Happy Father's Day to all the fathers, hope you all have a good day and that your children haven't forgotten. So I would like to dedicate my Dharma talk today to all the fathers and especially to my own father who was a wonderful father. And also I would like to dedicate the talk to a man who I don't think was a father, Rick Fields, a really great Western Buddhist pioneer who died this past week of lung cancer. He was only 57 years old. He was a practitioner and a journalist, the first and best Buddhist, American Buddhist journalist. He was in a big fight with lung cancer for about six or seven years and he always corrected

[01:16]

people who, when people told him that he had a life-threatening disease, he said, no, I have a disease-threatening life. Wonderful person, so we'll miss Rick Fields a lot. And today I want to talk about the Blue Cliff Record, Case 75, one of the 75th of the 100 Zen Koans in the Blue Cliff Record and it's actually the perfect case for Father's Day, very appropriate case. It's called, Ukyu's Unfair Blows, the Introduction. The sacred sword is ever in hand. It is death-dealing and life-giving.

[02:19]

Sometimes it is there, sometimes it is here, simultaneously giving and taking. If you want to hold fast, you are free to hold fast. If you want to let go, you are free to let go. Tell me how it will be when one makes no distinction between host and guest and is indifferent to which role one takes up. See the following, the case. A monk came from Joshu's assembly to Ukyu, who said to him, how did you find the teaching at Joshu's place? And the monk said, no different from here. And Ukyu said, if so, then why don't you go back there? And he hit him with a stick. The monk said, your stick is blind, so it hits me like that.

[03:29]

And Ukyu said, today I have come across a monk. And he hit him three times, whack, whack, whack. And the monk left. But just as he was about to leave, as he was on his way out, Ukyu called to him and said, a blind stick hits a blind fellow. So the monk turned around and came back, and he said, to my regret, the stick is in your hand. And Ukyu said, well, if you need it, I will let you have it. So the monk seized the stick and gave Ukyu three blows, whack, whack, whack. Sounds like Father's Day, right? Fathers and sons. So Ukyu then said, a blind stick, a blind stick.

[04:39]

And the monk said, a blind man, a blind man. And Ukyu said, it is a pity to hit someone like that. And the monk immediately unfolded his bowing cloth and began doing respectful prostrations. And Ukyu said, monk, is that how you are? At which the monk got up, laughed out loud, and left, giggling the whole time. And Ukyu called after him, that's it, that's it. So that's the story. And the verse says, easy to call the snakes, hard to scatter them. How splendidly they crossed swords.

[05:44]

Although the sea is deep, it can be drained. The culp of stone is hard, but it wears away. Old Ukyu, old Ukyu, who is there like you? To give the stick to another, that was truly thoughtless. So that's our subject for today. Let's see what we can make out of that, if anything. So as you see, it's a very complicated story, lots of different parts to it. And it has to do with the fundamental teaching in Zen, the relationship between the transcendent and the ordinary. Sometimes they call it the relative and the absolute, or the world of unity and the world

[06:51]

of difference. And the discussion of how these two seemingly different worlds interact is the most important discussion, teaching, in Zen. And I would imagine this is the most important teaching in all religions, and it's the problem of our lives. This case, number 75, is one of a number of cases in the Blue Cliff Record all clustered together that involve disciples of the great master Matsu. And Matsu was the originator in Zen of the language to speak about this kind of problem. And let me quote you a little piece from a sermon that Matsu gave about 1300 years ago.

[07:52]

He said, The ordinary is identical with the transcendent, and the born is none other than the unborn. If you have a thorough realization of this, you can live your daily life, wear your clothes, eat your meals, rear and nourish your inner womb of suchness, tathagatagarbha, and pass your time as befitting your conditions and the tides of human affairs. The phenomenal or the ordinary is identical with the transcendent, and the born is none other than the unborn. If you have a thorough realization of this, you can live your daily life, wear your clothes, eat your meals, rear and nourish your womb of suchness, and pass your time as befitting your conditions and the tides of human affairs. An image of this identity of the phenomenal and the transcendent or the ordinary and the

[09:01]

transcendent in Buddhadharma is the image of Vairochana Buddha, the Buddha of luminous mind, luminous, of a luminous consciousness. And the word that Matsu uses, suchness or womb of suchness, is a word to describe the experience of the unity of the ordinary and the transcendent. The shining light of Vairochana Buddha's mind shines in all things. Every word, every gesture, every thought, every object that we encounter in this world, even our worst nightmares and fears and our most troublesome afflictions, all are in reality nothing but this light of Vairochana Buddha.

[10:02]

This is why in practice we don't need to look for something special, something that we don't now have. We don't need a change. We don't need to improve. Our effort is just to open our eyes, settle ourselves, and let that light, which is intrinsically present, shine forth. And when we do that, as Master Matsu says, the whole world appears as Tathagatagarbha, the womb of suchness, the womb where everything is unified and peaceful, where there is no fear. The absolute is-ness of things. Flowing together in the darkness without fear, harmoniously and effortlessly, appears to

[11:04]

us quite naturally. And we can have a good laugh about things, and if necessary a good cry, sometimes laughing and crying all at once. And, fortunately, we have a method for appreciating what I'm saying, just by sitting down in the middle of our lives, sitting up straight and breathing, doing Zazen, sitting in the middle of whatever happens to be our life right then, just being present in the actual situation of being alive as the very person that we are, not someone else. This is our method

[12:05]

for having this dawn in our lives. And Zen practice is really radical in this way. We don't try to do anything. We don't pick anything up and evaluate it or do something with it. We just let everything be. We just let the sun of Vairochana Buddha come up, shine through every thought, every breath. This is the most simple thing in the world, but it's hard to do. And the reason why it's hard to do is because it's absolutely impossible. And if you try to do it, you see that it's absolutely impossible, because it's not something that you do, you see. You don't do Zazen. You don't do Zen. You don't do Zen. You don't

[13:13]

do Zazen. Zazen does Zazen. Thoughts do Zazen. Breathing does Zazen. Arms and legs and shoulders, kneecaps, toes and eyebrows do Zazen. So our job is not to do Zazen, but to just stand aside for a moment and let all of these things take care of us in doing Zazen, without us. That's the secret. Now strangely, the world of Vairochana Buddha proceeds in our human world mostly by the process of negation. Now by negation I'm not talking about being negative, like it could be yes, but no. That's not what I mean by

[14:14]

negation. I mean a kind of absolute negation. Vairochana's negation is the answer to the question that we put to all experience. What is it? And Vairochana Buddha's answer is always the same. Not this. What is it? Not this. Not this is the practice of putting down everything as soon as it arises. Whatever arises, we let it pass away. We don't hold on to it. We don't define it. We don't evaluate it. We don't worry about it. Not this means that things come and go. That's how things are. They come, they go. Existence and inexistence are two sides of the same coin. That's the nature of things. As soon

[15:21]

as we say it's this or that, we try to fix it or define it, we try to freeze it, immediately there is suffering because of wrong view. Not this is like another saying of Master Matsu, Ukyo's teacher. Master Matsu for many years taught his students, this very mind is Buddha. And someone said once, why do you always say this very mind is Buddha? And he said, well, I say it to quiet a crying baby. And he said, well, I say it to quiet a crying baby. And the monk said, well, what happens when the baby isn't crying anymore? He said, then I say, not mind, not Buddha. And there's a wonderful commentary by Suzuki Roshi that I'll read a little section of for you, where he talks about this process of negation in our lives. It's written in typical Suzuki Roshi speak, which sometimes we don't know

[16:27]

funny and hard to understand, but he says, negation after negation, we turn over and renew our perception and preconceived ideas. In other words, wiping our mirror-like mind in each moment, we can observe everything as it is. And then here, next paragraph, he has all these hyphenated words. Here, everything as it is, one word, everything as it is. Here, everything as it is means everything as it should be, because, another hyphenated word, everything as it is in the usual sense, one word, because everything as it is in the usual sense should always be negated, one thing after another, even though we concentrate on one thing. The result of the practice of negating everything as it is in the usual sense is

[17:29]

what we mean by everything as it is. The way everything should be, should be accepted as the way everything is. This acceptance should be the most important point. When we practice Zazen in the right way, this acceptance takes place. In the realm of Zen mind, transmitted from Buddha to Buddha, from ancestor to ancestor, there is no noumena or phenomena, no subjectivity or objectivity, no object to be criticized or subject to be critical. Here we come to the true understanding of the so-called non-attachment or oneness of duality. So, everything as it is means everything as it should be. In other words, when we see everything as it is, suchness, in the light of Vairocana Buddha, then everything is as it should be, it's perfect. There's nothing lacking, there's nothing that we need. Everything

[18:32]

as it is, is everything as it should be, but that is only so when we negate everything in the usual sense. Everything in the usual sense is our own wishes, desires, projections, confusions, deeply rooted, that we project onto everything. When we negate that, drop it, it doesn't mean repress it or beat it up or something, just let it go. When we let that go, then we see everything as it is, which is always everything as it should be. So, with this kind of practice of negation, if you want to call it that, we refresh everything and we leave everything and everyone, including ourselves, completely alone, letting things

[19:38]

shine in the pure mirror of suchness, letting them be just the way they are, which is perfect. So the characteristic of this way of life, we could call flexibility, or maybe readiness, always ready. Somebody, I was just having a session in the morning, and somebody asked in the question ceremony, I used to be a Girl Scout, she said, and we had a motto, be prepared. What's the difference between that and Buddha's readiness? And I said, well, in a past life, Buddha was a Girl Scout, and that's where he got the idea. The difference is that the Girl Scouts, when they say be prepared, they mean bring

[20:42]

all the equipment you need, and when the Buddha says be prepared, he means don't have any equipment at all. That's the difference. So, and then the other day I was at the automatic teller, and I heard a couple walking by, and the guy was saying, well, I'm very flexible. And people say that a lot, flexibility is a common term, meaning like, my plans are flexible. I can do this or do that, you know. So we have this idea of flexibility. But in this case, and so the kind of sense of being flexible, meaning, yes, you're not rigid, it doesn't need to be this way, it can be that way if it has to be that way. Whatever appears, it can be various ways. So that's the same. But here, there's a deep underlying understanding that gives rise to the flexibility.

[21:52]

The understanding that nothing can be defined, nothing can be held on to. So naturally, you pay attention to everything, and everything is a total surprise. One never knows. One never knows. When we have this kind of flexibility, then it's really never necessary to fight or struggle. Because no matter what happens, there's always room, as they say in the Zen texts, there's always room to turn around. Because there's spaciousness, there's never a confined feeling. If you take a crystal of salt and put it in a glass of water, the water is very salty. But if you take the same crystal of salt and put it in the Ganges River, the

[22:57]

Ganges River does not become salty, does not become fouled. The flexible mind, the mind that lets things go, the mind of negation, is like the Ganges River. It can contain whatever arises. It doesn't need to be pushed around, confined by experience. Instead of being turned around by the circumstances of our lives, we can just dance with life. Whatever happens, we can view as a miracle, the sunshine of Airochana Buddha. Now I'm saying all this because this is what this case is about, all these guys beating each other up with sticks. It's all about this. Because in Zen, technical language, all of this kind of thing is expressed using the symbolism of the idea of the teacher and the

[23:59]

student. And I think the reason they symbolized these things using the teacher and student is because the old Zen people living in monasteries, they lived together and they were always teachers and students, and in their interactions, this was everyday stuff. This was what they lived. So it was a very good way of using themselves and their own lives as symbols for this teaching of the identity of the ordinary and the transcendent. And in this symbolism, the teacher is the position or the symbol of the transcendent, the absolute, sometimes also called the host, the ultimate negation, the darkness in which everything as it is, is everything as it should be. That's the teacher's role or position. And the student symbolizes the absolute,

[25:08]

the phenomenal world or the ordinary world, and sometimes the student is referred to as the guest, the world in which we struggle to understand, we struggle to find ease and happiness, but we never do. It's always just beyond our reach. That world is symbolized by the student. Now, of course, you would think that the idea is that you would somehow advance beyond the position of the student and rise up to the position of the teacher, that that would be the goal, right? One would think. But this isn't it at all. To think that way would be to have a kind of poisonous religious idealism or perfectionism, to somehow have the fantasy that religious practice is to make us stop

[26:13]

being human, with all human perception and human thinking that goes along with being human. So in Zen stories, the point is not that you rise up from the relative to the absolute position. The point is that teacher and student appreciate each other in the light of the understanding of the absolute identity between each and each, and that in their interplay, in their relationship, which is very flexible and involves often role-shifting, the ultimate identity of the phenomenal and the transcendent is enacted, is understood. So it's not that we leave the ordinary behind

[27:14]

and climb the mountain of the transcendent. It's that we see the identity between them. In other words, to bring this down to our everyday life, we need to have the spaciousness in our lives to affirm ourselves completely, just the way we are, with all our warts and everything. And we have to have the spaciousness to let go of all of that completely, depending on conditions. When it's time to let go of all of who we are and our personality and our life, we let go of it. When it's time to affirm it and live it out, we do. We have to have both sides. And this is where we have to work, to be able to see both sides, to be able to embrace our humanness, even our suffering, even our confusion,

[28:17]

even our desire, and also to be able to let go of it utterly, not to cling to it. When we really appreciate Suzuki Roshi's things as they are, then when there's desire, we can completely be desire with nothing left over. When there's confusion, we can completely be confusion with nothing left over. When there's grief, when there's delusion, when there's love, sorrow, joy, completely embrace with nothing left over. So this is what these wonderful old monks in the case are enacting for us, right in front of our eyes, the freedom to pick up and the freedom to put down, to show the way and the identity of phenomenal and transcendent. The pointer, the sacred sword is ever in hand.

[29:25]

The sword is Manjushri's sword that cuts through the seeming difference between the moment after moment. Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, is always depicted holding a sword. And of course, in this case, the sword looks like this. The sword amongst, whack, whack, whack, with Manjushri's sword. So this is Manjushri's sword, the Zen teacher's stick is Manjushri's sword that cuts transcendent and ordinary into one. It's death-dealing and it's life-giving. Death-dealing means negation. Life-giving means affirmation, our ability

[30:27]

to affirm and let go, depending on conditions. Always different, depending. Always ready, always flexible, see? This sword is there, sometimes over here, sometimes it's over there, and it simultaneously gives and takes. If you want to hold fast, you are free to hold fast. If you want to let go, you are free to let go. Tell me, how will it be when one makes no distinction between host and guest and is indifferent to which role one takes up? So now, this crazy stuff in the story makes perfect sense, right? Now you understand, right? Not hard to understand. Once upon a time, a monk came from Joshu's assembly to Ukyu, and Ukyu said to him, how is the teaching there? Well, one thing that you need to know

[31:31]

here, a historical thing, is that this Joshu in the case is not the famous Joshu that I'm always talking about, that I like so much. This is a different Joshu. And this Joshu was from the northern school of Chan, and Ukyu and Matsu and all those guys were from the northern school. Now the northern school was called the gradual school, and the southern school was called the sudden school. So the gradual practice means careful cultivation, careful daily practice, working on our mind, working with ethical conduct, wiping clean the mirror of the mind from afflictive emotions, defilements, confusion, working on loving kindness, working on right speech, all these things that we have to do in spiritual practice.

[32:34]

That's the gradual method, the northern school. Going, in other words, from samsara, the world of delusion, confusion, suffering, to nirvana, the world of peace and wisdom. Step by step, walking along the way, getting there. That's the gradual school. The sudden school means that we have a flash of insight all of a sudden, that's why it's called sudden school. All of a sudden we see that samsara and nirvana are not two different things, the path between them is inexistent. Nirvana and samsara are identical. There is no mirror that we should be wiping clean, and there are no afflictive emotions. If we look at them, we see they don't really exist. That's the sudden school. Now, we need both of these. We need to have both ways of practice, because you might think, well the gradual school sounds like the way

[33:39]

to go, you know. It's much more reasonable, and it is. The problem with it is, if you think that you're going to get from nirvana to samsara, then you become very uptight, self-righteous and fundamentalist. That's the problem. And even if your friends didn't mind, it would be very bad for you, because then you would start, instead of having the stick as Manjushri's sword, you would have the stick as a big club, and you would then begin gradually, and then with increasing intensity, bashing yourself over the head with it. Which explains a lot about religious practice through the centuries, don't you think? So you need both. You need to take that little walk, step by step. There's no avoiding that. On the other hand, if you don't see the identity, in other words, I'm walking along here, and I'm working very hard, and it's taking a long time, but I'm already there. So you have to see that. So that's

[34:46]

the Northern and the Southern school. Now the thing is, that at one time, in the history of Zen, as always, people are arguing with one another. So there was a debate between the Northern and the Southern schools, you know, we're right, no, you're right. You're wrong, we're right, and so on. And the time of this case was the time when there was a debate. Now of course, anybody who really had a good feeling for the practice knew that the debate was completely beside the point, that one needed both. So when the monk says, I come from Joshu's place, Ukyu is then testing to see, does this monk understand that this supposed controversy that's raging among the monasteries is not really a controversy at all? And the monk says, how is the teaching at Joshu's place? The monk says, no different from here. So Ukyu whacks him with a stick. The monk sees this point. So why does Ukyu

[36:00]

hit him? Well, of course to us, we think, if you give somebody a hug, you approve of them. If you hit him with a stick, you don't. But the old Zen guys, they had hitting with a stick was a good thing sometimes. See, there's bad hitting with a stick and good hitting with a stick. Sometimes you get hit with a stick and it means, oh, you dummy, straighten up. Other times it means, oh, this is the true intimacy, whack. And think about it. When you're really intimate with someone, you don't praise them. You don't say, oh, gee, that was really good. You don't need to say anything. The intimacy is so close that you just need to be in contact. So really hitting with a stick was, I think they probably did really hit each other with sticks. I think it's not made up. But I think it was done in the spirit of pantomime and theater and fun. And although in the book when it

[37:06]

says he hit him with a stick, you can't tell what it means. If you were there and you saw the hitting, maybe he hit him like this. So the hitting means intimacy. It means contact, intimacy. We don't even have to speak about it. We don't even have to compliment one another. That's already too distant, you see. It's already too abstract. Just contact. So he hits him. A nice hit. So the monk says, your stick is blind. So it hit me like that. Blind here, again, we think of blind as being something negative. You're blind. You don't understand. But here blind means negation, ultimate negation. This is a blind stick. It's the stick of not this.

[38:11]

This blind stick. Your stick is blind, so it hit me in a sweet way. Thank you very much. What a good stick you have. So this could be a pretty good story right there. How's the teaching in the North? It's no different from here. Ah, whack, whack. Oh, what a blind stick. Thank you. But the story goes on, and Suzuki Roshi comments here in his commentary to this case, in the realm of the ultimate integration between teacher and student, the ultimate integration, unity, between teacher and student, one goes with the other, nothing takes its own form. So far in the story, the teacher holds to the absolute position and the student is in the relative position. So after the monk says this, Ukyu says, today I have come

[39:18]

across a monk. And then he hits him three times. So monk, the word monk literally means single, single-minded, having a single purpose. So the monk says, today I have come across a monk. Single purpose means living our life in the ultimate sense, fully committed to a life which isn't just about me, but is also about everything that's not me. Being fully committed to our life means understanding that life and death are not two separate things, ultimately committed. And I feel, one of the things that I've learned in recent years is how many people, how many of us in this world are longing for this kind of commitment in our lives, not just people who live in monasteries, but many people who don't live in monasteries

[40:20]

feel the need to have this kind of commitment in their lives to be true monks. So how to be a monk? What kind of vision, what kind of commitment do we need to work on in our lives to be a monk? Someone asked the Dalai Lama recently, what is his daily practice? And he said, first in the morning I get up and I check my intention. I clarify my intention. So what is our intention, you see, in our living? Today when we wake up and live our life this day, what is our intention? If our intention is to practice the ultimate truth to benefit all beings, not to just be for ourselves, then we are a true monk. So Ukyu says, today I found a true monk. And then he whacks him three times, even more intimate, even more wonderful. Thank you very much for being a real monk. And the monk appreciates

[41:26]

this and respectfully bows and goes to leave. But Ukyu just can't let him go. I think he likes him too much. And he wants to play. So he calls him back and he says, a blind stick hits a blind person. Now, here it gets a little complicated. Because the problem is, the word blind doesn't always mean the same thing. Just like a hit isn't always a hit. The word blind doesn't mean the same thing. And in Zen, you can find a text that explains that there are five kinds of blindness in Zen. Five different meanings of the word blind. One meaning is ordinary blindness of you and me, just sort of like unintentionally messing things up without meaning to, not seeing. Then the second kind of blindness is the deliberate

[42:30]

blindness of someone who is really making an effort to be rotten, someone who is deliberately holding to false views and doing mean things. The third kind of blindness is the blindness of the Zen student who is enlightened and turns a blind eye on the world, doesn't see the world. The fourth kind of blindness is the blindness of the enlightened Zen student who is stuck on her enlightenment, who goes around thinking she's enlightened and other people aren't. This is probably the worst blindness of all, the greatest stupidity. And then the last one is the genuine Zen blindness. It's called the genuine Zen blindness of someone who is really enlightened and sees the unity of the phenomenal and the transcendent. So all these five kinds of blindness all mean the same word blind, and of course some of

[43:32]

them are quite opposite the other, right? So one never knows. This is the thing. One never knows which is meant. So here, when Uchya says a blind stick hits a blind man, now he's changed the meaning of the word blind, and the stick now means a stupid blind stick, doesn't know anything, but the blind man is a true Zen man. So he's sort of saying, well I guess I hit you unfairly, changing the good hits into the bad hits. So everything is flexible, everything is changing its meaning all the time in this dialogue. That's why it's hard to understand. So he says a blind stick hits a blind person. And then the monk comes back, and I think with a grin on his face says, to my regret, the stick is in your hand. And Uchya says, well, if you need it, you can have it. Uchya's not stuck on being Uchya, you see. He's not stuck on occupying the transcendent position. And this is a chief

[44:39]

job requirement of a teacher, is to be able to let go of being a teacher. If you get stuck in the absolute position, then you're blind. So Uchya says, if you need it, you can have it. And the monk grabs the stick and assumes the transcendent position and whacks the teacher three times. And Uchya assumes the ordinary position and receives the whacks and cries out, a blind stick, a blind stick. And the student says, a blind man, a blind man. So they're really complimenting each other and having great fun with each other here. And Uchya says, it's a pity to hit someone like that. And then the monk drops the stick the roll, spreads the zhagu and starts doing respectful bows back to the original position.

[45:40]

And Uchya says, what kind of a thing is that? And the monk bursts out laughing and leaves. Okay, forget about it. And Uchya says, that's it, that's it. So the verse. It's easy to call the snakes but hard to scatter them. In India, I guess, they charm snakes and supposedly they play on a flute and the snakes come from all over when they hear the sound of the flute. And then they choose the snakes that are really good for charming and the rest of them they have to get rid of. But the trouble is that it's not so easy to get rid of the snakes that they don't want. So it's easy to make them come, supposedly. I mean, I've never seen such a thing. It's hard to believe, but I guess. It's easy to make the snakes come, but it's not so easy to get rid of them once they come. So this

[46:42]

means it's easy to put up a shingle and say, come and hear the wonderful Zen. And people come. Look, you all came. It's easy. It's easy to make everybody come and teach Zen, but it's hard to really teach Zen. It's hard to really let go and really be fully committed. How splendidly they cross swords. What a wonderful way they had with each other, how intimate they were, how they could flexibly take one position or another, letting go and holding fast according to the ever-changing conditions, moment after moment. What a wonderful thing that they could do this. Wouldn't it be nice if we could live like that? Just whatever happens, appropriate response. Sometimes this, sometimes that. Not stuck. Although the sea

[47:43]

is deep, it can be drained. The Kalpa stone is hard, but wears away. So the ocean is very deep, yes, but it can be drained. The Kalpa stone is very big, but little by little it can be worn away. But all ukyo, inexhaustible, is your dharma. Inexhaustible is your approach. Never used up, because there's nothing to it. Right? Who is there like you to give the stick to another that was truly thoughtless and beyond thinking, inconceivable? So, that's my Father's Day case, number 75. So, we all, all of us, earnestly try to

[49:00]

make efforts in our lives to accomplish this or that, or improve ourselves. But this kind of thing is beyond our earnest efforts. So, it just requires showing up, continuing our practice, with a good spirit and some faith, that if we continue, we will manifest, be ourselves, the reality that's expressed in these stories. So, I wish all of you on this Father's Day the courage and the brightness to continue. And find this path in your life. Goodness knows the world needs this kind of true flexibility,

[50:09]

kind, intimate flexibility. And I think probably each one of us needs it as well. Thank you. May our intention... [...] May

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