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. I felt very happy to see Leslie this morning when I was offering incense at the Ida Sontan altar, the gate altar. I saw... some lights of a car up and heard a car up the road and I had this strong sense of kind of the intrepid Leslie going over the road, back and forth, back and forth, year after year, in snow and rain and darkness and for how many years, 15, 20 years, back and forth and back and forth. Anyway, 21 years.

[01:02]

Thank you very much. Yesterday, I thanked the Dohans for taking care of all the details and timing and the sounds and so forth. And I just wanted to say, when I was practicing Kinhin yesterday, which I highly recommend, by the way, for those of you who don't get to practice it very much. Walking meditation, I was rounding the curve and I just took a look at one of the Dohan seats and this is what I saw. There was a large bell and a small bell and a large cushion for the bell and a small cushion for the bell and a large striker and a small striker. Then there was a clock on a stand on a cushion Then there was a little plaque and a clipboard and a sutra card, the chapbook.

[02:04]

And then there was a teacup and an oryoki. And it was like, there is so much going on at this seat. Lots to take care of. So I was impressed. I was very impressed by this person's, what they were looking at, you know. just a word about kinyin. Each person has to regulate their body needs and so forth according to what you need to do. But if there's a possibility that you can stay in the zendo for walking meditation, when I say I highly recommend it,

[03:05]

makes, you know, the period from one period of zazen to the other period of zazen is really, there's just moving zazen and then sitting zazen and moving zazen and just flowing from one to the other. So it's which you can do as you walk to your cabin also. I think it might be harder. You have to move fast and get back in time. And here it's a very clear practice of walking meditation. A few things about our oryoki practice, not just during sashin, but all the time. But in sashin in particular, I think we have a chance to practice this way, which is When we chant the five reflections, starting out with, we reflect on the effort that brought us this food.

[04:08]

Now, we chant it pretty fast, but these are reflections for us to reflect on the effort, not just of the servers to bring the meal in service or the kitchen, but the countless beings whose efforts brought us this food. We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it's come to us. Just with this morning's meal of sesame soybeans and was it semolina? Brown rice cream, brown rice cream, daikon pickles and the enormous effort of earth, sky, water people to bring this food that we get to eat And then the second reflection is whether our virtue and practice, does it say deserve it?

[05:09]

What? Worthy of it. Worthy of it, yeah. We used to say deserve it. So this isn't a chance to feel ashamed. criticize your practice, it's a chance to just reflect on this food that has come to this, at this time, to this body-mind. Are we doing our best? This virtue has the best we can be. Are we practicing hard? And just reflecting on that. It's a time to reflect. And also reflecting on excesses or Greed, you know, are we taking just enough, which is the name for our oryoki, just enough. Are we taking just enough or too much? And let's reflect on that. And that the food is good medicine to sustain us and that we eat to support our practice and to wake up.

[06:19]

So these five reflections, we chant them very quickly so you may not have time to reflect while we're chanting. But there is time before the meal, while we're sitting quietly, when the servers are serving other people, you can actually reflect on these five things. A couple of things I've noticed. For seconds, if you want to have seconds, the... We let the servers know by gashot, putting our hands in gashot, but also removing the utensils from the bowl that we want seconds. So if it's seconds on rice, we take out the spoon, put it in the used utensil position in front of us, and then hold the bowl out without the spoon. And without holding the spoon as a kind of, instead of using our hand, using the spoon as a kind of indicator.

[07:25]

take the chopsticks and spoon out and just offer the bowl without utensils. And also in the evening, if we're using the middle and small bowls, we just use our chopsticks. So those are some things that I've noticed. So I wanted to Return to the Mountains and Waters, and the section about the stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. This means that the time when a stone woman gives birth to a child is the night. There are male stones, female stones, and stones neither male nor female. They repair heaven and they repair earth. There are stones of heaven and there are stones of earth. Though this said in the secular world, it is rarely understood.

[08:34]

We should understand the reason behind this giving birth to a child. At the time of birth, our parent and child transformed together. We should not only study that birth is realized in the child becoming the parent, We should also study and fully understand that the practice and verification of birth is realized when the parent becomes the child. So there's several ways I want to look at this with you. The stone woman, you know, is in the hokyo zammai. The wooden man begins to sing, and the stone woman gets up dancing. And that stone woman in Japanese is seki-jo.

[09:36]

Seki is stone, like seki-to, kisen, daio-sho. His name is, I actually misunderstood his name. I used to think it was a rock head or a stone head, but it's... stone, seiki-to, and the toe is like the Marin headlands, the head, like Hilton head, or this, he built his hut on top of a big rock outcropping that was, so it's like above the rock, seiki-to, not stone head. Anyway, seiki-jo, so when we're chanting the Hokiozaima in Japanese, when you hear seiki-jo-ta-te, you can think, ah, At least I understand one word. Stone woman, seiki jo. So when the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing. And this stone woman, I think we talked about her earlier as stone.

[10:40]

It's idiomatic for barren, for someone, a woman who can't give birth. The stone woman is barren. But here it is, the stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. This means that the time when a stone woman gives birth to a child is the night. And it's interesting how that's repeated there. How Dogen repeats, you know, this means in the night. So this came up earlier, but I'll just review the... The night is used as an image or a word for beyond discrimination, non-discrimination, completely without separation of object, subject and object in the night.

[11:45]

In the darkness or the the branching streams, the 10,000 things, all the phenomenal existences that manifest, flow, the branching streams flow in the darkness, in emptiness, in non-separation. So there's another koan where Yunnan asks Dao Wu, What does the Bodhisattva of compassion do with so many hands and eyes? You probably know this koan. The Bodhisattva of compassion, one form has a thousand hands with eyes on the hands. The Bodhisattva of infinite compassion, Avalokiteshvara, what does the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion do with so many hands and eyes? And Dawu said, it's like someone reaching back

[12:50]

for a pillow in the night. Reaching back for a pillow in the night. This night is the same night. This is someone who is functioning and relieving their own discomfort and suffering, and they do it without thinking, I am going to help me. I'm going to help somebody. I'm going to... They just respond in the dark. Reaching back... a pillow in the night, which we do probably all night long, lose our pillow and make ourselves comfortable again. So this, I think I also brought up Suzuki Roshi's description of the darkness as inside our tummies when we're digesting with all the different foods, all the different variety of things, and it's all working together, but you can't distinguish. But they're operating and functioning in their own unique way.

[13:53]

If we're putting in soybeans, they are functioning in their soybean way, very different from thumbprint cookies. You know, they have their own unique, but it's happening all in the dark and functioning completely, but without discrimination. So the stone woman in the night is this beyond discrimination, beyond separation, and yet functioning. She gives birth. She fully functions and gives birth to a child. So I think this is, you know, it feels very mysterious. But there's other sayings like this in our lineage, I mean, in our Zen stories, you know, the withered tree, the dragon howling in a withered tree, or, you know, these contrasts of something that is what it is and feels like it can't be moved or changed, or it's...

[15:11]

It's whole the way it is, sometimes described as lifeless or barren or dead, you know. Die, just die. But this is die to, not die, die, but die to our karmic consciousness of how we're separated and dualistically die to that and return to This oneness. And this, you know, gives birth. This fully functions. So it's not a kind of deadness. It's a fully functioning. But how it functions is in the night, is in the darkness. And each moment is like that, and each one of us is like that. So another aspect to this, which I wanted to bring up, a couple things.

[16:22]

The wooden man begins to sing and the stone woman gets up dancing. This is a kind of poetic offering of inquiry and response to inquiry and response comes up together. The wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing. This connective functioning that happens. And what it reminded me of, which I wanted to talk with you about, is a term called ka-no-do-ko. Ka-no-do-ko. There's lots of different... translations of that. The kahn-no is this inquiry and response or stimulus response. And this is the practice of kwan-yam, the practice of avaluki tishvara. The practice of infinite compassion is responding, right?

[17:31]

Kahn-no hears the cries of the world and responds in whatever way is appropriate for that situation. So this is the kahn-no. When there's a stimulus or when there's an inquiry, there's a response. When there's a need, there's a response. And the doko, the do is way, and the kano doko, the ko part, is a kind of interaction or communion or interplay. So one translation is responsive communion. spiritual communion. Pema Chodron calls it resonance of awakening, sympathetic response. So this is going on all the time in our lives when we respond, when there's a spiritual communion or interplay between

[18:39]

us and the teachings, between us and a teacher, between us and the Dharma, the Buddha, where we feel something resonating in us. We're presented with the teaching and we can feel moved by it, we can feel drawn to it, we can feel something alive in us that's responding. So this inquiry and response is maybe the definition of compassion or appropriate response. When there's some need of attention, there's a response. It's interesting, the word response, respondere means to return, and the spondere part is a promise. etymologically, return to a promise, which I really appreciate.

[19:40]

To respond is returning and acting from our deep vow or promise to be, to live for the benefit of others. This is a bodhisattva vow. And to respond is to return to that promise and act from there. So constantly there's inquiry and response coming up all day long, all day long, and this communion. So the stone woman, you know, the wooden man and the stone woman are part of this inquiry and response. And then this stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. This next part is about this long thing about different kinds of stones.

[20:49]

There are male stones, female stones, stones neither male or female, and so forth. And all these stone references have to do with Chinese literature and different stories. So there's a story of, which isn't necessarily that, I don't think, that important to the teaching of the... mountains and waters, but it's a reference to all these stones. There was a five-colored stone that repaired the pillar of heaven, and there were female-male stones and so forth. So he referenced this. And he says, there are stones of heaven and there are stones of earth. Now, this is, Okamara Roshi says, this is It's not that important, these details, except that he's trying to say that this ultimate reality beyond this stone woman or stones themselves are not dead and lifeless.

[21:52]

They're active and repairing and involved. You know, Suzuki Roshi was a stone... He did move stones and made stone gardens and worked with his students with stones. And there's a couple lectures where he talks about stones in a very alive way. It's not easy to make a stone garden. It's not easy to make those gardens that you might visit in Japan, Kyoto, where there's just stone and gravel, to place them in such a way where they're alive and are not... where pilgrims come to just gaze at stones placed. And the garden behind the abbot's cabin, there's sections that are Suzuki Roshi and then there's sections that are not Suzuki Roshi and I think one might be able to tell which are which.

[22:58]

But these are a few things Suzuki Roshi says about stones. Each stone has its own character. A long stone has a solemn, profound feeling. A round stone expresses perfection. Then he says in another place, if there is a sharp, straight, narrow stone, it expresses some mystical feeling. And then... the round stone, perfection. A square one expresses some rigidness, a feeling of austerity. If it has moss on it, it has some deep, profound, mystical spirit to it. And then... It says he did an action with his hands, so if the stone is this way, I don't know what he did, it expresses calmness or peacefulness.

[24:03]

And these two shapes, the tall and the straight with whatever that other shape was, are in contrast. But a round stone will be harmonious with every stone. It goes perfectly with any kind of form. A stone which has a wide base expresses a stable feeling. This stone is in contrast with a massive stone. And a long, upright stone and a massive stone are in order. You cannot make a beautiful garden if you just arrange the stones in order. You should also use some stones which are in contrast. And the other stones you're using, there must be some rules. So to make a beautiful garden, you can't just choose the ones you like and put them in. Each stone expresses some aliveness. We have a response to the stone, tall and thin or round or square or mossy.

[25:12]

And it's the same with each one of us. Each one of us expresses something. In our way, we have our unique way, our unique flavor, so to speak. We're conveying something with how we walk, how we speak, how we handle things. This is our aliveness. And we work together and sometimes there's contrast, so contrastable that there's goes into conflict sometimes, and other times there's order. But it's good to have contrast. If we're just with that, which is what I was saying yesterday about the a-ho, that we're each other's circumstances in each other's life, the sho-ho, our own karma, and then each of us is in each other's a-ho, or karmic consequences.

[26:15]

And in a place like this, we don't choose who we're with. Everybody applies to the practice period. And whoever's here, maybe it's in contrast to the people that you usually like to spend time with. And I think that's a good thing. It helps us to widen and appreciate and study ourselves more easily. So all these different stones, heaven and earth and so forth, are just the liveness of each stone. So the next part is, at the time of birth, our parent and child transformed together. We should not only study that birth, is realized in the child becoming the parent, we should also study and fully understand that the practice and verification of birth is realized when the parent becomes the child.

[27:26]

Now this I've been pondering now for weeks here, this section, and I also mention that there's a lot in the commentary, different, you know, Zen masters of the past, Menzan and Nishiari Bogzan, and they all have something to say about this, so I will humbly add my reflections and also pass on some of the things they said and what Okamura Roshi said. But it reminded me of this poem that I read during the last session, I think in the night, appropriately so, in the night while we were sitting. The mother is the blue mountain. Do you remember this? And the children are the white clouds. All day long they are together, yet they do not know each other. They do not know who is the mother and who are the children. The mother is the blue mountains, and the children are the white clouds.

[28:31]

All day long they are together, yet they do not know who is the mother. and who are the children. So this poem, which I believe is Dogen, reminds me of this whole section about the parent and the child, and who is the parent and who is the child, who gives birth to who, and are they both transformed together? And why do we care? One thing that Okamura Roshi says is that this is about Dharma transmission, about succession, about giving birth to ancestors, passing and transmitting the teaching. So the child in the Dharma transmission, what was the child, then becomes a full

[29:37]

ancestor, becomes a full ancestor on the lineage chart as an ancestor, a successor of Buddha, and able to be a parent for more successors. So the child becomes the parent. And you could say the parent at this time gives birth to the child. And this, I think, not just drama transmission, but in regular parents and child and in all things, the parent, before there is a child, they're not a parent. When the child comes, they become a parent. So the child gives birth to the parent, right? Without the child, the mother is not a mother or the father is not a father. So the child also gives birth, right, to the becoming.

[30:41]

of people becoming parents. It doesn't happen without this child becoming a child. So this is a kind of simultaneous, who gives birth to who? All day long they're together, yet they do not know who is the mother and who are the children. So another, this particular way of turning this also has to do with cause and effect. So we have causes and the causes cause the effect. By definition, this cause, this effect over here. But the cause is the same thing as the parent and child and the child and the parent. The cause without the effect couldn't have been the cause, right?

[31:45]

The production, this effect, actually created the cause as well. So you see how they turn, in an interrelated world, you can't pull apart logistically, linearly cause and effect in that way. In our everyday life, we talk about cause and effect, and we don't ignore cause and effect, but when you study it thoroughly, you see that the effect, by virtue of its being and effect, caused the cause, right? I think you're following me. Another way of looking at this parent and child, the child becoming the parent and both transforming together, is that Each of us, we start out as children in the way, maybe bodhisattvas, and we practice and practice and mature and become parents.

[32:51]

As a maturing of our practice, each one of us is a child that becomes a parent. So we grow and mature in our practice and become parents. Another way of looking at this is that in each moment, each Dharma position, each phenomenal existence, there is a parent or a teacher that appears in each moment. And its appearance or manifestation in each Dharma position is a kind of birth. like a baby. So it's a bodhisattva appears in each moment to teach and that appearance is like a child.

[33:52]

Even though the bodhisattva or the Buddha is the parent, the way they appear and manifest is like a fresh new coming-to-be or baby. So the Buddhas take form as bodhisattvas in each moment, in response to beings. So the parent becomes the child in each moment, and the child becomes the parent. These are all ways to turn this particular section... So Menzan, who's, this is 17th century, who really brought Dogen back from obscurity where it had been not really studied for hundreds of years, he says that the parent is the essential mind or big mind, Suzuki Roshi would say big mind, and the child is our mental states or small mind.

[35:03]

So... Our small mind, when we study thoroughly our karmic consciousness, we see that the way karmic consciousness comes to be, the nature of it is empty of abiding self and smallness, and it becomes big mind. It is big mind. So the child becomes parent, and parent becomes child. So those are all, these are just for us to turn and, you know, for me, it loosens and freshens, you know, a kind of stale thinking about the way things go, you know. This caused that.

[36:13]

When actually, you know, depending on this, this comes to be. But also, when this comes to be, we actually can see in more clarity the cause. If someone's baking bread, all the activity that they're doing, until that bread comes out of the oven, that activity, we don't know what that was. It could have been just, who knows? Once the bread comes out, we see, oh, they were baking bread. The child gives birth to the parent. While the parent's giving birth to the child, the baker's giving birth to the bread in all its ways. And yet, when bread comes, the baker is made as well. So this, for me, it...

[37:15]

It has a very round and kind of not set in a kind of stagnant way of the world. It freshens and turns things. And all day long, the mother is the blue mountain and the children are the white clouds, and all day long they are together. And I would say all night long, in the dark, they are together, this mountain and clouds. And who's making who? So that is that section on the stone woman giving birth in the night. And I'd like to just move on to this next line, which is the great Master Yunmen, Kuang Zhen, has said, the East Mountain moves over the water.

[38:28]

And I just want to introduce, we've been hearing this saying, because he introduces it earlier, but this time he mentions Master Yunmen, and I wanted to say a few words about Master Yunmen. Unman or Yunmen, so that we can move over the water, we can keep moving. So Yunmen was the founder of the Yunmen School, one of the five schools of Zen, and he was enlightened, his teacher in the lineage was Shui Feng, and there's lots of stories about Shui Feng, But he was enlightened originally under this teacher whose name was Mu Zhao. And this is one of these stories that I heard. I heard the story, one of the first stories I heard when I started practicing, which made a big impression on me.

[39:33]

It's one of those Zen stories that knocked my tabby off, knocked my socks off. So... I thought I'd tell you the story of Yun-men's or Un-man's enlightenment. So when Mu-jo heard Yun-men coming to his door, he closed the door. And Yun-men knocked on the door. And Mu-jo said, Who is it? And Yun-men said, It's me. And Mu-jo said, What do you want? And Yun-men said, I'm not clear about my life. I'd like the master to give me some instruction. And Mu Jo then, he opened the door and looked at Yun Yan, Yun Min, and he closed the door again. Took a look at him and he closed the door.

[40:39]

Yun Min knocked on his door the same way three days in a row. Knock, knock, knock. Who is it? It's me. What do you want? I'm not clear about my life. I'd like the master to give me some instruction." Mu Jo opens the door, looks at him, slams the door in his face. So on the third day, when Mu Jo opened the door, Yun Man stuck his foot in the door. And Mu Jo grabbed him and said, Speak, speak. And when Yun Men started to speak, he said, too late. And he slammed the door, catching and breaking Yun Men's foot and breaking his leg. And at that moment, Yun Men had great realization. Now what a story to tell an impressionable young Zen student, you know.

[41:41]

Just, oh, I thought that was just, it was really so exciting, you know, to have some encounter with somebody like that. And also, you know, his going back at three days, you know, it's me, it's me, it's me, it's me. That sincerity, you know, that sincerity to go back over and over when this teacher is taking one look at you and slamming the door in your face. You know, somebody would get discouraged, don't you think? Shui Feng, his teacher, who he's, you know, was the one that they threw water on in the, no, it was Fushan and Shui Feng, in the Doksan room, in the Tangari room. Maybe it wasn't Shui Feng. Anyway, this sincerity, this kind of, I will not be deterred. You can do what you want, but I... My heart is not clear. I'm asking for instruction. And then when he tries, you know, too late, slam.

[42:48]

So that was his enlightenment experience. And so Unman or Yunmen, this particular thing that he said, he just went into the Dharma Hall and said, the East Mountains move over the water. There isn't much surround to this. And there's also another... There's a koan where this comes from, which I'll talk about if we still have stamina here to stay with this. So a monk asked, and this Okamura-san has some problem with this translation, so I'm going to get to what Okamura Roshi says.

[43:51]

The usual translation is that a monk asked, what is the birthplace of all the Buddhas? And the master answered, the East Mountain moves over the water. What is the birthplace of all the Buddhas? The East Mountain moves over the water. And East Mountain is... which is another name for Yunmen's mountain. Yunmen Shan, the site where he was practicing. So Okamura Roshi really doesn't like this translation of this particular koan. What is the birthplace of all the Buddhas? So he says that the monk's question is, where is the Shobutsu Shushin? no tokoro, where is, and this shobutsu means all Buddhas, and the shushin, in colloquial Japanese, modern-day Japanese, it does mean, where are you from?

[44:55]

You'd ask somebody, where's your shushin, where are you from? So in that way, the translation is correct. But Okamura, feels that Dogen didn't mean where are you from. He meant something else about this Shushin, and that the monk was not asking where are all the Buddhas from, but where are the Buddhas right now. And this... I don't know if it works to go through all the kind of language of it, but... The meaning of shushin is getting the body out. And in our Fukanzazenging where it says, you're playing on the entryway but are still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation, that total emancipation or vital way of total emancipation or freedom is this shushin.

[46:09]

So rather than where are you from, the shushin is to get the body out or liberate or emancipate. So... the vital path of total emancipation, when we chant the eihei koso hotsu ganmon, we say attaining Buddhahood and let go of the attainment. So this going beyond Buddhahood or freedom from even Buddhahood, that's what he feels that the monk was actually asking. Not where are the Buddhas from, but what is the place that all Buddhas are free of Buddhahood or let go of the attainment of Buddhahood. It's very different.

[47:13]

Where do all the Buddhas come from? It's like they're not here right now, but they come from somewhere where I want to go to that place where they come from. And instead, Okamura feels that the actual translation is where is the place where all the Buddhas right now are walking or freed up or are freed from their Buddhahood, are emancipated from Buddhahood, go beyond Buddhahood. Or another way to say it is how do all the Buddhas work in the world right now? How do they come down from the mountain where they've gone up, where we've done the backward step? and come forward and take the forward step to help beings. Where do all the Buddhas, you know, come from right now? Where are they freed right now?

[48:15]

And he said, the East Mountain moves over the water right at this moment. They're operating and practicing and walking. So in our practice, what does this have to do with our Sashin practice? Right now, there isn't some goal of Buddhahood somewhere else that we're trying to go to and get to. If we practice in that way, we'll be estranged from the self. We'll be estranged from just this person. We'll be estranged from just sitting. And we'll go astray from the way directly before us, from the way right here, directly under us.

[49:18]

What is the place that all the Buddhas are freed from? They're right here. So right in this present moment, we are struggling, perhaps. We are making our efforts. We may be despondent instead of responding. And to stay here settled in this present moment, we are being given birth to by the Buddhas and ancestors. And we give birth to them. Parent and child together. Our practice is making their practice alive and not dead.

[50:30]

That happened sometime in the 1200s or 2000 years ago. The practice is alive and being, coming into birth right now. Parent and child together. Is this what I think I'm hearing? So I've said a lot there today, bringing up the stone woman and children and Unman. Is there anything you'd like to bring up or clarify about these? When you spoke of the effect, I think maybe I heard you say the effect giving birth to the cause.

[51:38]

And there's something that stuck for me when we spoke about the bread baker. It felt more clear in terms of the effect almost illuminating the causes. or making them apparent. A parent. And I wondered if you could say more about that, or... Correct. Yeah. Well, I think this is... what you said about the effect then illuminates what the causes were, you know, so in some way it gives birth to, because there's myriad, numerous inconceivable causes and conditions, inconceivable interrelated conditions that are flowing and...

[52:55]

So in some ways we dip into that and say, you know, we choose. If we're focusing on bread, you know, we can, or on something, we can look and see, oh, these causes and conditions resulted in this. Without that bread, it's not that those interrelated rising and falling of the myriad dharmas was not happening. but we didn't make that connection in that way. The teaching of karma and cause and effect is deep, deep, deep teaching. We often have a very rudimentary understanding of it and a very narrow course, kind of rough understanding. is vast and wide, so vast and wide that in studying cause and effect, it breaks open into emptiness.

[54:15]

Still, to take care of our life and our karmic consciousness, we need to study this very, very thoroughly. We can't disregard it, we can't ignore, because the myriad things are all interconnected and it doesn't matter. It matters greatly in our conventional life together, which is not separate from the inconceivable. So in our relationships, when we study, how did this come to be? We can start somewhere. You know, we have to start somewhere in our relationships or when something happens, a conflict. But if we really follow it back, back, back, you know, it goes back to inconceivably far, you know, all the things that contributed to such a thing coming to be, you know.

[55:17]

But we start somewhere. The conditions themselves are interrelated. They're not kind of separate things. So as soon as you begin studying them, you begin studying everything. Do you need any help? A person? Could a person go with Judith? Several persons are jumping up. Oh, great. I just wanted to share ideas. It's not especially germane to . But this business about the stones repairing heaven and earth. Yes.

[56:18]

There's a very famous Chinese novel called The Story of the Stone. Oh. Sometimes also called The Dream of the Red Chamber. Oh, yes. It's very well known about this troubled boy who born with a jade amulet in his mouth. And the jade amulet is written. Yeah, it's Trouble Atlas. He's a cute boy. But the novel begins with the sort of story in heaven of the celestial architect preparing a building, the vault of heaven, with all these many, many, many, I forget, 33,000 stones. And there's like an extra stone. It's kind of flawed. And it's rejected. And so that stone gets reborn as this amulet. It's like those feelings of flawed, rejected, doesn't fit.

[57:21]

Kind of matches adolescence. Well, thank you. You know, they kept referring to these Chinese stories, but I didn't know what they were. So, yeah, that's one of them. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sort of interested in sitting and listening to the rain. Is anybody else? Let's do that. 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. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[58:05]

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