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, everyone. How is the mic? It's okay? And welcome to the Beginner's Mind Temple. Welcome to those online Thank you for joining us. My name is Lucy Xiao, and we are in our last day of the Five Days of Shin, which is also a one-day sit, which also concludes our spring practice period. And so this is an auspicious day. So to just recap a little bit of what we've been studying in this practice period, the theme is Nothing Lacking, Continuous Practice.

[01:21]

Buddha Nature, is inherent in all of us. And we still practice. Our practice is an expression of our Buddha nature, our true self. And so we studied the poems of Master Shen Xiu and Master the six Zen ancestors in China. And they proposed two angles to practice. One is about making continuous effort to keep cleaning the mirror so that it stays bright. And the other approach of the six ancestors, he says, well, it's already clear.

[02:39]

Where can dust alight? Everything is empty of a self, solid self. Where can dust land in emptiness? And so, The two schools had a lot of debate. And they both had a lot of influence in practice in Zen. And, you know, one school's enlightenment is immediate. It's called the sudden enlightenment. And the other school is... called the gradual practice. And I think pretty soon the Zen practitioners figure out they needed both.

[03:44]

The inside awakening is immediate. It's just like that, but it takes continuous practice. It takes lifelong practice to allow that true nature to be expressed throughout our own life, through our causes and conditions. many of the later Zen masters gave a lot of teachings on the interplays, the integration of the absolute and the relative, the interplay of awakening and our everyday life.

[04:54]

And one of those Zen teachers is Master Dongshan, Dongshan, Dongshan Liang Jie, or Tosan Yuokai, the founder of Soto Zen, Cao Dongzong, in China. And he gave teachings on what's called Wu Wei Junchen, the five positions of ruler, and minister or absolute and the relative the five ways uh okay oftentimes you would hear translations of five ranks and the rank is uh to me is a bit of it's it's not precise it's not just like a rank it's not hierarchical it's also not a thing

[06:02]

It's an interplay, the interplay of the absolute and the relative. It describes this dynamic relationship between awakening experience and our life, the absolute and the phenomena. And so many of you probably have heard or have read Master Dongshan's stories and koans. He was, if you count from the sixth ancestor, he was like five generations after that. And he lived in the 800s. 807 to 869.

[07:03]

And I had the pleasure of going to visit his monastery just this past spring, April, in April, before I came back here to do the practice period. So his place is in Jiangxi province. It's kind of in southern China, but not as south as my hometown, Guangzhou, where the six ancestors used to live. So this is one to province north of Canton. So even just maybe 10, 15 years ago, it may take a whole day to travel to get there.

[08:11]

You get a train, take a bus, take a cab or something. And now because there's the high-speed rail, it just took me three hours to get to the nearby city and got the car and drove on the freeway for a couple hours into the mountain, and there we are. And like many monasteries and temples in China, when you go to the place, maybe it's just the spot where the old temple used to be. in Tang Dynasty in the 7th century or 8th century, while in Master Dongshan's case, in the 800s, he used to live and teach there.

[09:16]

And the buildings have been rebuilt many times, of course, throughout centuries because of natural disasters, because of wars, because of persecution. So when you go to a lot of these old temples, there would be a place where it says the temple was rebuilt in Song Dynasty in such a year, and then rebuilt again in Ming Dynasty. And the latest was built, in Dongshan's case, around 2010. So I'm imagining a hundred years or five hundred years from now when people go to Tassahara.

[10:17]

we probably have such a plague as that the Zendo was rebuilt in 1978 and now I don't know which would be the next one when will be the next one rebuilt so it will be rebuilt as long as we want to practice and Anyway, so I get to the temple, and all the buildings are beautiful and kind of new. However, if you go up the hill behind the Zendo, there is a hill that goes up, like Suzuki Roshi Memorial Trail. You go up, and then there is...

[11:18]

Master Dongshan's stupa, and that's still from Tang Dynasty. It's still there, and it's very old. But they built a new structure to protect it, like a little pagoda. And if you walk out of the monastery, walk out of the front gate, across from the big open space, there is a tea plantation. And the monks and lay people, they plant tea there, they grow tea there. And when I got there, they had just harvested the spring crop just a few days before. And you go through the tea plantation, And then there's a trail that takes you to the east side, and then you keep walking, and then you see a creek.

[12:27]

You go along the creek, and then you see a little bridge. The bridge is called Meat. it bridge, or meeting it. Meet it bridge. It. This is it. Meet it bridge. And the bridge was built after Master Dongshan passed away. That's the spot where he had his big awakening. Remember the story? Those of you who had read his story, after he left his teacher, Yun Yan, he came to this area as he walked over the creek.

[13:43]

He saw his own shadow or reflection. And he was awakened, or he had an experience. And he wrote a poem. Well, back up a little bit. When he was with his teacher, Yunyan, they had many discussions and he had insights, and then when it was time for him to leave, he asked the teacher, teacher, a hundred years later, wow, this is Chinese, 百年以后, a Chinese expression of, like, after you have passed away.

[14:47]

After you passed away, if people ask me what you look like, what your reality is, what you really, really, who you really are. And Master Yun Yan said, just this, well, often translation says, just this is it. So the Chinese says, just this is. Because the Chinese language, you don't actually have to have an object after is. But in English, you have to have is what, you know?

[15:54]

So just this is. This is his teacher's teaching. And at that time, he didn't quite get it. And he pondered. He left with this question, what does it mean, just this is? Well, this is a person who started to ask questions when he was six or seven years old. When he heard his master, he became a young monk when he was very little. reciting this Heart Sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. He said, Master, but I have eyes, I have ears. What does it mean? And the Master said, oh, I can't teach you.

[16:57]

Send him to someone else. So he left Master Yunyan. At this point, he was, I think, in his 20s. And so according to a lot of the koan books or the records of transmission of land, there is just one paragraph. He left the master with the question. And next line is, and then he passed a creek and saw his reflection. And he was awakened. So if you look further, at least in a lot of the Chinese historical records, you can figure out between that point and his passing the creek, that point, it was 18 years.

[18:09]

18 years. And also, Master Yunyan lived in Hunan, and where he had that experience was in Jiangxi. It's a different, there are different provinces, and there are 800 kilos distance. And so, so after he left his teacher, He actually traveled around and practiced in different temples and visited different teachers and continued his own work, his own practice for years. Eighteen years. And during this These 18 years, there were four years period was the Huichang persecution of Buddhism.

[19:15]

And because during this period, this four years, there was an emperor who didn't like Buddhism. And because also the Buddhist temples and monasteries became more and more powerful and, you know, economically and also, you know, attract. attracted lots of young people also. So they destroyed a lot of temples and sent all the monks and nuns home. And so Master Dongshan actually had to leave temples and monasteries and he had to disrobe for four years until the next emperor came along. The next emperor happened to be a Buddhist. In fact, during the previous years, he actually had to be hiding from the previous temple and, you know, a previous emperor.

[20:26]

And then he became, actually he became a monk, this emperor. And then when it's his time to come back to the court, he rebuilt the temples. So throughout history in China, there were these times. And Master Dongshan lived through this time. And he continued. And when he got to Jiangxi, Dongshan, the mountain, Mount Dong. Dong means cave, the cave mountain. All the causes and conditions had ripened and he had a awakening experience. And he wrote a poem or a verse to describe his experience then. And he said, do not seek

[21:30]

Do not seek it from elsewhere, or you'll be further away from yourself. Now I go on alone. Everywhere I turn, I meet it. It. Our true nature. So the bridge is called Meet It Bridge. The bridge the bridge where he entered, or he encountered, is true nature. I'm not going to talk too much about this poem, his Enlightenment poem, and I think most of you who have studied his koans have already heard of this poem.

[22:40]

I would like to bring up another poem of his, which I recited two nights ago in the Zendo during our night sit. So he wrote a series of poems in his teaching of the five positions, the five positions of interplay of the absolute and the relative. And the first position is called the apparent within the real, The second position is the real within the apparent. So the apparent means phenomena, what appears to be, what seems to be, and the real is the real, the real, the real thing.

[23:59]

And so it describes that when one sees the true nature, one experiences awakening. It reveals the empty and undivided nature of all things. And then the second position is the real within the appearance. It describes that the practitioner returns to your everyday life and to see the awakening through living your life. And so if you think about Master Dongshan's life, he experienced many, many insights in his practice, in his early practice life.

[25:18]

And he still continued, continued for many years. And not until after he... had the experience of seeing his reflection in the water and experience awakening. Not until then, he was traveling, looking for it, seeking for it. But after that experience, he stayed in that area and started to teach and started to have gatherings of students and monks, and there he established the Dongshan, the monastery of Dongshans. And so as he was describing this experience that a practitioner may go through, he wrote this poem that, well,

[26:33]

There are more poems before, but this one is about the second position, the real within, the appearance. For whom have you washed away your painted face? The cuckoo calls, come home, come home. Though all the blossoms have fallen, Its song continues without end, echoing ever deeper into the wild mountain peaks. In Chinese, For whom have you washed away your painted face?

[27:37]

I mean, the Chinese word is nong zhuang. Actually, literally, heavy makeup. We wear heavy makeup in our life. All our conditionings. Our identities. All the things we hold on to. All the things that... we think will be good for us. We'll look good with those things. So as we practice, we wash away layers and layers of these conditionings. For whom do we wash these heavy makeups? Do we practice to get better, or look better, even better?

[28:47]

Or do we practice for what? The cuckoo calls, come home, come home. Zi gui sheng li chuan ren gui. Zi gui, a kind of bird, also called du juan, du juan niao. I think the closest translation is Kuku in English. And in Chinese culture and literature, it has association with the late spring, late spring, and it has association with longing and calling to return home, call for home, because The bird's sound, while the Chinese think it sounds like better go home.

[29:52]

There's nothing better than return home. So when travelers, when people hear this bird's call in late spring, they'll miss home. And that's kind of the sentiment. The cuckoos are calling, go home. Go home. Or come home, come home. come home to where we truly belong. Though all the flowers, literally 100 flowers, have fallen.

[30:59]

Well, 100 flowers also means many, many things. All the phenomena, everything in our life, the manifold phenomena of the world. Everything passes like blossoms fall. Yet the call continues. the invitation to awakening, the invitation to go home, to return home, does not stop, does not depend on conditions, external conditions.

[32:04]

So even after the flowers fade, The spring is over. The call remains. Echoing ever deeper into the wild mountain peaks. Wild mountain peaks. The complexity of our life. The bird turns toward the mountain peaks. The bird flies deeper and deeper into the mountains and calls toward the wild mountain peaks. Come home, come home.

[33:08]

As we practice more, as we continue to practice, we peel off deep layers and eight layers of our conditioning. And we see more and more. We see all the wild mountain peaks. in our life. We just keep going. And perhaps, perhaps you continue your hike and climb, and then you come to the mountain top. and you'll see the whole world around you.

[34:19]

In Tassajara, my favorite short hike is the Overlook Trail. How many people like that? You can go up and come down in, I don't know, 30 minutes. It takes me longer because when I go up to the top, I stay there and look around. And it's so spacious from up there. You can see 360 degrees, all the mountains around you. And I often, when I get there, I often feel that the mountains, the mountains, the green mountains across from this rich, they just look like the bodies of Avalokitesvara reclining. No matter how deep, how wild the places are,

[35:46]

the call continues, the invitation continues. So in Sishin we do a lot of sitting and bowing this time. Maybe your mind becomes more subtle than usual, and you get to see many, many layers of your thoughts and emotions, your habits. Maybe you get to a point where All of that falls away and then you feel this connectedness with all.

[36:53]

Maybe you get a glimpse of what emptiness means. And that's wonderful. And how does that encourage you to continue your life and your practice? from the place of seeing, perhaps getting a glimpse of the Absolute or the no-self, to seeing all your life's activity, all your habits and thoughts.

[38:16]

emotions, activities, you see all of those in the light of awakening. Awakening doesn't mean that you just stay calm all the time, not thinking, You know, maybe in Sashin, if you experience those moments, you may think, oh, I get it. I got it. And then you walk out of the building. As soon as someone bump into you, you get angry. You get pissed off. Or you go home and talk to your partner or your children or your parents.

[39:20]

you go right back to your habit. But that's okay, because having this experience of seeing how things are, how things really are, can help you to enter life with the understanding that all that happens in life can be held in awareness. So for whom have you washed away your painted face? The cuckoo calls, come home. Come home.

[40:21]

Though all the blossoms have fallen, its song continues without end, echoing ever deeper into the wild mountain peaks. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:05]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.42