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 evening. So I see many familiar faces and a few new faces. How many people are new here this evening? Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. And I'm going to talk tonight about a famous koan or Zen story that's about beginner's mind or Zen mind. So this is one of those wonderful enigmatic terms, you know, what's a Zen mind? Sounds like a wonderful thing to have, doesn't it?

[01:00]

So, a Zen mind. So this is the story. This is a fairly short story, so we'll get to it pretty quickly. It's called Dijon's Most Intimate. It's case 20 from a book called The Book of Serenity, which is a collection of these famous stories. And there's a little introductory paragraph, which is traditional in these Zen stories, and it goes, the great way to the capital... goes seven ways across and eight ways up and down. Suddenly, if you can open your mouth and explain fully, take steps and walk, then you can hang your bowl and bag up high and break your staff. But tell me, who is this? Now here's the case. Dijon asked, Fayan, where are you going? That's a... Typical question. Fayan said, around on pilgrimage.

[02:04]

And Dijon said, what is the purpose of your pilgrimage? And Fayan said, I don't know. And Dijon said, not knowing is most intimate. How many people have heard this case before? Yeah, this is a favorite case. This is one of my favorite cases. This is the question of what is a not-knowing mind? What does it mean to be not-knowing? And why would not-knowing have anything to do with intimacy? But first let's get to the opening paragraph. The great way to the capital goes seven ways across and eight ways up and down. Shion was the capital... of China, the ancient capital, during the time of this story. A couple of years ago, I went on a trip visiting Zen monasteries in China, and we went to Xi'an, and there's a beautiful, old, ancient city with a wall around it where Xi'an was.

[03:14]

And it was a very old city. It was settled since the Neolithic times, and during the Tang Dynasty, which was when this story comes from, it was called the Million People, city, one of the largest cities in the world. And many roads came to this important city, which in this story means many ways of awakening. So the great way to the capital goes seven ways across and eight ways up and down, meaning the great way to awakening or teaching has many ways. And the main roads going to Xi'an had many intersecting roads, smaller roads, traveling either horizontally or vertically, and this indicated also how you can dispense skillful means of various sorts in leading others in Zen practice. So you can use anything at your disposal as a tool in guiding your students.

[04:17]

In the olden days, when a monk went on a pilgrimage, he had a long bag he carried that had his ceremonial robe in it, his ocasa. And on the top of the bag, he tied his eating bowls to it. And he had a staff that he carried, which had some little jangly circular things on it. I think we have one of those up in your Eno's office, don't you? And apparently, as he was going along, he would be hitting the staff on the ground, which, of course, would... scare off all the insects so that no insect would be crushed by his feet. Nice touch. Anyway, the point was if you were able, according to this introductory paragraph, to open your mouth and explain anything fully, take steps and walk, then you could hang up your bowl and bag Typically when you got through the pilgrimage, you would hang your bag up in your bowl on a little sort of post, I guess, and break your staff.

[05:24]

You could take your staff and break it because you weren't going to be going on pilgrimage anymore because you had figured out what was going on with your pilgrimage. So that's the introductory thing. So this is a story about a person, Fion, who... got to that place where he understood what was going on and didn't have to continue his pilgrimage. So I'm going to go back to the story. And I love these pilgrimage stories. They're such a wonderful thing. So after this little interchange, where are you going? Maybe I should talk a little bit about how he got to this monastery. I'm going to skip around a little bit. So Fayan, he was in 885 to 958. He was a very well-educated monk, very erudite as a young man. He was ordained at age 20 and studied the Confucian classics. He studied the Vinaya under a very famous teacher.

[06:30]

And then he studied under Chang Ching for many years. They say dozens, so maybe 20 years. before setting out on pilgrimage. And we know that he was a very mature adept because there's a second case, case 64 in the Book of Serenity about this wonderful interchange between Fayon after he had become awakened by Dijon and studied for many years under Dijon and became the head of Dijon's temple after Dijon died. And this is a marvelous interchange between his brother monk at Changqing's temple, Jizhao. And Jizhao was unhappy that Fayan, after having studied with him as a brother monk for 20 years, had left his teacher and gone off and found another teacher. And he had gotten so upset about this that after Fayan had become the head of the temple, Jizhao went

[07:36]

gathered a bunch of monks from Qingqiao's temple and went out to confront Fayan because Fayan was claiming that Dijan was his teacher, not Qingqian. And this was very upsetting. So have you followed this? A little confusing? I'll go through it real quickly. Fayan and Dijan were brother monks under this very famous teacher, Chang Ching. But Fayan wasn't happy completely with his understanding of Zen after studying for 20 years, so he set off on a pilgrimage. And that's where we get back to the story. And he was on a pilgrimage with several of his monks, and they ran into a snowstorm. And they were going off, I think, to probably some pretty famous temple, maybe by this time... Fayan was probably heading to Jiaojo's temple or some famous master, but he got caught in a snowstorm, so he retreated into Dijon's temple.

[08:44]

And Dijon was maybe somewhat well-known, but not so well-known. But anyway, he's there, and he runs into this teacher, and the teacher says, where are you going? And Fayan says, I'm out on pilgrimage. And these are always great setups. And Dijon said, what is the purpose of your pilgrimage? What is the purpose of your pilgrimage? So basically, you know, one way to think about a pilgrimage is like every one of us here is on some sort of a pilgrimage. Life is a pilgrimage, a search for some kind of moral significance in our life, for some kind of meaning in life, for some kind of understanding about what's going on in our life. So we're on a pilgrimage, and somebody might say, what is the purpose of your search? and probably all of you might have a very good answer.

[09:46]

I'm studying Zen to be awakened, or I'm doing various things. And Feiyan certainly, after having studied for 20 years with his buddy over at Ching's temple, would have many smart things he could have said about the purpose of pilgrimage and Zen, or what was going on. But instead, I think actually for some reason, at that moment, when this teacher asked him what was the purpose of his search, he said, I don't know. What a wonderful kind of place to come to. What's going on with your life? I don't know. Maybe hoping that this teacher might tell him what the purpose of his life was. And this teacher said, not knowing, is most intimate. Well, that's kind of nice. I mean, it was a kind of, he was verifying or giving support to this comment, not knowing.

[10:53]

Not knowing is most intimate, that sounds supportive. He could have said, not knowing is being very stupid, why don't you wake up, right? No, he said, not knowing is most intimate. What would it be about not knowing that's intimate? Maybe when you're actually in a state where you don't think you know everything about what's going on, maybe you're more open to what's actually going on in front of you. You're more intimate with the present moment as it's happening in front of you. You have a more intimate relationship to yourself because you don't even know who you are. So that's sort of the traditional way of thinking about it. Of course, you know, all these stories have many, many translations. So the translation that's actually in the Book of Serenity is not knowing is nearest. Nearest to what?

[11:57]

Huh? Death? Life and death? Nearest to life and death? nearest to the aliveness of the very moment that we're in? Yeah. So not knowing is intimate. Other words that you might hear in this thing would be not knowing is awakening, to live in a state of readiness of not knowing. This is kind of like beginner's mind. So maybe not knowing is a place where we give up all our cherished beliefs about what's going on in the world, all our stories about who we are and what's happening in the world. Or as my therapist friends would say, we give up all our pathogenic beliefs about what's going on in the world for a moment. Pathogenic being those marvelous beliefs we have that cause us so much suffering.

[13:01]

Suzuki Roshi in the Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and the epilogue of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind has a marvelous little lecture on beginner's mind. He says, if you discriminate too much, you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. Isn't that a wonderful sentence? If you discriminate too much, you limit yourself. We're busy running around discriminating all the time. That's our life. That's what picking and choosing, making decisions, discriminating. But if you do it too much, you limit yourself. You limit the possibilities of a mind that's more free. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. You know those times when we're kind of demanding, greedy about life? We're not feeling rich and self-sufficient when we're being demanding or grieving.

[14:11]

Kind of a little hint the next time you're feeling really demanding and grieving. If we lose our original self-sufficient mind, we lose all precepts. So beautiful. If we don't have this beginner's mind, if we discriminate too much, if we lose all precepts, we don't conduct ourselves ethically. When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violating your own precepts. Anyway, after this interchange, Fionn was awakened, stayed with Dijon for many years and became his Dharma heir and founded one of the five schools of Zen in China. and he's featured in about a half a dozen stories in the Book of Serenity. Why not?

[15:20]

So we're going to continue on with this story, but I so enjoyed the story about when Jizhao was unhappy that his brother monk Fayan had left Qingqiao and gone off and deserted him, that I went to that story. And I'm going to read you a little bit about that story. So Faiyan had studied for a long time with Qingqiao and then succeeded to Dijon. Qingqiao's senior monk, Jiqiao, in the past... Should we call them George and Frank? Would that help? So George and Frank, we're going to go back to Ji Zhao, because then you'd get confused, right? Okay, we'll stick with Chang Ching and Ji Zhao. Anyway, so like I was saying, Ji Zhao was very irritated at Feiyan, so he led a group to meet with him.

[16:27]

But, of course, Feiyan had heard about this, so he took a group from his temple and they met. This is kind of like the fields of Ajintar, you know, where the armies are. But no, these were two Zen monks, and they each had their attendants, and they set up, and it was all formally done with tea serving and everything like that, and they each had their whisks and everything. It was the battle of the whisks. And so here's the story. So head monk Jijiao asked Vayan, is opening a hall as a teacher to whom, in opening a hall to a teacher, whom do you succeed? you opened a hall, who was your teacher? Which was a classic setup, because Fayan said, Dijong, you know, the teacher he had learned from. And Jijiao said, you're very much turning your back on your late teacher, Ching Chong. And Fayan said, I didn't understand one saying of Ching Chong's.

[17:28]

I studied with him for 20 years, and I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Jijao said, why don't you ask? Ask me something. I'll explain it to you. And Fayan said, in myriad forms, a single body is revealed. Now we can stop laughing here. In myriad forms, a single body is revealed. This is what Fayan is saying to Jijao. And he says, what is the meaning? I'd like to know, in myriad forms, a single body is revealed. Sometimes you'd say, the 10,000 things, a single body is revealed. Jijiao raised his whisk. That would be like if somebody came up to me and said, in myriad forms, a single body is revealed. What is its meaning? And I went, bruh!

[18:30]

kind of one of those Zen imitation things. You know, they always do that. At some point, somebody comes up and asks a question of a Zen master like this. This is a question of absolute and relative, right? The myriad things, the thousand, the ten thousand things, all the relative things, and a single body is revealed, the absolute, oneness, you know. And typically a Zen teacher would go, ah, demonstration of oneness. in the myriad forms at once. So that's what Jijia did. He raised his whisk. Feiyan was not buying it. That's not what it says here. Feiyan said, this is learned at Ching Chang's place. You learned how to raise your whisk back with your teacher. What about on your own part, head monk? You look like you're just imitating your teacher. What do you understand? Testing him. Jijiah had nothing to say.

[19:35]

So Feiyan went on and said, how about in myriad forms a single body is revealed? Is this affecting myriad forms or not affecting myriad forms? does this affect the myriad forms if a single body is revealed or not? And Jijiao said, not affecting. It's not affecting the forms. And Feiyan said, too. That means that's too dualistic. You're saying it doesn't affect the myriad forms if the oneness doesn't affect the myriad forms? And then, of course, the whole crowd around said, it's affecting. It is affecting the myriad forms. not affecting, affecting. Is oneness the same as everything?

[20:40]

Are the thousand things swept away by oneness? In a moment of oneness, is there nothing but oneness? Or are the myriad forms still there? So this is like a kind of classic question. And the... Since there's no answer to that question, that is, is oneness the same as the myriad forms? Is oneness different than the myriad forms? Is oneness and the myriad forms both the same and different at the same time? There's no answer to these questions, so Fayan just said, in myriad forms a single body revealed. And at that point, all of the folks from both sides rejoiced in this great understanding of the Dharma and came together as a single body.

[21:50]

Just like this group here. The myriad forms of all of you, the myriad people in this great temple, one single body. I have no idea why I wrote that story here, but it's a nice story, isn't it? I think so. I had a long day today, and I had a lot of fun meeting in lots of meetings, and I'm just kind of in one of those moods. I'll have a drink of water and go back to the serious matter at hand. So... So I could go on with the corner.

[23:00]

I could tell my own pilgrimage story. Do you want to hear my own pilgrimage story? Okay. Because it's that kind of evening, right? We're just rolling along here. So when I was 25 years old, I was working on my PhD in mathematics at the University of New Mexico. And I took the summer off because I'd done everything but the actual thesis, all the coursework done. And I... sat on a BMW van in search of the truth. You can only be in search of the truth when you're 25 years old. Can't do it after you're... I mean, you can be in search, but the truth just doesn't... Anyway, I'd heard about this place, Tassajara, from somebody who had given me three pillars of Zen and said, you know, there's an actual Zen master at a place called Tassajara. Maybe when you're on your trip, you should check it out. So anyway, I had bought a VW van and outfitted it.

[24:01]

And I was traveling across the Southwest, climbing in the Grand Canyon, visited a friend who was at UCLA, hung out on Venice Beach, did the jazz Venice Beach thing for a while, drove up the Big Sur coast, did some backpacking into Big Sur, hung out with all the hippies that were swimming along the Big Sur River. And then... got to Carmel, and I thought, well, I'm near that place, Tasara, I wonder if I can go in. And somebody said, yeah, I was asking around, somebody, I think it was in a coffee shop, somebody said, yeah, they got hot springs there. You can drive in for the day and take a hot bath. And, you know, that was the era when, if you had a VW van, you went to all the hot springs, because that's where things were happening. So I said, well, that sounds good, I'll go in, I'll check it out, I'll go to the hot springs for a day, check it out. It was a long drive in there, but I drove my VW van all the way down, got there, was walking into the office, and there were a couple of kids a few years younger than me, probably maybe teenagers, who walked up to the desk and said, we're here for the hot springs.

[25:06]

And the guy said, here's two bucks a piece. You can hang out the whole day here and enjoy yourself. And I walked up. But for some very strange reason, I didn't say, I'm here for the hot springs. which is what I had planned to say, out of my mouth came, I'm interested in Zen. I've read this book on Zen, Three Pillars of Zen. And Stan White, who was a famous old beatnik who was down there, said, Oh, we have this program. You can stay here as a guest student and follow our schedule and you'll learn more about Zen in one week than if you read all the books on Zen in English. And I said, and then he said, and would you like to do that? And I said, yes. And two hours later, Reb Anderson was giving Nuzawa's instruction, and four hours later, Suzuki Roshi was lecturing.

[26:10]

You know, that's just one of those sort of times when you're on pilgrimage, and you don't know what you're doing exactly, and you just at some point say, I don't know. but I'm curious, and somebody says, what would you like to do? And you say yes, and you have a week that changes your life, sets you on a course that takes you somewhere. So what's surprising about these pilgrimage stories is just like Fionn's, I don't think he wasn't planning on meeting Dijon, and I didn't know anything about Suzuki Rishi, really, but you meet somebody, at some point in time. And part of what makes that meeting work... I mean, obviously, if you're on a pilgrimage, you're kind of doing it because you're looking for something. But somewhere along the line, you stop looking, and something new happens.

[27:11]

Some kind of awakening happens. And... I used to play with that when I was traveling around my VW van because I continued on. My main goal was to see all the most beautiful parts of all the western national parks. So, you know, go to the High Sierras, go up into the Oregon Cascade, and I'd drive into the park service and I'd say, what's the most beautiful place right now with not too many mosquitoes and the most beautiful flowers? And I'd go to the most. It takes a lot of work to do that. So finally, I think I was up in the Oregon Cascades. No, I was up in the Canadian Rockies. and all those glaciers up there, and I was just tired of it all. And I got up in the morning, I sat on a rock, and I said, I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm not going to find the most beautiful place at all. I'm not going to move from this rock if I'm not moved to do it all day long. I don't know where I'm going to go today. And that led to one of the most beautiful days climbing around on glaciers that I ever spent in the Canadian Rockies.

[28:18]

I'm a big fan of... I don't know when you're on pilgrimage. But let's get back to our story here. Well, first of all, we've been hanging around I don't know a lot. But what about knowing? Does that mean knowing's bad? I don't think so. And we get a hint from case 19 this very famous case called Ordinary Mind is the Way. And Zhao Zhou asked his teacher, Nan Quan, what is the way? And Nan Quan said, ordinary mind is the way. That sounds good. Zhao Zhou said, should I try to direct myself toward it? And Nan Quan said, if you try to direct yourself, you'll betray your own practice. And Zhao Zhou says, well, how can I know the way? How can I know the way if I don't direct myself? And this is one of the famous stories out of... Nanshwan said, the way is not subject to knowing or not knowing.

[29:21]

Knowing is delusion, not knowing is blankness, or we'd say not knowing is stupidity. If you truly reach the genuine way, you will find it is as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation? So we know this not knowing that we're talking about here is not a matter of ordinary not knowing versus knowing. The kind of not knowing like, wow, I don't know about that. He knows about that. Maybe if I went and studied under him a lot, he's running this class on, well, let's take mathematics. If you wanted to learn mathematics, you'd go to teachers teaching mathematics. You'd learn mathematics. And after a while, you could be a teacher of mathematics. You'd know something about mathematics that... That's how it's done. That would make sense. Similarly, you could say, well, I'm going to learn about this Zen, so I'm going to go study from somebody who knows about this Zen, and then I'll be able to teach a Zen class or something.

[30:23]

But that's not the kind of knowing we're talking about. This is not assembling a bunch of information or a particular skill set. This not knowing that we're talking about is a mind beyond knowing and not knowing. A place, a something. We don't even know how to talk about it There's another in the commentary to this case that we're talking about. Oh, where is that? I wrote that down somewhere. Oh. I think it's something like... Oh, here it is. Now when people hear it said that not knowing is nearest or most intimate, and that is where Fan was enlightened, they immediately go over to just not knowing, not understanding just this is it. They hardly realize that a phrase of the ancient covers everything. If not knowing is most intimate, then what about the famous saying, one word of knowing is the gate of myriad wonders.

[31:31]

One word of knowing is the gate of myriad wonders. So this is the secret, knowing. And they say, just affirm totally when affirming. but don't settle down in affirming. Deny totally when denying, but don't settle down in denial. Are we just totally confused now? No. We're happily in the realm beyond knowing and not knowing. So this raises the... the sort of fundamental dilemma in Zen. What is a Zen mind? What is a not knowing mind? What is a beginner's mind? It's clearly a mind that's open to the present moment, but then can act. And when it acts, it acts. When it's acting affirmatively, it acts affirmatively. But it doesn't get stuck there.

[32:33]

When it denies, it denies. but it doesn't get stuck there. So an open, ready, flexible mind, not believing all the stories in our head about what's going on, but actually admitting really that we don't know what's going on here in this moment, the important things about what's going on. I mean, we know many things. I'm sure we all know many things. We're very smart. But do we know how to love another person? Do we know how to actually be with another person in a real way? Where they move, where the different, that kind of sense of intimacy with another person, do we know how to do that? That level of knowing, not knowing.

[33:37]

Do we know anything about what's going on fundamentally here? I mean, let's face it, this is too surreal to even imagine you couldn't write a science fiction story about some planet with people running around building buildings like this and cars going. This is just like... But this is actually going on. And we're part of it. standing in the midst of this mystery, or sitting in the midst of this mystery, we're confronted with the question, what do we do? And we can't completely rely on all we know, and we can't forget about all we know, And we have to act.

[34:38]

We have to do something. This is... There's a famous essay by Dogen called the Genjo Koan. This is the koan of life. Every moment, what is... It's a koan because it's a question. Because you don't know. What do you do in this moment? One sentence from the Genjo Koan is beautiful. To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That is to take yourself forward and say and will yourself. I'm going to do this. I'm going to fix this. I'm going to make this happen. I'm going to get happier. I'm going to get more stuff for myself. I'm going to fix the world. To carry yourself forward. and illuminate myriad things as delusion. That myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening.

[35:46]

That myriad things come forward and illuminate the self is awakening. This is kind of actually, it's a beautiful sentence and much is written about it. I'm not going to say too much about it except for... It's a kind of back-and-forth thing. Of course, we're always moving ourself forward, creating something, illuminating the world. And that's delusion. That's what it means to live as a person in the world. But that at other times, we're all of a sudden not there ourselves. And the world manifests itself through us. And that's called awakening. And in our life we wander between delusion and awakening. It's the wonderful thing about being a human being.

[36:50]

Probably we'd like to be a little bit more in the awakening side. But as Zikrish said, you establish your practice in the midst of delusion. So... Actually, I have two lectures here. I don't know how I produce this. Well, I think I'm going to... The commentary to this case has some fun elements that it ends with. So I'm going to do that and then do a little quote from Suzuki Roshi. So this is a story about the parts of the face.

[37:54]

The mouth asked the nose, eating is up to me, what good are you? This is actually in the case in the book of Serenity. You think I'm taking this from a comic book, but I'm not. The mouth asked the nose, eating is up to me, what good are you that you are above me? The nose said, among the five mountains, the central one occupies the honored position. Among the five mountains. the central one occupies the honor position, knows, then asks eyes, why are you above me? And the eyes said, we are like the sun and the moon. Truly we have accomplishment of illumination and reflection. We dare ask eyebrows, what virtue do they have to be above us? And the eyebrows said, we really have no merit. We are ashamed to be in the higher position. If you let us be below, let the eyes look from above.

[38:58]

There's a lot of stories about eyebrows in Zen. You know, Bodhi Dharma's eyebrows are always... Another master commenting on this commentary said, in the eyes it's called seeing, in the ears it's called hearing. But what is it called in the eyebrows? Then after a long silence he said, in sorrow we grieve together, in happiness we rejoice together. In sorrow we grieve together, in happiness we rejoice together. Everyone knows the useful function, but they don't know the useless, great function. Very beautiful. Of course when sorrow comes, we grieve. But what makes our grieving work is we grieve together. Intimately. This intimacy makes our sorrow poignant and beautiful.

[40:07]

And when happiness comes, we rejoice. And we rejoice together. talk about zazen as our most useless activity. It's a famous saying about zazen. We're not doing anything. In that sense, it is our chance to be intimate with ourselves and with everybody we sit with and to be the nearest to who we actually are. Sikurishi calls this, I don't know zazen. we don't know what zazen is. He used to say when someone had come up to him and said, Siddhartha, I've mastered it. I can now count for the entire 40 minutes without losing count on my zazen.

[41:09]

Siddhartha said, don't ever think you know what zazen is. So we don't know what zazen is anymore. I don't know who I am. To find complete composure when you don't know who you are or where you are, that is to accept things as it is. Even though you don't know who you are, you accept yourself. That is you in its true sense. When you know who you are, that you will not be the real you. You may overestimate yourself quite easily, but when you say, oh, I don't know, then you are you and you know yourself completely. That is enlightenment. Well, thank you very much for coming out this evening. Maybe it was, what did we have for dinner tonight?

[42:10]

Maybe that's what it was. you very much. 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 please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:46]

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