My name is Galen Godwin, and I'm from the Houston Zen Center, kind of a sister temple to this temple. And Our temple name is actually Sho Eun Ji, which means Auspicious Cloud Temple. In Houston, one of the amazing things about that particular landscape is amazing cumulus clouds that come up from the Gulf. So our temple is named after those clouds. And the Sho, it's Sho Eun Ji, Auspicious Cloud Temple. The Sho is the same one that's in the name of Shogaku Shunryu Suzuki. So Shunryu Suzuki's name is reflected in the name of our temple too, Auspicious Cloud Temple.

[01:00]

His name was Auspicious Peak, teacher. And we also have a mountain name. All temples have mountain names. And the mountain of Houston is invisible to the naked eye, but we have the name for it, which is Compassion Moon Mountain. And that name was given to us by Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi. I used to live here. And in fact, when I was living here at the time, I first heard about the possibility of Zen in Texas while I was living here. There wasn't, I mean, there were probably individuals practicing Zen in Texas, but there wasn't a place. And one thing you gradually or immediately recognize when you start practicing at Tassajara is that the power of the place and Zen are kind of inextricably combined. The place is a teaching of its own.

[02:01]

So when I heard about Houston Zen practice, and some of the people from Houston Zen Center are here, so we're enjoying this, I still hadn't intended to move there myself. I thought I was here, and then visiting would happen to Houston, and then returning to Tassajara would be the natural order of things. But gradually something happened, and I fell in love with Houston and this Houston Zen group. But still, we didn't have a place. We were meeting in a Unitarian church, and they'd been meeting for a long time. Dharma Moon is here somewhere. They'd been meeting for a long time in a Unitarian church. wanting to deepen practice. So one of the things that's important in deepening practice is having a place. So we agreed that I would move away from Tassajara when we had a place, and I thought, that's cool, this will be about five or 10 years. And it happened in about three months or something. We had a place, and I moved there.

[03:04]

So now we're back, and again, We're back for a Sangha week, and again, the power of this place is our main teacher while we're here. The feeling of the effort and care it takes to keep this place as a refuge, take care of it, and the feeling of the practice, the power of the practice of all of you and of the mountains and the trees and the creek and the birds, all that power of practice is really... really palpable to us who come in. And we're studying, while we're here on this Sangha week, a poem by Dungshan, who also understood the teaching of trees and rocks and people as well. So we've been memorizing it. So can we do the first five or six lines? All of you who know it can also recite. The Song of the Precious Mirasamadhi. The teaching of thusness has been intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors.

[04:12]

Now you have it, so keep it well. Filling a silver bowl with snow, hiding a heron in the moonlight. Taken as similar, they're not the same. When you mix them, you know where you are. The meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. Move and you are trapped. So this teaching, this song of the Jewel Mir Samadhi by the great teacher Dung San, is his expression of many teachings he got from his teacher, including their meeting and their mutual enlightenment. And Dungshan, first, he was very smart, very articulate, really liked to question people. When he took his leave of his teacher, took his leave of the place, he went to Yin Yang and said, as you did in China, you know, when you took leave of your teacher, you might not ever see them again.

[05:21]

You'd go wandering across China, you might not meet again, you might not practice meditation. together again ever in that lifetime. And sometimes teachers would give their disciples, their Dharma heirs, a portrait to take with them as a memento. But Dongshan asked his teacher, Yin-Yang, if people should ask me about you, how shall I describe you? And Yin-Yang said, just this is it. And then Dengshan was silent for a very long time, which kind of indicates that he understood. And then Yunnan said, now you have it. You must be very thoroughgoing. And so then Dengshan took his leave and went off to found a great temple and continue his growth as a practitioner.

[06:22]

but you must be very thoroughgoing were the words that he left his beloved student with. You must be very thoroughgoing. So when he said that to him, what do you think it means? When does he want him to be very thoroughgoing? And where does he want him to be very thoroughgoing? He wants him to be very thoroughgoing right now. And he wants him to be very thoroughgoing right here, all the time. He wants him to be able to hear the teaching right here, and hear the, see the Dharma being expounded right now. You must be very thoroughgoing. So earlier, Dungshan had had a a meeting, he went around and saw a lot of teachers.

[07:24]

Everyone really, really liked Dongshan. And just before he studied with Yunnan, he was with the great teacher Guishan, another amazing teacher of Zen. And Dongshan's style was to really clarify, really ask questions. So he had heard that Guishan had this teaching about the insentient things, trees, rocks. and streams and pebbles teaching the Dharma. So he went to Guishan to ask about it. And Guishan said, The earth expounds Dharma. Living beings expound Dharma. Throughout the three times, everything expounds it. Dungshan said, well, what exactly does that mean?

[08:28]

And Guishan raised his whisk. And then Dungshan said, well, how is that a comment on what you just said? Sort of like us. How does that... refer to what you just said. And Guishan said to him, you are not able to hear it from a human being. Go and see Yunnan. So that's when Dungshan went to see Yunnan, and there he also had an encounter about the teaching of the insentient, teaching of rocks and tiles and pebbles. A similar thing happened. And our story is that without ever communicating, these two teachers had a similar response. And Yunnan, when asked, well, how is it that the insentient teach the Dharma?

[09:29]

How is it that everything is teaching the Dharma? Yunnan also went like this. And then Guishan said, I don't understand. Oh, no. He went like this, and then Yunnan said, do you understand? And Dongshan said, I don't understand. And then Yunnan said, if you don't understand my teaching, how will you understand the teaching of the incension? Go work in the kitchen. And then they practiced together for a long time, and then there was the parting. instruction, you must be very thoroughgoing. So this very thoroughgoing, I appreciate that as a Zen instruction, but since we're Zen people, we get to, and all Buddhists, we get to take from each other's teachings.

[10:30]

So at about the same time as Dogen Zenji was living, there were these great teachings being expounded in Tibet. So the Lojong teachings or the training training the mind slogans were being expounded, ways to work with this mind to help it understand the teaching of suchness. So the teaching of how things are. So here's a way to be very thoroughgoing according to the Lojong. It's one of the verses in the Lojang, and Norman Fisher did a really great commentary on it, so I'm using his translation of the slogan number nine. So these are a series of slogans that gradually help us soften the mind, introduce ideas of compassion, introduce ideas of wisdom, and gradually come to terms with this human life.

[11:31]

So the ninth verse is turn things around. And how that is expounded in the Tibetan version is there are three objects, three poisons, three seeds of virtue in our immediate experience. Three objects means that the way we see things, we only see it in three ways. We see things as attractive, we see things as unattractive, or we see them as neutral or confused, or it could be that we see it as both attractive and not attractive, repellent and attractive. So that's the only kind of three objects that there are, according to this teaching. And then there are the three poisons, which are the only three ways we can, we take this as a practice, the only three ways we can relate to these things are the poison of greed, we want to get it, the poison of aversion, we want to push it away, and then the poison of ignorance, we don't know what to do with it.

[12:40]

And then, in the middle of that are the, in the middle of each moment, there are the three seeds of virtue. There's a seed of awakening in the middle of that experience. There's the seed of the possibility of seeing the teaching in the middle of that moment. So whatever we see, an object means situations that we see, people that we see, objects that we see, everything that we identify as out there is an object. And we either see it as attractive, see it as unattractive, or see it as neutral. This is just a practice way. And when doing this, If we can settle down into a subtle place, things will start to arrive and show themselves to us. Teachings will start to arrive and show themselves to us. Habit energy starts to arrive and show itself to us.

[13:45]

Sometimes really difficult things will arrive if we're really staying present with our relation with the outer world as we see it. sometimes really difficult things. Traumatic little memories will come up in the middle of observing our response to objects. Sometimes, in fact, with really difficult memories, traumas, scary things, very, very, very strong habits, there are ways to work with that too, increasingly useful ways of working with that coming... bringing in techniques from mindfulness and modern mindfulness practices. So as really difficult things arise, when we're being present with our experience, when we're being very thoroughgoing, we're paying attention to whether this is something I want to open to a little, or this is something I want to open to a lot. I want to examine this maybe a little, maybe not so much anymore.

[14:52]

Maybe now I want to bring in a positive sensation to mix with this energetic charge and let the charge relax. So being very thoroughgoing doesn't mean maintaining a certain perspective or a certain affect all the time. It means being really actually present with what we're experiencing. I have another story I want to tell coming out of this habit that these Zen people have raising things up. So to demonstrate true reality, here it is. In the very early days we say Shakyamuni Buddha held up a flower. So he was in an assembly and he held up a flower and one person in the assembly So we say that that was the first transmission of the Dharma from Buddha to that person because they communicated their understanding of the teaching at that moment.

[16:05]

And then, of course, Yunnan held up a whisk. Guishan held up a whisk. One Zen teacher held up a fist. Various people hold things up. But there's one story I want to tell. This is about the Zen teacher... and he was another very thorough-going monk living on a mountainside and sort of a hermit. He'd had teaching and he'd gone off on his own like we do. We have to go off eventually. We respond to requests. So Judy had gone off and he was living in a hermit hut on a mountainside. And one day a visitor came. And this was Shurji, whose name we recite when we recite the women ancestors. Her name means reality. So the nun Shurji came to call on Judy, sitting in his hut.

[17:12]

And she actually paid him a great compliment. She turned it into a Dharma meeting. So she came in and he was sitting there and she didn't take off her traveling hat. She didn't shake out her sleeves. She just said, well she paid him, she was very respectful. She walked around him three times and then stood in front of him and said, if you can say a word, if you can speak, I'll stay. He didn't know what to say. So she repeated that. She walked around him three times and said, if you can say a word, I'll stay. And again, he did not know what to say. He was speechless. So one more time, she gave him a third chance. If you can speak, I'll stay. Couldn't say anything.

[18:13]

she turned to get ready to go and he said, oh no, wait, please, it's dark outside, it's late, please stay the night, meaning please take refuge here. And she wouldn't do it, she left. And when I think of that story, even right now, it moves me very much because in China or in any place, a woman traveling alone is not, I mean, it's a very courageous thing to do. So courageous. Some of the rules about nuns in India were put in place for the protection of women. And so a woman traveling on her own in China was a very brave woman indeed. And she wouldn't stay in that hermitage because the Dharma was more important to her. A real Dharma exchange was more important to her. So she left. And Zhu Di was devastated. He thought, I've wasted all my time.

[19:13]

I'm just, my practice is no good. I'm going to close up and go find a teacher who can get me to the next level or whatever. So he was getting ready to go. But that night, the spirit of the mountain. So the reason temples have mountain names is in honor of the temple spirit that lives beneath you. So that night, the mountain spirit came to him and said, don't go, Judy, don't go. A great bodhisattva is on his way to help you, or on their way to help you. So he said, okay. So he decided to stay. And two weeks later, somebody showed up. His name was Tan Leong, showed up. And Judy told him about this encounter that he'd had with Shi Ji. and said that he couldn't say a word, what would you advise me to do, Master?

[20:16]

And he, the visiting bodhisattva just pointed at him. And Judy woke up. He saw the momentary practice. He saw the Dharma being taught by everything. He saw his own place in the scheme of things. He saw everything he needed to see and was therefore able to stay there and be a teacher. So this became very famous. Whenever anybody would ask Judy anything, he would just, he would hold up his finger. This is it. This is my demonstration of Dharma. And he's famous for that one finger, Judy. But there's another story. Can I tell you one more story? This one's kind of scary. But... He became famous for that, for his way of demonstrating the Dharma. And a young, some stories say a young servant boy, some people say, some versions say it was his attendant.

[21:22]

Anyway, a young boy, when people would ask him what the master's teaching was, would hold up his finger. So he was imitating. And when Judy heard this, he found the servant boy and he cut off his finger. That's what they say. And then as the boy was running away, crying, Judy called to him to come back to turn around. And when the boy turned around, Judy pointed at him. And then the boy woke up. So... We don't know if that really happened. We don't know if Judy really cut off a servant boy's finger. But what we do know is that somebody in these stories is trying to tell us about thoroughgoing practice and finding our own way to express it.

[22:24]

And for me, I think half the reason why I wanted to tell that story is not so much about the boy, because that's scary. But to tell you about Shurji, that brave nun, walking through China, finding people to play with and play in the Dharma with. So I think that's actually it. Ninety percent of why I wanted to tell you about that was to give you another story about Shurji. Because she was taking a risk as big as that boy, just to go and seek out the Dharma. So we all are holding up something. We hold up. Every time we hold anything up, we're picking up the Dharma. We're demonstrating our understanding. We're exploring our understanding. And I just want to encourage you to be very thoroughgoing and play with the Dharma. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[23:32]

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.

[23:47]

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