through the sky And they don't leave a trace. But birds, birds can follow it. You know, birds follow those migratory routes. It reminded me also of only a fish can know a fish's heart. You know, the salmon that, you know, come back and taste their natal waters. You know, when they, the place where the stream entered the ocean that where they were spawned and grew and... went back into the ocean from there when they travel hundreds of miles, you know, and live for years, and then they go back to that very natal stream, and there's no MapQuest, you know, there's no, they, they are one with the water, you know, one with, and find it again, but there's no trace, there's no, so this, this,

[31:18]

There's only the expression of the mountain way of life, not a single trace of their having entered remains. And the way we can follow their footsteps, this word trace is another translation of it as footsteps, is to enter the mountain way of life ourselves. Only a fish knows a fish's heart. Dogen has a poem. The comings and goings of the waterfowl waterfowl leave no trace, yet the paths it follows are never forgotten. The comings and goings of the waterfowl leave no trace, yet the paths it follows are never forgotten. And the name of this poem is You Must Awaken the Non-Abiding Mind and Enter the Mountain Way of Life. So the association in Zen history of teachers, sages, wise people going into the mountains is also literally true.

[32:40]

And in China in particular, the temples, they went because of unrest and political upheaval and so forth, they went into the mountains and then they disappeared. Their names took on the names of the mountains, like all these Baizhang, that's a mountain. Guishan, Yangshan, Tozan, Dungshan, Tozan. They took the name of the mountain that they were on. Their identity became the mountain. And we haven't called Suzuki Roshi Tassahara Mountain, you know, or Zenshin Zan. We haven't quite done that yet, but maybe posthumously, maybe in times to come, different teachers will be known by the mountain they practiced in. And in the city as well, the temples are called mountains.

[33:43]

So I think Dogen, you know, this is, it's in there as a resonance, but he's not actually talking about this, that they disappear because they take the name of the mountain. They disappear because they become completely one with, and their actions are in concert, their actions are in alignment, so much so that the reality of all existence and this particular person, you can't pull them apart anymore. When you array them, they're not the same. When you array a heron in the moonlight, you know that's heron and that's moonlight. But actually, or snow in a silver bowl. When you array them separately, you see, but they actually become one expression together. So to become completely one with all of interconnected existence, one, you know, Suzuki Roshi uses the image of a blanket and all the different threads of the blanket.

[34:59]

This is in his commentary to Genjoko on all the threads. They're all different. They're all different colors, but they're woven into this blanket. And they kind of, you look at a blanket, you don't look at each individual thread. It's just one blanket. So the sages and the wise people enter the mountains, and then no one has met a single one of them. There's just the blanket, this beautiful blanket that covers people, keeps them warm, or is used as a, I don't know, for smoke signals. You use it however it needs to be used, but not a single one is met. What you meet is the mountain. You meet this interconnected whole. Now, this reminded me, I think I brought this up in class, the koan about... There's no teachers of Zen, which is, I think, the same, very similar.

[36:02]

And that's, I was able to find it, case 53 in the Blue Cliff, no, in the Book of Serenity, case 11 in the Blue Cliff Record. And it's these dreg slippers. It's Huangbo's dreg slippers, which some of you may know. Here's another mountain in water. This is Chibata. I actually saw this at the Diyang. It's huge, on silk. Oh, it's really beautiful, this water, the color of the water. Go see it at the diang. So Wang Bo's dreg slurpers. Wang Bo, you know, was seven feet tall with a great big lump on his head. He was a very imposing guy. Seven feet tall back then in 665 or wherever he lived. I think it was later than that. Anyway, Wang Bo said to the assembly... This is after the case kind of jumps in the middle. He started out by, he says, what do you people want to look for?

[37:10]

And then he chased them, tried to chase them out of the hall. Can you imagine? With a stick, you know, and they didn't, I don't know what they did. They hid under the town or something. They just, they wouldn't leave the Zendo. So then he says to the assembly, you people are all slurpers of dregs. which is an idiomatic term for, you know, what are the dregs, the bottom, if you're making various things, but the sediment and the undrinkable stuff, the dregs, right, the bottom, the worst part. And he says, you people are all slurpers of dregs. If you travel like this, where will you have today? Do you know that in all of China there are no teachers of Chan? At that point, a monk came forward and said, What about those who guide followers and lead groups in various places?

[38:11]

Took a lot of courage, right? Don't you think? Wang Bo said, I don't say there's no Chan, just that there are no teachers. Now this koan has really been so baffling to me for years, but somehow in reading Mountains and Waters about the sages entering into the mountains and making the mountains their body-mind and their abode, their chamber, and then you can't find a single one of them. And they're not saying that there's no Buddha Dharma. I'm not saying there's no practice realization. It's just that you can't grasp it like that and here's a teacher and they are teaching Chan. No, it's the teacher and Chan is one thing. And the slurpers of dregs, you know, I feel, you know, reading these commentaries and studying in this way and feeling, you know,

[39:26]

the difficulty of entering this Sansui Kyo without the help of Okamura Roshi and these other commentators and translators. And then I asked myself, are you just slurping the dregs or are you entering the mountains? Are you entering the mountain way of life? Are you expressing the mountain way of life? Because, you know, you're going to lose today. He says, where will you have today? You people are all slurpers of dregs. If you travel like this, Where will you have today? The practice period is almost over. You know, have we entered the mountains yet? What are we waiting for? What am I waiting for? Am I just slurping these words, you know, thousands of pages? Or, you know, or entering with body and mind and becoming mountains and waters? So in the commentary, there's this wonderful kind of further... elucidation of the slurpers of dregs.

[40:26]

And it's a wonderful story about a lord, Ji Huang, Ji Heng, and he was reading a book in his room. And Lun Pian, who was a wheelwright, I think I told this story after George Wheelwright died, actually at Green Gulch, because it was this example of this wheelwright. a maker of wheels, he was outside the window planing a wheel. And he put aside his mallet and chisel and came up to the Lord and said, May I ask you what you're reading, sir? And the Lord said, A book of the sages. And Lun Pian said, Are the sages alive? And the Lord said, They're already dead. And Lun Pian said, Then what you are reading is the dregs of the ancients. The Lord said, when a monarch reads a book, how can a wheelwright discuss it?

[41:30]

If you have an explanation, all right. If not, then you die. This is, you know, the Lord of the Manor had a lot of power then. And here's this wheelwright. And the Lundpian, the wheelwright says, I look upon it. I look upon this in light of my own work. When I plane a wheel, if I go slowly, it is easy going and not firm. If I go quickly, it is hard and doesn't go in. Not going slowly or quickly, I find it in my hands and accord with it in my mind, but my mouth can't express it in words. There's an art to it, but I can't teach it to my son. And my son can't learn it from me. Therefore, I have been at it for 70 years, grown old, making wheels. The people of old and that which they couldn't transmit have died.

[42:37]

Therefore, what you are reading, sir, is the dregs of the ancients. So this is a wonderful description of practice. elucidates the main koan of there are no teachers of Zen. I didn't say there wasn't any Chan. I just said there were no teachers of Chan. And he says, you know, for 70 years, you know, I've been working with this wood and when I, if it's too slow or if I, you know, the Buddha says, if I... If I tighten the lute strings or whatever, the instrument strings too loose, it doesn't play well, all flabby. If I go too slow, it's not firm, it's too easy going, it doesn't work. If I go too quickly, if I tighten it too much, it doesn't sound good. It's hard, it won't go in.

[43:38]

I have to feel it in my hands. I find it in my hands and accord with it in my mind. I have to enter it with my full body and mind to make these wheels. It's not an intellectual thing. I have to learn it. Over 70 years, day after day, I make these wheels. And I can't teach it to my son. I can show him how to sit. Just like we chanted this morning. For San Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside to all involvements. You know, your robe and belt loosely bound, arranged in order. Right foot, left thigh. You can tell somebody all that. But in the end, based on this mystery, you only get based on your... understanding you only get one mystery. You can wear the robe and take your seat. After that, see on your own. We have to make the wheels ourselves.

[44:41]

We have to do it ourselves. We have to enter the mountain way of life. Nobody can teach us. There are no teachers of Zen. However, there is the mountain way of life. So this paragraph reminded me of this koan and other koans. It reverberated back to... the necessity of we can't seek outside ourselves. We can't look to somebody else. Teach me, show me the way. Yes and no. I can say so much and then you have to do it your own, on your own. You have to sit. You have to find your way. And, you know, as we were talking about last Sashin, this This is kind of the wind of the family house. I can't teach it to my son. I can show him some stuff, but he's got to do it on his own. And if we say too much, something's missing.

[45:44]

Something will be lost. However many great sages and wise people we suppose have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains, you have to... We have to enter hook, line, and sinker. Hooks come later. We have to enter completely. Ever since they entered the mountains, no one has met a single one of them. There is only the expression of the mountain way of life. Not a single trace of their having entered remains. I find that very helpful. So this trace is shoseki, or like a footprint. And when we see a footprint, we know somebody's walked the path. Or we know, if you're a tracker, you know an animal's been there.

[46:45]

And you know, if you can read the tracks, you know exactly they fought with this other animal and they dragged their prey over here. You can read it. You know, it's almost... And this says... not a single trace of their having entered remains. They didn't leave a trace because they became the mountains. The mountains and them are, there's no trace because they are the mountains. And their footprints are none other than mountains. And Okuma Roshi, and maybe you've been thinking this too, says this is the same as Genjo Koan. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they go on actualizing Buddhas, right? So this not stepping outside and looking at, am I there yet?

[47:54]

Am I a Buddha or not? Or has anybody noticed that I've attained something? or fame, you actualize the mountain way of life and actualize others by living in that way, all those who live with you and speak with you. So, So this thing of not a single trace remains because they become the mountains. However, when you enter the mountains fully, just like a fish knows a fish's heart, you can see because you're walking the same path, like a migratory bird following those paths. Again, they read the stars. They're following, they're entering completely their...

[48:56]

the reality of their life, and can follow even never having flown that way before. Those butterflies that fly to Morelia in Mexico, the monarchs, they fly a thousand miles. So this line there is only the expression of the mountain way of life. So we can see the mountain way of life. The mountain way of life is a life... We've been living the mountain way of life, you could say. A simple life of a settled life. A life where we're working with...

[49:57]

our karmic consciousness, our ego-centered, karmically-driven choices, and as best we can, aligning with the mountain way of life. Just our getting up with the wake-up bell, washing up, putting on our robes, coming to the zendo, sitting, serving, eating together, taking care of our bodies. This is so simple, you know. and so unusual and so ordinary. You know, we've been talking about when we're in it and within it, it's nothing special. It's just the expression of the mountain way of life. So it's a mountain style or a mountain way of life.

[51:12]

And when Yuji-san, no, not Yuji-san, Yuto-san gave a talk at Green Gulch on a Wednesday night last summer, we had invited him to give a talk. He brought up this phrase, which is the mountain way of life, which is... the ordinary, the life of ordinary tea and rice of the Buddhas and ancestors. And Dogen says, after all, do not sell cheaply or debase the worth of the ordinary tea and rice of the Buddhas and ancestors' house. This is exactly the mind of the way. It's the mountain way of life. Ordinary, chopped wood, carry water, living in this simple way. letting go of fame and gain. And what occurred to me when I was thinking about this settled mountain way of life, an expression of mountain way of life, what came to mind was, I think it's from here to eternity, where his brother, you know, they get into, I can't even remember, but his brother says, I could have been a contender.

[52:32]

I could have been a contender. On the waterfront, that's right, on the waterfront, not from here. Sorry, on the waterfront. I could have been a contender. That, you know, that regret, you know, that he didn't fully express himself, but also I think there was, I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be famous. And, you know, kind of contrasting that and the pain of that, the suffering of that, I could have been a contender. and that he missed that and, you know, just ordinary chopped vegetables, cooked food, feed families, go for a walk, eat and sleep. Eat when you're hungry. Sleep when you're tired. Not Nusendo.

[53:35]

If you can help. Actually, that's what happens. I've been noticing lots of bobbing and I've been bobbing around too until our kind of sasheen energy gets galvanized. I think a number of us have been pretty tired. So this is our continuous practice of mountain way of life and the expression, our expression. We have to express it. No one can express it for us. So I wonder if I should go on to this next section or maybe just leave it there. Why don't I leave it there?

[54:45]

I had one more poem to kind of illustrate this, which is from, I don't know who it's from, but it's in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Maybe it goes more with this next section coming up, but still, I think it's part of this mountain way of life and the kind of settled quality and we disappear into it and don't become, don't stand out. We just become completely according with conditions. And it's this poem, Chinese poem, I went and I returned. It was nothing special. famous for its misty mountains, Seiko for its water. It's a poem about these very famous places, and I think in China these are the Japanese names for them.

[55:51]

You know, these fabulous mountain scenery, Huangshan, yellow mountains, and these peaks, and you can go to them, and then these Zhoujai-gyu, these fabulous places of waterfalls and you can go and you can see. And this, I went and returned. It was nothing special. Roseanne, famous for its misty mountains, Seiko for its water. You go there and what is it? It's mountains and water. You know, if you're, and it's similar to entering the mountain way of life completely from outside. Maybe this is this next part, gazing at it from outside. It looks special. We can talk about that more tomorrow. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[56:56]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[57:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.68