I think I'm unmuted. Can you hear me? Great. Good. Welcome. Welcome back. Yes, I can hear you. What's that? Just I can hear you. Oh, you can hear me. Thank you. Thank you. So why don't we just sit for a couple of minutes together? I don't have my bell. So we'll just maybe imagine a bell. And then I have some things to share. So welcome. It's a really nice sound right now.

[03:02]

We've had all this rain. I think those of you here in California have got quite a bit of rain, too. So it's been wonderful. We had big rain yesterday. So the creek, which is right outside my door here, is making a big sound. And for a while, it was just kind of sluggish running by. You know, this kind of typical drought season we've been enduring for such a long time. But right now, there is lots of water. And it's really, truly wonderful sound. We've got a little break today, and I think it's going to start raining again tomorrow. So it feels wonderful. Great blessing. So I'm at Tassajara, and it is an amazing place. We've just gone through this long period of great golden fall, all these big sycamore trees that are surrounding the creek. on all sides and maple trees just turned these vibrant bright orange and the sunlight would come through them and we were all kind of going like this is a little too much it's just like every day there was a stunning walk from our meditation back to where each of us is staying so that's went on for a long time and finally some of the leaves have now turned brown and are beginning to fall so we're getting more of a wintry look

[04:28]

So it's been a wonderful transition through this prolonged fall here. About 30 of us here, which is a relatively small practice period. Tassajara has had up to 80 or something, or maybe even 90 at some times. They would pack them all in in various ways. So 30 is small, but it's really sweet. It's very intimate. I feel like all of us have had a chance to spend time together. and to get to know each other. One of the things that we've been doing is sharing what's called way-seeking mind talks. So I don't know if I mentioned these to you already, but usually during a practice period, there's a head student who's called the Shuso. And because we don't have anyone who's at that stage of their practice right now, and Zen Center sort of running out of Shusos, partly because our population is fairly small, but also it takes a while. It takes a number of years before the elders of the community feel like a student is actually ready to sit in that seat and to begin to lecture and begin to meet with people.

[05:36]

So we don't want to just put people there ahead of being ready or kind of ripe. So we're being very careful to make sure that it's a good time. The timing's good. So as a result, This practice period, there hasn't been a Shuso. In the next practice period, there won't be a Shuso. And we thought about, well, how can we fill in the functions that Shuso provides? And the Shuso wakes, you know, rings the wake-up bell every morning. That's one of their jobs. And they also give a way-seeking mind talk, which is basically telling everyone how they came to practice. You know, what way? How did you get here? What brought you to practice? So because we didn't have issues, so I thought, why don't we all give away Seeking Mind Talk? So we've just finished those, and it was absolutely extraordinary. So every person, I did one too, we each had 20 minutes. So in the evenings of our days off, there would be three people each evening, and they would get 20 minutes to say whatever they liked about themselves, their childhood, and everything.

[06:44]

Maybe things that inspired them or things that were horrifying. Some of the stories were truly horrifying. What people have endured as children. And then how they managed to find their way to Tassajara or to Zen practice. And for, I think, every one of them, the gratitude was really clear. That this somehow had been such an important thing to have done in their lives. And, yeah, so that's been lovely. And so we're about three weeks away from the end. And another week from now, we'll have our last seshin, rohatsu seshin, which I've been preparing for. I'll be giving my last set of talks for the rohatsu seshin. And then at the end of that, instead of the shiso ceremony, which is another feature of a practice period where the shiso sits up in front of the congregation. I don't know how many of you have actually been to a practice period. But I hope you can someday, because it's quite extraordinary, the level of intimacy and the opportunity to certainly spend a lot of time in meditation, but also to spend time in Sangha, you know, this close-knit relationship.

[07:56]

So the Shuso would go up in front of the congregation, and each person would ask them a question, which they would then answer. And they're really short questions. It's not like some big essay. You just ask them, like, what is Buddha? And then the Shuso has a stick, and they would... They answer. And then the next question, next question. It's always a wonderful ceremony. So because we don't have issues, so I'm going to be doing that role. I'll be sitting up in a chair and each student will come forward and ask a question that I will have this privilege of being able to do my best to answer. So that'll be our last day of session. And then we pack up and we go. We go back wherever we came from. So I'll be going back to Green Gulch and then traveling, as I've mentioned, with my partner, with Karina. We're going to go to her hometown, which is, to my great fortune, is London. So I'll be in London or in England for Christmas, which seems like a very special thing to do. So anyway, I wanted to say a little bit more about Tassajara time, and then I'm going to talk about Ru Jing, as I promised.

[09:09]

Dogen's teacher is the next chapter of the Transmission of Light. So the one thing about Tassahara, living at Tassahara, that is really striking to me, again, because this was true when I was here before, 30 years ago or so, 35 years ago. And that is the whole question of time. You know, a lot of us reflect on time down here quite a bit. Like, do you get a feeling that time is just really a different event? Down here, like, you know, the days are very, very long. We get up really early and we go to bed somewhat late. And so and there's so many things that happen during the day. And by the time we're having breakfast, you know, you know, we've been up for four hours or something. So there's a really dense weave throughout the day. So the days seem extremely long. And then the months kind of seem to be going rather quickly. So it's kind of a funny shift from. from maybe what I think of as a normal sense of time. And certainly things like minutes and hours and calendar dates are totally irrelevant.

[10:14]

You know, I don't have a watch. I don't have a calendar that would make any sense. I hardly know what day of the week it is. I happen to know it's Sunday today because I'm talking to you, but I had to look, you know, because days of the week are not things that we consider. We just know whether it's a day, a work day or a personal day. Or a regular day. Those are the kinds of days we have. And so it's really been interesting. And also to revisit what is a much more reliable sense of time, which is the seasons, the shift of the seasons, the shift of the sunlight hitting the valley. Little by little, the sun has been receding from the valley. The spot where we used to stand for work circle in the morning that was quite toasty is now in shadow. at the same time of day. So just this movement of the sun and the arrival of the moon, the moon just reappeared. We've had this excitement of the full moon is coming. So soon we'll have the full moon ceremony.

[11:14]

So watching the cycles of the moon and the rain clouds coming and going. And then this temperature, which is dropping, you know, every day is a little, goes a little bit further down. So those are the, that's the time sense. we have and then also in terms of uh getting you know knowing where to go there's a soundscape so i don't like i said i don't have a watch i don't need a watch i just listen to the sound so there are bells there's a wake-up bell in the morning there's a han a wooden han to signal it's time to get to the zendo and it depending on how many hits you know how long you have to get there and then there's a signal for going to the dining room for study and for ending study and so on. So all of these sounds, which are really old, I mean, these sounds were not different in Dogen's time than they are now. These are sounds from Chinese monasteries, from Japanese monasteries. You know, these are the sounds of Zen practice. So these are kind of some of the things that make it feel like somewhat like a different world.

[12:19]

You know, like it's not quite the same world. In fact, we often talk about, you know, the other out there, the other world where most of you probably are living right now, where I usually live. Even though I'm at Green Gulch, it's still pretty much the other world compared to Tassajara. So anyway, I am very grateful to be back here in this monastic environment, this monastic schedule. And I said to Norman Fisher recently in an email, I said, you know, this really is the perfect life if you can stand it. And he laughed and we both agreed if you can stand it, which, you know, I really don't think I can. I think I did for quite a while, you know, for three years I was here and it's wonderful to be here now, but it's just fine with me that we're about to the end of it. that I had a chance to revisit the monastic life and how wonderful it is and how valuable it was for me at a certain period of my life, as it is for these people who are here now, which is why I'm here now.

[13:22]

I really appreciate being able to support them and encourage them in doing this very hard thing. So I'm looking forward to returning to Gringolch in February after Corinna and I have taken our month-long holiday. stone villages outside of london which is very exciting gives me kind of an excitement to think about and i'm also looking forward to retiring from zen center um as a you know as a position having positions at zen center which i've had for 45 years and moving to a place called enso village which some of you have heard about and um you know this is a that Zen centers helped to create out of nothing and a piece of land. And now it's a bunch of buildings where a number of us are going to live with an awful lot of other people and where we'll be spending probably till the end of our lives. We'll be there together and kind of forming a new community of people who are interested.

[14:23]

It's called Zen inspired senior living. So I will be living in a Zen inspired senior living center. And it's very nice. It's new. So I'll be new. It's not quite done being built, but in two years from now, I'll be living there. So this word, Enso, I think is a really significant name, calling it Enso Village. And I don't know if you all know, but that's the circle that a Zen teacher will draw with one stroke. You take a brush and you go like that. And you don't quite close it. Most of the Enso's are left open. It's just a little bit of the brush stroke at the very end. And then it's, it doesn't make a complete circle. It's kind of like that. And, you know, it represents a lot of Japanese aesthetics, which of course Zen is a big, big feature of Japanese aesthetic was the arrival of Zen from China and the sense of kind of sensibility that the ENSO represents. So there's this kind of naturalness and simplicity, you know, there's a gracefulness and there's a kind of freedom.

[15:25]

You know, every time you do it, it's a little different. You know, you're not trying to make the circle the same. And there's a feeling of tranquility. It's a very simple, it's a very simple form, you know, that's done. So I'm really hoping that when we all get to Enzo Village, that some of these values will also permeate our life together with these new people who we're going to get to know. And it'll also help us to remember why we came to practice in the first place, you know, our way-seeking mind. what brought us here? What brought us here? And what created the opportunity to remain and to stay in practice, which doesn't mean living in a Zen center. As for all of you, what keeps you interested in practice? What's drawing you? What's your way seeking mind? What is it that calls you? So this is the last time I'll be able to, I'm going to be online. The next time will be February 5th. when I return from traveling.

[16:26]

And as I said, I'm going to complete, as I promised, this chapter on Ru Jing, which is chapter number something or another, 51, Transmission of Light. And it's very important, this Ru Jing, who's kind of a, I don't know if you read the chapter yourselves, but I was like, whoa, he was really into it. You know, he's kind of an exemplar of Zen in a way that certainly, Not too many people I know practice the way that Ru Jing did. Anyway, he is the teacher of our founding Japanese Zen ancestor, Dogen Zenji. Dogen found Ru Jing in China in the 13th century, and he was completely taken with this Zen teacher. Now I'm hearing the bell signaling service this evening. as I just said to you, and I was just thinking, oh, yeah, the soundscapes for Ru Jing and for Dogen were no different. You know, this bell that they're hitting comes from Japan. So, you know, it's kind of a wonderful thing to imagine hearing the same sounds with these ears that Dogen heard and that Ru Jing heard way back then, you know, 700, 800 years ago.

[17:39]

So Ru Jing, for some reason, had this feeling that he had a debt. He had to requite some deep debt. And one of the things I'll be talking about in this upcoming Sashin is this idea of confession and repentance, that even though we don't really know exactly what we did, I think we all suspect we did something. You know, we chant at the beginning of service every morning, all my ancient twisted karma, all my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. I mean, I acknowledge I did something. I'm pretty sure because I feel it. You know, I feel it. Some things I can remember that I did that I'm not very proud of, you know, and they're pretty common, like lying and taking things and, you know, whatever, misusing sexuality, intoxicating. I mean, these are all the primary ways that we humans, you know, kind of stray off into the weeds, you know, kind of get distracted and lost.

[18:45]

confused and so on. So anyway, Ru Jing had this feeling he'd done something really bad because his whole story is about requiting or repaying his debt of something that he may have done. So he seems to have had this serious backlog of karmic debt that he owed. So in his exchange with his teacher, Jir Jian, which is at the beginning of the chapter, he's asked a question in response to his request, So Ru Jing asks if he can be in charge of cleaning the toilets. He's a brand new monk. He wants the job of cleaning the toilets. Well, right there. That's pretty strange. Right off the bat. And the teacher says to him, well, how can you purify that which has never been defiled? Now, this is going back to this great question of our Buddha nature. If we're already Buddha, what is it you have to do to make that true? You don't have to do anything. Well, then why are people practicing? Why do we practice? Why do we make this great effort? This is Dogen's question that drove him to China in the first place.

[19:47]

This is why he found Ru Jing. So Ru Jing is holding this very same question. They have this common ground. If things are already pure, then why are we going to all this effort? And so he didn't see that the toilets were clean. He didn't see that at all. None of us see that at all. They look pretty dirty to us. So the toilets are really a metaphor for the human mind. It's already clean. It's already pure. What could you possibly wipe off? This goes back to the sixth ancestor. There's the mirror. If you keep wiping the dust off the mirror, you say, there's no mirror. Where's the dust going to land? There's no mirror mind. What are you dreaming? So defilements are dreams. These are our fantasies. There's something wrong. There's something wrong with us. There's something wrong with the world. This is how we dream, and this is the cause of our suffering, these kinds of dreams that we have. So Ru Jing is dreaming about cleaning the toilets, and his teacher won't let him do it. He said, you can't do it until you explain to me how you're going to clean something that's already pure.

[20:50]

So it takes a long time before Ru Jing can answer the teacher. And that's just what this chapter is all about. So as I said, this question isn't different than the one that plagued Dogen and his... Early years, he's a monk. You know, if we're already Buddha, why do we go to all this trouble? Why have the ancestors gone to all this trouble? Why did Buddha go to all that trouble? You know, six years of asceticism and six years of sitting meditation and all of that. You know, why are we going to all that trouble? You know, all of us here, what's with us? You know, why can't we just go, okay, I get it. I'm Buddha. Let's just go on about our lives. You know, there's something driving us, some unrequited love, you know, something we don't feel. or we don't see. So he kept going back, Rujing kept going back into harder and harder practice. So this is the kind of guy he was. So, you know, this idea that something isn't pure, that sometimes this toilet really is just a toilet. You know, it's not pure or impure.

[21:52]

It's just a toilet. And then somebody should clean it. That's no big deal. But as a metaphor, it's... something that maybe is more striking inside of ourselves. So in an all-inclusive reality, you know, if reality is all-inclusive, the universe, universe, uni, one, turning, everything's included, you know, then toilets and flowers and dogs and bananas, slugs and bananas and all of that are what make the universe whole. You know, all the parts are what make the universe whole. And if it were possible to take any one of those parts away, then something very precious would be missing, like toilets or bananas. You know, we can't take anything away. We have to work with what's there. And because it's there, we're there. You know, reality is inviolable. It's here. And so we work with what's here. Without judging, without saying, that's pure, that's not pure. I don't like that. I like that. It's the humans that are going around deciding which of the things that are here are worthy of our attention, are worthy of our protection, and which are not.

[22:58]

So it's us. We're the ones with the ancient twisted karma that's creating so much havoc, as we know. So when Ru Jing was 19, he quit his academic studies of Buddhism. He must have been a pretty bright guy. Most of these guys were pretty bright. They had a kind of natural intelligence. And he joined the Zen community of Jirjian. And he spent all of his waking hours in the meditation hall, much more than any of the other monks. He's a pretty serious guy. And it was during this first year that he asked about permission to clean the toilets. And his teacher said, unless you can tell me how you will clean what is not dirty, I will not let you be in charge of cleaning them. But talking about strict, I'm not going to let you clean the toilets unless you can tell me what it is about them that you think is dirty. Why do you think so? This is really interesting. So then another year passes and Ryu Jing still can't answer his teacher's challenging question. And so then Ryu Jing says to him, if you could just get out of your old nest of views, then you could find a way.

[24:03]

This old nest of views is a phrase that is used quite often. The nest of views is the way you believe things are. You know, we all have our nest of views, our opinions, our habits of mind, our stories that we've convinced ourselves are true about ourselves, about other people, about politics, about you name it. We've got a food that we like and don't like. So those are our nests of views. You know, we kind of hang out in there. That's our little we hang out in our nest of views. You know, we peek out at the world and we don't like it when people challenge it. So the teacher says to him, if you could get out of your nest of views, then you can find a way to answer me. And then he says to him, why can't you say? And Ru Jing, his response to that is to work even harder at his meditation. So he goes back to the meditation hall. So he's just sitting all the time. He's sitting, sitting, sitting, trying to come through, break through his nest of views. And then one day, Ru Jing is suddenly enlightened. They don't tell us how. I mean, they never tell us how. Just suddenly he's enlightened.

[25:04]

And he says to Zhejiang, now I can say it. And Zhu Jian says, okay, this time, say it. And Ru Jing says, I've hit upon that which is undefiled. I've hit upon that which is undefiled. He found it. He hit the spot. He found the spot. But before he can finish speaking, here again is that old whisk in the face. Before he can finish speaking, Zhu Jian gives him a whack. He hits him. He doesn't let him finish. With that, Ru Jing breaks out in a sweat. But that's always the sign that actually something really major has happened. Because going from kind of confidence, I got it. I know the answer. And then your teacher gives you a whack. And all of a sudden, you're just pouring sweat off your body. It's like something has been stopped. You know, like your confidence that this is enlightenment is like, stop it. Stop it right now. You're going too far. So his teacher hits him. Ru Jing breaks out in a sweat.

[26:05]

And then he bows. And then Zhejiang approves him. At that point, when his humility has returned. By this great, grand accomplishment is not the way. It's by our humility is the way. That humbling ourselves in the face of the amazement. of this world, of this universe. We should be on our knees. We are on our knees. We do. We get on our knees around here all the time and really show our gratitude for being alive and for being in this world where the water is coming from the sky and the leaves are gold and all of that. Really? Just for us? I have a wonderful Jisha, a young woman. Jisha is a person who carries incense for me, so she's always... kind of coming right behind me and handing me sticks of incense in the morning. We do that every morning together. And we've been trying to figure out the cycles of the moon just by looking. Like the old days, we don't have a moon chart.

[27:08]

So we're kind of going like, well, yesterday it was there and we think it's going to be there this morning, but then it's not. And we're like, wait a minute, what happened? So we've been having this kind of enjoyment in the mornings about the moon. And then it showed up in a really strange place one morning. And I said, I don't know why we can't figure this out. And she said, maybe we just don't deserve the moon. And I thought, oh, God, I think that's right. We don't deserve it. We can't even figure out something like how the moon works, you know. So anyway, that was kind of fun. All right. So now Ru Jing has become defiled. I mean, no, not defiled. He's become enlightened. So after that, after he's awakened, then he becomes a toilet cleaner. At another monastery. And he's so happy. Finally he gets the job that he really wants. Cleaning all these toilets. And requiting. He's still into requiting. At this time he's requiting the circumstances. Of his awakening.

[28:08]

He's so grateful. Under Jurong. That he wants to pay back. By doing this task. That before he was requiting some fantasy. He had about his awful. Karmic. Twisted karma. But now he wants to requite his gratitude. for his realization. So what I understand about this exchange is that realizing the emptiness of one thing, of one thing, like the toilet, you realize that toilets are empty of inherent existence. They're just dependently co-arisen. You know, we invented them someplace that rather than pooping all over the ground, we have this place where we can go and then we can... You know, we get to flush it down or we get to take it out in the fields or we get to do whatever we do with it. But it was something that we came up with. It's empty of inherent existence. We've made them. They are created out of many things, many different materials and out of a need that we had and so on, out of the fact that we poop. So all of that is dependent co-arising of toilets. When you understand that there's not a toilet, there's a dependently co-arisen.

[29:11]

Everything is dependently co-arisen. then you can apply that to everything. So what happens here is Ru Jing has this realization about the toilet, which then applies to everything. That's his big breaking out in a sweat. It's like everything is like that. Everything is dependently co-arisen, and him too. He's not guilty. He's not the guilty one. He's the one that happens to just have arrived. You know, he just came here in all the causes and conditions, including things that he did or his family did or his ancestors did that are not so good. All of that is what makes Ryu Jing, this person who's practicing so hard and giving so much of himself to the awakening of others. He really was an amazing teacher. He helped many, many people. So then he applied this method of understanding how this one thing, the toilet, was empty of inherent existence. So he can apply that to all the other sticking points in his life, you know, one by one. You see other places where you think something's really real.

[30:14]

You know, that really is true. That's not true anymore, but that's true. So you keep taking this insight and applying it to each of the sticking points. Sticking points are things that you're attached to. It's always beliefs. Things you believe are true. about your uncle Fred or whatever it is. He's a rotten guy. Whatever it is you're holding on to is a sticking point. It's an attachment to a view about something that maybe hurt you or maybe you lost. It's usually painful. Sometimes it's lust. That's painful too, especially when it's gone. If you can't get the object of your lust, that's painful. Today, for some crazy reason, this is coming to mind, So this is a day off. So usually on day off, one of the most exciting things that happens on our personal day is that we get to make our bag lunch. And the bag lunch is the whole kitchen is covered with cookies and chips and dips and tofu and all of these things and protein all over the place.

[31:18]

And so I have my little containers and I fill them up with food and I get extra stuff for later in the week. cheese and eggs and all sorts of stuff and it's so exciting it really is one of the most exciting things of the week i forgot today to make my bag lunch at around 10 30 which is it's already put away by then i was like oh my god i didn't make my bag lunch so i ran into the kitchen And the Tenzo head cook was there. And I said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I forgot to make it. And he was so sweet. He took me into the walk-in and he got me out all these little things and he got me some eggs and he got me some stuff. So I ended up with my nice little pile of food. So, you know, it's this attachment or this thing that we lust after, you know, when we don't have it, there's some kind of pain that happens there. Anyway, my story wasn't that bad. It wasn't that grave, but anyway, it was a real story, and it happened to me today. So these are sticking points.

[32:20]

They're simply attachments to illusions, like somehow I'm going to starve if I don't get all of my stuff gathered up, which is just not true. We still get three meals a day, no matter what's going on. For Ru Jing, his illusion was a purity. That's where he was stuck. He was really stuck on the idea that things could be made pure. You know, he could get those toilets really clean or he could clean his mind. But somehow if he kept practicing, he would be able to purify his mind, which is an idea a lot of Zen students have. And that somehow there's something blocking their way rather than that. Something is actually their life. And it's really a part of them that they don't want to get rid of. They just want to see that it's just it's just a story. It's just an illusion. It's just a thought that's arising right now. about my past. It has no power other than the power I give it. So people are empowering their illusions. They empower them with fear and with remorse and all of these other things. And that's the thing that Buddha was trying to help us to stop.

[33:23]

Stop empowering your fantasies. Don't give them power because that's what's hurting you. So Ru Jing was the illusion of purity. And then as if by magic... he came to realize the emptiness of everything all at once. And after his teacher hit him is when he broke out in this sweat. And so when Ru Jing said, I have hit upon that which is undefiled, what he meant was that he had touched or hit upon the emptiness of all things, of the whole works, the whole thing. Suddenly he was free from all of those binds that he had wrapped himself up in. So by saying he hit or he touched, is this contrast from having said that he grasped it, or I got it. I've got it now. I've attained it. As one might declare, I have attained awakening. That's not going to pass. You're going to get another whack in the face. So as if awakening somehow has been separate from you, and now you got it. Somehow you went out there and you got it.

[34:24]

And so this is the wrong understanding. It's never separate from you. It's just that you have been looking elsewhere. You've been overlooking that which is actually Your true nature or who you are. So, you know, rather than thinking it's something you have to get or you need to repossess, you know, I need to repossess something. Touched is a very temporary. It doesn't leave a residue of clinging or attachment to it. He touched on it. He hit on it. And then that was it. Touched. Just this gentle touch. So once he'd been certified by Zhejiang, Zhejiang, Ru Jing diligently practiced meditation, and he kept going. I think he felt, again, out of some great determination to make this, his life, the Zazen practice was the core of his life, the most important thing. It had given him his freedom, and he also wanted to go on modeling this for those who came to the monastery to study with him. So he basically practiced.

[35:26]

He rarely or never engaged in social meditation. engagements of any kind. He wouldn't go meet with ministers. He was invited to the emperor. He didn't go. He would just wear his plain black robes. He wouldn't wear the purple. The emperor sent him a purple okesa. He didn't wear that. He just wore his plain black robes, all kind of patched up together. He wouldn't acknowledge even his transmission. He was never trying to be somebody special. He just sat. That was his offering. So He hardly spoke to other people in the monk's hall. He would just sit. And he said, I will sit as if I'm sitting on a diamond, you know, at that heart. And he even got to the point where the flesh, as it says in the chapter, was ulcerated for so much sitting that he didn't stop. He went on and on and on. So from the very first thought of enlightenment to the end of his last abbassi, there was not a single day that Rujain didn't sit. And as it says in the chapter, his virtue was unequaled in his time, his discipline peerless in ancient or modern times.

[36:32]

So what he hadn't apparently given up to the very end of his life was the pleasure of meditation. So that's kind of slipping in here. That the highest pleasure for humankind, as Kezan said, is none other than a stable mind. When your mind is quiet. When it's not being bothered, when the waves are not rising and disturbing and creating all kinds of illusions and fantasy, when your mind is stable, that is the highest pleasure for humankind. So Ru Jing had a little bit of attachment to that. He was really into that stable mind. So renouncing that... would be the final release from this tiny shred of self-clinging that was left for him. And yet, since there has never been any defilement, going back to the original point, as Ru Jing came to realize, then even that tiny shred of self-clinging, there's no need to purify. So he was fine. He could be into this thing of stable mind and no need to change it.

[37:40]

It's fine. He wasn't attached to it. It's just something that he did, something that he was. I can remember reading about this abbot who said to his attendant, even after all these years, I put my ocasa, ocasa is the robe, I put my ocasa on with a flare. After all these years, I put my ocasa on with a flare. And I thought, that's my guy. That's the guy. That's the one. I have a hard time with Ru Jing. He would not have been somebody I would have hung out with. Well, he wouldn't have hung out with me either. He probably wouldn't have even spoken to me. So, you know, that that particular extreme kind of athletic Zen. Some people do. Some people get into that. We have these all night sitters folks here even now that will sit through the night during sessions and stuff. And that's fine. They won't find me there. You know, I go to bed at 930. So, you know, there is all kinds of people doing Zen in their own way. to the extent that you can actually fill your own needs with what it is that brought you to practice.

[38:45]

You know, your way-seeking mind. How is it for you? What do you need? For Ru Jing, he needed to sit every day. And that's the kind of guy he was. So on the side of discipline, I wouldn't be in Ru Jing's club. You know, he wouldn't have me. But on the side of virtue toward his caring for others, I really can see much that I admire. You know, he carefully cultivated all of those who came to practice with him. There's a story in the chapter about a gardener who began practicing after the age of 60. And Ru Jing spent as much time with him, helping him to study, helping him to understand the Dharma and so on, until finally the old gardener awakened. And this was at Ru Jing's help, his support. And from then on, they said the old gardener was able to utter extraordinary and marvelous sayings. So this is wonderful that Ru Jing did not neglect the community in terms of practice. He was really there for them. And he really supported the Sangha.

[39:46]

He wasn't practicing for himself alone. Had he been doing that just off by himself in a hut, there would be no impact. There'd be no interest. His name would not be in the book. He would not be someone that Dogen would have showed any interest in, just some hermit up in a cave. But he was there in the core, the center of his monastery, providing an example and also providing encouragement to those who had sincere practice. So it's kind of like a queen bee, you know, hanging out at the hive until it's time to fly off and start a new colony, as some of many of his students did, as Dogen did. Dogen was inspired by this queen bee in China, and Dogen became a queen bee and formed a colony of his own, which is still growing. Zen Center is part of Dogen's colony of inspiration around his own effort. So Kezan says that in an assembly, where there is the way, where there is the practice of the way, there are many people imbued with the way, many people with the heart of the way, way-seeking heart.

[40:53]

The way for Ru Jing was to just sit, which is echoed in the teachings that we will hear and be looking at from his disciple Dogen Zenji. And particularly in Dogen's essay called The Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi, which is in our liturgy book and one that we actually chant fairly often. Ru Jing and Dogen both say... that burning incense, bowing, reciting Buddha's names, performing repentance ceremonies like we just did, we'll be doing soon with the full moon ceremony, confession and repentance, reciting scriptures, and all of that are not needed. You just did shikantaza. Shikantaza is a Japanese word. Shikan means just, shikan. And ta is to hit. So this is Rujing's thing. He hit. He hit on that moment. Just this is it, that hitting on this realization. So shikan is just, and ta, hit, and sitting, za.

[41:55]

So shikan, ta, za. Just hit, za zen. Just touch it. Just be there. Be it. So Rijing taught that if you don't forget the way seeking heart, and if you concentrate only on the truth, and you don't follow after the fashions of the day, Even if you don't gain any understanding, you will be an originally undefiled person. If you are undefiled, this is being originally clean and pure. This is setting your will on the ultimate truth, on re, the ultimate truth. The truth in which there are no views of pure or impure, of self or other, of right or wrong, of dirty toilets or clean toilets. So unless we can escape the I that sees defilement, It sees impurity. You know, we are not free. And as it happened with Ru Jing after this great effort, there was no more skin for him to drop off. There was no body or mind to shed.

[42:55]

And that's when he hit on that which had never been defiled. You know, when he had dropped his body and mind, which is exactly the exchange he has with Dogen in the next chapter in which Dogen and he meet around this issue of dropping body and mind. which probably sounds familiar to you who have been listening to Zen. If you've been at the Zen Center, you've been around Zen Center and have heard the Heart Sutra, this is the language of the Heart Sutra. It says no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no skin, no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, and so on. No, no, no. This is re. This is ultimate truth. This is... hitting on the ultimate truth, where nothing is pure or impure, nothing's missing, nothing's separate. That's the star at dawn that Buddha saw and knew that he wasn't alone, that he wasn't separate. There was nothing outside of himself that he actually was, the entirety of the universe, embodied as a single human being, just like all of us.

[44:04]

So that's what we are. We are the universe in the form of this body. Or in the form of your bodies, each of you. And then we can talk to each other. The universe can have a little conversation with itself. Like the waves in the ocean. Waving, you know. They're just all part of the ocean. And then they come up. And they look like something. They look like a shape. And then they go back. Just like us. We come up. We look like shapes. And then we go back. Where we came from. Back to the source. So this insight that broke Ru Jing free is the teaching of the perfection of wisdom, just as we chant every morning when we chant the Heart Sutra. And beyond all inverted views of a self or possessions that will make this self happy, you know, like getting enlightened. That's a possession that people would really like to get to make themselves happy. And that I trying to get it is exactly what's causing the suffering. It's ironic to stop trying to get something. out of what you're doing.

[45:05]

Just do what you're doing wholeheartedly. That's enough. And that's a lot. And that's all you need to do ever. Just do what you're doing with both hands, you know, both hands on the wheel, drive your car, make your pots, whatever you're doing, cook your dinner, just completely engaging body and mind. That's it. That's all there ever is. So beyond all inverted views of a self, of possessions that will make the self happy forever and ever, we realize nirvana, the absence of all views. And then we give that up too. And in realizing, giving that up, we realize complete perfect enlightenment. And then we give that up too. So the whole practice of this school and of these teachers, Ru Jing and Dogen, is about giving that up too. Whatever you got, give it up. Because it's already gone. Just watch it. Just watch it go. Whatever you got, gone. Whatever you got, gone.

[46:07]

You know, it's kind of like one word, come and go. Tathagata, coming and going. It's just one word, one gesture. Seamless, right? You can't really see it, but that's what's happening, right? So this is what happens later when Ru Jing and Dogen meet. And they have this, Dogen has this big realization. He hears Ru Jing saying to another monk, drop body and mind. And Dogen does. He's sitting there and he just drops body and mind. He just lets it go. He stops trying to get enlightened. He stops trying to understand the Dharma. He stops trying to get something for himself. He's a greedy guy. He wants to get it. He's traveled on a little boat to China to get something. And he drops it. Right then and there, he drops it. So he goes to Ru Jing's office and he offers incense. And he says to Ru Jing, Drop body and mind. And Ru Jing says, body, mind, drop. Meaning, drop that too.

[47:08]

Drop that too. So you just keep dropping. Or better yet, you see how everything is already dropping. You know, it's just like rain on the temple roof, as Dogen writes later. You know, the one true thing, black rain on the temple roof. Black rain on the temple. Just like we've been hearing. It's amazing. We're sitting in Zaza and it's just like... Dropping, dropping, dropping. The other image that Reb likes to use is snowflakes on a hot iron skillet. So this is that temporary transient nature of reality, which when you get comfortable with that, because that's what's happening, then you're in sync. You're in harmony with yourself and with everything. You just come in instead of like, I don't want that. I don't want things that pass away. Well, that's going to be painful. So what's not painful is coming into harmony with the way things are. So Kezan ends this chapter with a verse.

[48:10]

He says, the breeze of the way, blowing far, is harder than diamond. The breeze of the way, the way things are, is harder than diamond. It's like the Diamond Sutra. The whole earth is supported by it. All of reality is supported by the breeze of reality, the way things are. And then Reb says, said in our group after we'd finished studying this particular chapter, Rep says, another October has passed away, and we are here to feel the loss. So, along with the dropping away, there is that feeling of loss. You know, we are humans. Human first, as my therapist always said to me. Human first. You will feel the loss. You know, everything's dropping away. Another good... friend just passed away today. Her name's Joan Larkey. She's a wonderful, gorgeous woman who lived at Zen Center for many years, an artist, and just a fascinating, you know, elegant creature.

[49:15]

And she lived a very long life. I think she was 94, 95. It was pretty hard for her there at the end. But she's finally let go. She dropped away. And it's a great relief for everyone who cared for her, because it was pretty hard there these last few weeks, last few months. So another October has passed away, and we are here to feel the loss. So I think it's a good idea that something Paul suggested us doing is to look at Cultivating the Empty Field, which is a book by... Dharma brother, my Dharma brother, Taigen Dan Layton. We were ordained together by Reb many, many years ago. And Taigen has gone on to write a great number of books. And one of them, this one, Cultivating the Empty Field, is a beautiful collection of verses written by an amazing Chinese scholar and intellectual and poet by the name of Hongzhi. And Hongzhi was greatly admired by Dogen.

[50:18]

In fact, of all the citations Dogen makes, Hongzhi is the one he cites most right after Ru Jing. So Dogen was very impressed with the teachings of Hongzhi. They were almost contemporaries. Hongzhi was a little bit older than Dogen, but his writing is beautiful. And this is the book, Cultivating the Empty Field. It has an enso. I just saw that. This enso is closed, but a lot of them don't close here. They just end right about here. So if you have this book or if you would like to get it, I think it's probably online. And I will be looking at some of those verses and talking a little bit about Hongzhi before we go to Dogen. So you'll have some of the influences on Dogen, along with Ru Jing, who you just heard about. Then there's also Hongzhi. And so these are really major players in terms of Dogen's own understanding and so on.

[51:21]

And Hongzhu also is the person who collected the koans that were put together as the Book of Serenity, which is the primary collection of koans for the Soto Zen School. So he has a big role. He has a very big role to play in what we currently study as Soto Zen. So he's the one who coined this term silent illumination as the primary practice of Soto Zen, silent illumination. So we don't do koan practice. I mean, we look at koans, but we don't practice koans systematically the way the Rinzai Zen school does. Hongzhi collected koans, and we look at koans, and we appreciate koans, but we don't do them like kind of a curriculum. But what our practice is, is silent illumination. Shikantasa. Okay, so that's... That's Ru Jing, and I'd love to hear from those of you who are here. If you would like to offer some thoughts or some words, please do.

[52:25]

Let me see. I'm going to get on to the gallery view. Yeah, great. There you are. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. Would anyone like to... Hi, Dean. Great. Please. Hi, Fu. Hi. It's very exciting to hear that you're going to be the stand-in Shuso, sort of, and I would love to be a frozen little fly on the wall. Yeah. But I can't be. We'll fly on down. Yeah. I'm going to start you off. Yeah. We missed you. You almost got here. Yes, ma'am. Hi. At yesterday's program at Berkeley Zen Center, all I wanted to do was pull weeds or clean the toilets.

[53:34]

Something came up and we needed a Saturday director. I stepped in. How do I reckon with my resentment? And how do I reckon with my pride? Good question. Well, I wish you were closer because I have my whisk. I could just give you a little hit in the face. Gentle. Come on, Dean. Snap out of it. It's all gone. Already gone. Already gone. Don't hold on. Don't linger at the smell of baked apples. Okay. Give me the thumb. I'd love to. Next time.

[54:37]

Next time. If you were in the neighborhood. Yes. I just want to say that I am awed and inspired by you and your faithfulness to all of us in this Sangha. Thank you so much with all that you have been dealing with in this particular, these months, these weeks. your dedication to your students there. But your faithfulness to us is just inspiring. And thank you so much. And I do hope you will have a wonderful vacation. And we long for February 5th when you will be back. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

[55:38]

Well, there isn't anything I'd rather do than be with people who want to be where I am and looking at Dharma together. There's just no greater joy. So please keep coming. As long as you keep coming. Of course. Little squares here. And I'm not the only square. I will keep welcoming our conversation together. It's just a great joy. And so thank you for that. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you, Sangha. The whole Sangha, too, for your faithfulness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Somebody was talking to me about some way we can all kind of communicate with each other. And I thought, when I come back in February, maybe I'll ask that person who seemed to have some idea about how that might work, how we can put something together. So if you wanted to ask a question or send something in between our gatherings, that would be something we could do or, I don't know, send out notice of something that's going on.

[56:40]

So anyway, I've made a mental note to do that when I come back in February. Okay. All right. I feel like the auctioneer. Go on once. It's so good to see you. It's so good to see everybody. And thank you so much for that talk, which was really inspiring and kind of sparkling. So thank you for being here for us and showing yourself.

[57:46]

Yeah. Well, yes, thank you. Thank you. It's really nice being here. I must say, sitting a lot of Zazen, I highly recommend. If you want to feel better and you want to start to release some toxins that you've been carrying around, sitting a lot of Zazen is a really good thing to do. And, you know, you have to give up certain other things like going to the movies and stuff, but at least for a while. It is a really excellent thing for your life, you know, to spend this kind of time. Lisa, who is one of our folks, is, as I've said, she's my Anja. It's just delightful having her here, and she has lots of challenging questions, as always, and it's just wonderful. Every morning we have these little conversations about science and about things that are on her mind. So, you know, it's really been – it's hard, and it's not hard. And it's also I can I told her and she can tell you all herself how it's been to be in practice period.

[58:51]

She made her own robes, which is fabulous. So she's got her own black robes that she made. And and I think she I think it's been wonderful. It's certainly wonderful to have her as part of the Sangha here, too. So all of you, if you ever have a chance to do that, some of you have and some of you may still be able to. I really hope you can. It's a great place. It's amazing, actually. You might believe your eyes. Okay. Well, please take care. Many blessings. Oh, hey. Great. Shozan. Shozan. Shozan. Yeah? Shozan? Yeah. Yeah, I think Millicent is performing. Yeah, okay, Millicent. Hi, Millicent. Hi. No, you didn't. No, no. It's like his finger. I was going to say that's dangerous.

[59:54]

You know what happened to that guy. Yes, right. Very dangerous. Very dangerous. My question, I get it that the teaching around the heart sutra is to give up all views and and to see that all our values are conditioning and basically delusion and so forth. But if I have, say, a strong karmic conditioning, say it's not particularly the truth, but just say I'm an inveterate liar. Now, it's one thing simply to accept the fact that I'm an inveterate liar, but on the other hand, it's pretty important that I try and do some work so that I become, you know, a bit less of a liar. So how do we drop our attachments to being a truthful person and yet at the same time

[61:05]

Try to become a truthful person. That's just that example. Yes. Well, that's the history of Buddhism is what you're bringing up is the fact that the Heart Sutra led to an awful lot of misunderstanding of emptiness and to a lot of immorality. It's a wide practice. I mean, it's like, no, there's no point. There's no Buddha, no mind, no eyes, no ears, no problems. What's the big deal about lying? Why is truth better than lying? They're both empty of inherent existence. So that is the ultimate truth. However, it's partnered with the relative truth. And without those two together, you have a very lopsided view of reality. And that's called a poison snake. You know, Nagarjuna said, if you grasp emptiness incorrectly, you've got a hold of a poisonous snake and it's going to bite you. So the idea that cause and effect are not going to cause problems for you as you're lying, your way through life is a fantasy.

[62:08]

Because in the relative world, you're going to get in big trouble. You're going to suffer and you're going to pay for those things which for the world of relative truth really matter. Telling the truth, not having sex with your best friend's wife or stealing money from the bank where you work. All of those things. you may end up finding yourself in a very bad situation. And so there's right now that what I'm teaching down here are these two koans from the Mumongkhan. The first one is Mu. Does a dog have Buddha nature? No. Heart Sutra? No. Stop asking dualistic questions. Pure or impure? No. Yes or no? No. So that koan is all about breaking through dualistic thinking. Lying, truth-telling. No. Don't ask dualistic questions. Stop it. So that brings you to a kind of stopping the discursive thinking. Stop that noise running around in your head.

[63:11]

Just stop it. Silence and stillness. So that's the product of that practice of the Heart Sutra. The second koan is about Hyakujo and the fox. So Hyakujo is a Zen master who is asked by a student, does a person of the way is subject to cause and effect, causality, are there consequences for lying? And Hyakujo says, no, a person of the way, no, they're not subject to cause and effect. And he's reincarnated for 500 lifetimes as a fox. And so he goes to the next, the young Hyakujo, who's now 500 lifetimes later, there's a young Hyakujo, this is like him, only... He's the old one, and he's coming to see the new one. He says, where did I go wrong? Isn't a person of the way free of cause and effect? And the new Yakujo says, a person of the way does not ignore cause and effect, is not ignorant of cause and effect.

[64:11]

So to not pay attention to cause and effect, Dogen makes lots of stories about that. No, you have to have deep faith in cause and effect, in precepts. So bodhisattva precepts are all about taking the relative truth seriously. You can't just shine it on. You will pay because the people who take the relative truth seriously are going to get you. They're going to hurt you. So, you know, we live in that world where these two things intersect, the relative truth and the ultimate truth. And we don't take sides. Both of them are essential to practice. So that's a very, very good question. And that's the problem with the Heart Sutra. And that's why the Yogacara, mind-only teaching, came along historically to rescue the emptiness teachings from being misunderstood and misappropriated. So the Yogacara teachings are saying there is something you need to pay attention to.

[65:17]

And so... Thank you, Fu. I keep on forgetting stuff because what you've reminded me of is your teaching of the back foot and the front foot in walking. I mean, how many times have you taught us about that pivoting? You have to keep on repeating it for slow learners like me. I know. Just keep doing that. Just do that. That'll do it. On the other hand, when I first came to Zen Center, people were saying that all the time. On the other hand, I said, why do they keep saying on the other hand? Yes. For that very reason. Yes. Do you need both hands? Yes, thank you. You're welcome. The push comes to shove. I think the presets, I think if you had to make a choice, attention.

[66:21]

to the precepts probably would pick the post, I think. Anyway, thank you so much. Yeah, definitely. I think you'll have a much better outcome if you do the precepts than if you lie. It'll just probably go much better for you. So you can check that out yourself, though. There's no police that are coming to check it out for you. It's each of us asked to do it ourselves, right? Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Shosan, it's been a while. Nice to see you. It's so good to see you, Fu, and good to be here with Asanga. This question is really just about monastic life. I'm really curious, how different is Tassajara from Green Gulch? Is it that much harder? It's not harder. In some ways, it's easier because you don't have any choice. I can't go to the movies or go to Mill Valley and, you know, go shopping or go to Whole Foods.

[67:25]

I haven't seen money in three months. I don't need any. I don't have a watch. I just listen to the sounds. I'm fed. So it's completely it's so simple. There's just nothing you have to take care of except follow the schedule. And it's very generous. There's we have. You know, we're here in the afternoon. In the morning. Fine to us, you know. People sitting. Oh, I don't know if it's me. I think I'm stuck. Maybe it's me. No. She's frozen. Okay. Yeah. Oh, it's good to be with you all.

[68:31]

It's great to see everybody. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah, well. She might come in again. Well, it looks like they're having a bandwidth problem. Yeah. Who knows, maybe it started storming and took their satellite link. So in case not, Karina, can you take our best wishes to you and Fu for the holidays and for your trip? See you in February? Safe travels and Happy New Year, everyone. Everyone too. Happy New Year, Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, Hanukkah, everything. Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year. Be well. Bye. Bye. Bye. Be well. Take care.

[69:31]

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