this podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you good morning Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. My name is Lucy, Lucy Xiao, and my Dharma name is Xuandao, Gendo in Japanese. I'm a resident and priest here at San Francisco Zen Center, and I'm very happy and grateful to be able to spend

[01:06]

this morning with you. I'd like to dedicate this talk to Grand Master Meng Chan, who passed away last month at the Wutai Mountain in China. Has anybody heard of him? Grandmaster Meng Chan, his name means dream investigation. He lived a full life of and his life as a monk and teacher spanned 87 years and multiple continents.

[02:20]

For the last 17 years or so, he resided in the Wutai Mountain in China. Wutai Mountain is the Five Peak Mountain, the sacred mountain of Manjushri Bodhisattva, the manifestation of wisdom. His teaching, his life and his teaching was very deep and wide, but also very straightforward. He was the teacher of my dear Dharma friend and teacher in China, Venerable Hong Jue. And we call him the old master. We call the grand master Lao Fa Shi, old master.

[03:25]

So I'm gonna refer to him as old master today. And I will share some of his life stories. But let me first introduce a poem that was adapted from a poem by Zen master Ling Yunzhi Qing in Tang Dynasty. Okay. Is this better? Thank you. So this is a poem. For 30 years I have sharpened the sword. So many leaves have fallen, so many branches have grown. Ever since I had a glimpse of the plum blossoms, there has been no more doubt again.

[04:34]

ever since I had a glimpse of the peach blossoms. There has been no more doubt again. In Chinese, Just a few notes about this poem. So originally the poem had this character, xun, which means to search and look for. But Venerable Hongjue changed one character, this one, to mo, sharpen, or grind. So instead of looking for a sword, it means to sharpen the sword.

[05:45]

And this character, Mo, in ancient Chinese, it had two parts. The left part is a stone, and the right part is a character that means very fine. very polished so character the character more or grind or sharpen means to grind a object against a stone so that it become very smooth or sharp to to polish to grind to sharpen very carefully so it becomes smooth and perfect. And the sword, the image of sword in Buddhism often refers to wisdom.

[06:51]

So in the Zendo or in many places you see the statue of Manjushri Bodhisattva. He would be holding a sword to cut through self-clinging, and cuts through delusion. So the sword is the sword of wisdom. And peach blossom in Zen, oftentimes, well, along with plum blossoms, peach blossoms, it's a symbol of awakening. or wake up to the true reality of life. So this poem goes, for 30 years I have sharpened the sword. So many leaves have fallen, so many branches had grown.

[07:57]

Ever since I had a glimpse of the peach blossoms, there has been no more doubt again. To me this poem is a perfect image of Master Meng Chan, the old master. The old master was born in 1915 in northern China. As a young boy he was very rebellious. He ran away from home at at the age of 13, never finished elementary school. At 16, one night he had a dream about a temple on a mountain, and he set out to find this place. And it turned out to be the temple Doushuaisi near Beijing.

[09:04]

And so he went there and shaved his head and became a monk. He was given the dharma name Juexing to be aware and to awake. But he said, I'm not awake yet. I'm still in a dream. I'm gonna call myself Meng Chan. Dream investigation. I'm going to investigate my dreams. So he has been known as Master Meng Chan ever since. The same year he was ordained, he heard about this great master, Sizhou Master in Hua Yan. Avatamsaka tradition.

[10:10]

So Master Shizhou was teaching at a monastery and a Buddhist academy in the south, in Fujian province. So young master Meng Chan set out to find this old master. And when he arrived at the monastery, the Yongchuan Si, the Bubbling Spring Monastery, he asked Master Chizhou to accept him to be a student. And Master Chizhou said, why don't you write a resume or autobiography? or a short page of who you are, where you came from. And, you know, of course, he didn't write very well.

[11:16]

He didn't even finish his elementary school. So, Master Tsuzhou looked at his resume and just chuckled. He said, well, this is the Avatamsaka University and I can't accept you but the young master said please please I really really want to study with you I really want to be here the old master said well okay you can stay but maybe you can just uh... help me clean the rooms help to wipe the desks in the classrooms and sweep the floor and take care of stuff around and so the sixteen year old young master stayed and he became

[12:30]

Old Master Tsuzhou's attendant also. But he was having a pretty hard time because he was the only person from the north and he couldn't understand anybody in the school and around him. And certainly he didn't understand the classes because, you know, it was pretty, you know, sophisticated. Avatamsukha Sutra is kind of one of the most grandiose and you know, deep teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. So six months later, he was very, very, he felt defeated and he went to the old master, Tsuzo said, Master, although I really, really want to stay and study with you, I think I've had enough.

[13:36]

I'm having a miserable time here. I couldn't understand a thing. And the elder master said, well, you should have left soon, long ago. And the The young master said, oh, but I really, really want to be with you. I just can't do it. The old Cizhou said, well, can you, can you eat bitter? In Chinese, means enduring hardships. overcoming difficulties. The young master said, if I can receive wisdom, teaching, I can shiku.

[14:44]

As a young Chinese person, you often talk to shiku. So, his old master said, well, if you If you go and when the classes are over, when you are done with your work, you can go make prostrations in front of the Buddha and chant the ten vows of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of action, right action. So, So the young man stayed and he started to do this practice of bowing and chanting and renewing his vows every day. And after six months, he started to understand a little bit of the teaching of the lectures.

[15:55]

his soul master was giving. He started to understand a little bit. And a few months or a year or two passed. During that time, the way Chinese monks or teachers were trained was by copying their teachers. And so each time, each day, the old master Shizhou was giving a teaching on Avatamsaka Sutra. And every afternoon they will lay out another mat and they will do, you know, there is a bamboo stick holder with everybody's name on a bamboo stick. They will shake the and then pulled out a stick and that person will give the lecture in the afternoon.

[17:00]

That's how they learn. And they try to copy the teacher or try to repeat what their teacher taught. And so months later as he young master Meng Chan started to understand the teachings one day he went to the old master, said, can I put my name on a bamboo stick and put it in the holder? And the old master said, what do you want? He said, well, I want to try to teach, to learn how to teach the class. And the old man said, well, no need to put your name on a stick, you do it this afternoon. So he... So that afternoon he went in front of everybody and started to talk.

[18:12]

And you know, in those days there were rules how you wanted... learned from your teacher. You talk the same way as your teacher talked and you never go too far ahead. You don't talk about things that your teacher never talked about. But he just opened his mouth and he just kept talking. He couldn't stop. And then the young friends stopped him. Hey, hey, stop, stop. Our teacher hasn't talked about it yet. But he just kept talking. And his teacher didn't say anything. And a month, a few months, a year, a couple years, a few years later, his teacher started to take him around when...

[19:18]

when he was giving teaching in other places. And so one day, the old teacher took him to Fuzhou, another city in the same province, to teach the Amitabha Sutra in a temple. And after the teacher had introduced the title of the sutra, And the teacher said to him, by the way, I'm actually going to have to go up to the mountain to teach another thing. And why don't you stay here and teach the whole thing? So that was the first time he started to teach on his own. He was 20 years old then. He went on to study and practice with many great masters of the time, including Master Xu Yun, M.T.

[20:33]

Cloud of the Chan School, Tan Xu of the Tiantai School, and Hong Yi of the Vinaya School. And so his own practice and teaching Oh, and he also went to Tibet and practiced there for 10 years. And he spoke fluent Tibetan. So, but his own practice and teaching became this very nice and smooth, I want to say smoothie. It's a blend of many things. And it's also his own way. the early 50s when the Communist Party took over.

[21:38]

He was put in prison because he refused to disrobe. Can you hear? Okay. And he was in prison for 33 years. He went in, I think he wasn't even 40 years old yet. He came out as a 70 year old. Throughout his time in prison, he endured much suffering. He endured torture, many difficulties. But he never gave up his faith in the Dharma.

[22:48]

He never harbored any ill will or hatred toward anybody. who mistreated him. When he came out in the 80s, he came out of the prison. When people asked him, how did you survive? How did you live through all those years? Sometimes he made joke of it. He said, you know what, when I was a hermit in the mountains, sometimes I didn't have food, sometimes I didn't know if a tiger would visit me at night. And in prison, I was fed, and there was a guard in front of my room all the time.

[23:53]

And that's actually not too bad. But of course, he suffered a great deal. He felt, of course, when he was tortured, he was hung upside down, he was beaten, and he felt pain. He felt, sometimes he passed out. But he liked to say, This is a phrase from the Leng Yan Jing Suragama Sutra. Awareness is aware of pain, but pain does not pain the awareness.

[24:58]

He said, of course I feel pain, of course. I am aware of all the pain that I was put through. However, the pain did not hurt the awareness. It did not hurt my awareness, did not hurt my trust. in the path it did not hurt my compassion for those who were around me. So day after day, season after season many leaves have shedded Many branches have grown.

[26:03]

He kept practicing. He kept sharpening his sword. In the face of adversity, wisdom and compassion kept growing. He became a stronger man. When he came out of prison, he said, if it weren't for those 33 years, I wouldn't be here today. I'm a better teacher now. So the old master sharpened his sword. How do we sharpen our sword?

[27:05]

Or knife, or whatever you're trying to sharpen or grind or polish, a gem. Oh, I have a rock. This is a little rock I picked up. from one of the peaks at Wutai Mountain. It's kind of rough, kind of a lot of edges. How do we polish or sharpen our practice? When we start out to practice, oftentimes we learn meditation, we learn bowing and chanting, we learn all the formal practices.

[28:14]

But that's only the beginning. We also need to learn how to bring our formal practice into day-to-day life. To sharpen a sword or knife, to polish a rock or jam, we need to rub it or grind it against something. Remember the character Mo. It's a stone on one side and something very fine and polished on the other. So you need a sharpening stone or grinding, grindstone? Grindstone. To polish your practice.

[29:31]

Where do we find our sharpening stone or grindstone it's everywhere if we allow ourselves in every situation when we encounter anything or anybody if we allow ourselves to ask What can I learn here? How can I learn from you? That very situation, that very person will become your sharpening stone or grinding stone. They will become your teacher. And you can learn and grow from that. It was said that Rahula, the son of Shakyamuni Buddha, when he was a boy, seven years old, he became a novice monk.

[30:52]

He was so eager to learn that every morning when he woke up, he would take in his hand a handful of sand and throw it in the air. He would say, may I encounter as many teachings as there are these grains of sand. I just love that image of the seven-year-old boy being so eager to learn, so humble. So when we sit zazen, Each breath is a sharpening tool for our awareness. When we bow to the Buddha, when we bow to each other, it's an opportunity to cultivate

[32:07]

reverence and humility in everyday life by the way the old master said your practice and your everyday life are not two parallel lines that never intersect they are not two separate lines they are one line. So how do we practice in everyday life? You need to, we need to learn how to use our mind, how to use the opportunities. The old master said, the whole Avatam Sukha Sutra, Hua Yanjing, can be boiled down to four characters, shan yong qi xin, to know how to use your mind properly.

[33:19]

So when we're waiting in line for something and you are so anxious to get to your next place, let's this person in front of you just taking forever. It's a perfect time to tell yourself, be patient. How can I be patient? Take a deep breath and you'll figure out how to be patient. When you hear or see someone having success in something. You might feel a little jealous, a little envy. It's a perfect time to look into that, look into your mind and see if you can turn it, turn it into sympathetic joy.

[34:29]

The old master never held any important roles, positions. He never had his own temple. He was just a simple monk, but he was a great teacher. For the last 17 years of his life, he went back to, oh, he came to the United States, taught here in Taiwan, New Zealand, Canada, and he went back to China and resided in the Five Peak Mountain, Wutai Mountain, 17 years ago. And about five years ago, Venerable Hongjue, who was his long-term disciple and attendant.

[35:47]

And my friend and teacher also joined him around that time at the Wutai Mountain. So I had the great fortune to went there. I made a pilgrimage to the mountain of Manjushri and visited them. The old master was about, I think, 98 years old then, and he was old, but still full of chi. He was hard of hearing, but his voice was like a big bell when hitting this big bell. His voice filled the entire room. When I arrived, Venerable Hongjue took me to see the old master, and he shouted into the old master's ear, Master, this is Xuandao from San Francisco.

[37:02]

The old man turned to me. It was in the evening. The mountains or the peaks around were covered with snow. They lived in a simple building with a courtyard. The old master turned to me without saying, how are you? How is San Francisco? Or Amitofo, you know, the common way of Buddhists greeting each other in China. he turned to me and said, do you trust these very mountains are Manjushri? Do you trust these very mountains are the Bodhisattva of wisdom?

[38:08]

Do you trust these mountains are wisdom itself? Here's the sword poem again as a tribute to the old master. For a hundred years you have sharpened the sword. So many leaves have fallen and so many branches have grown. Ever since you had a glimpse of the peach blossoms There has been no more doubt to this day. Thank you.

[39:22]

giving. May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

[39:25]

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