Good morning. So today is the first Sunday of the month, and the first part of the Dharma talk today will be for the children. So it's okay for the grown-ups to listen if you want. In fact, I'm going to talk about the same story that I'm going to talk about later, but I want to talk about it a little bit first for the children. And this is a story, an old Zen story. Hi, come on in. So this is an old Zen story that some of you may have heard before. It's a story about two brothers, and they were both Zen students, and it's a story about a little

[01:01]

discussion they had. So some of you may know that sometimes brothers or brothers and sisters or sometimes sisters give each other a hard time. Maybe none of you do that, but I know when I was your age and I had a little sister, I gave her a hard time. I teased her a lot. We're good friends now, so it came out okay. So anyway, these two brothers were both Zen students, and one day one of them was out sweeping the ground in the temple where they lived. So they lived someplace like Green Gulch, sort of, and it happens sometimes at Green Gulch too, and usually it happens in the morning after meditation that people sweep the walkways and things like that. Anyway, one day these two brothers, one of these brothers was out there sweeping the ground, and his brother came by and saw him, and he said, too busy. And the brother who was sweeping said, you should know there's

[02:06]

one who's not busy. And then the first brother said, who wasn't sweeping, said, oh you mean there's a second moon? And the brother who was sweeping held out his broomstick and said, which moon is this? So for now I just want to talk about the first part of the story, and the first part of the story is about the one who's not busy. And some of you, sometimes you might feel kind of busy if you have to do chores around the house, or if you have to clean your room, or if you have homework, you might feel busy. You might feel like you'd rather not. But this story is about right when you think you're busy, how can you know there's one who's not busy? So this is a big problem for grown-ups, but I think children have

[03:08]

a secret about this story. Do you know it? Do you know the one who's not busy? Yeah, what? Yes, I was going to say that later, that's right. The one who was too busy was the one who was who was looking, who was the busybody, who was looking at his brother, and that's right. I was going to say that later, I thought it was a great insight that I had, but you had it too. Thank you, that's right. And you know how to find the one who's not busy? Whichever brother you are. So I would say one way that all children know is to play. So right in the middle of doing your chores, or cleaning your room, or whatever you have to do when you feel busy, can you find a way to play right there? So the one who's not busy is, maybe he's sweeping his room, or

[04:19]

the sidewalk outside, but he's also playing. So if you can remember that all your life, then just remember to play, even when you think you're busy, even when you think you're way too busy. And part of that playing is that we play together. So these two brothers, you know, in some ways you're right, the one who was saying you're too busy was too busy, but in some ways they were just playing together. So can you share your play with each other? Can you appreciate just playing, even when it's time to be busy? Can you make a game out of cleaning your room? So this is one of the secrets about this story, and if you can appreciate your playing, and have fun playing, and appreciate it when you're too busy, and remember that you can play at being too busy, and that you can play together with your brothers and sisters, then you can find the one who's not busy.

[05:23]

So maybe it's time for all the children now to go out and play, and let the grown-ups be too busy listening to a Zen lecture. So thank you all, and please have a good time playing in Green Gulch, and playing together, and sharing your play together. So now I want to talk a little more about this same story for the big kids.

[06:55]

So this story is actually, I think, an important story in our lineage, in the branch of Zen that we do here, Soto Zen. One of these brothers was actually an important teacher in our lineage, and that's the one who was sweeping the ground. His name was Yun Yan, and his brother's name was Da Wu. And Yun Yan later became the teacher of the founder of Soto Zen in China, whose name is Dong Shan. So he's very important in our lineage. But he's also kind of sweet, and kind of funny, and he's part of another lineage, a secret lineage of great Zen failures. So Yun Yan, who later became the teacher of our founder in China, Dong Shan, spent 20 years as the personal attendant of the great Zen master Baizhang. Baizhang was one of the great Zen masters of all times. He's the

[08:06]

one who said, a day of no work is a day of no food. And he also, there's a famous story about him giving a monk's funeral to a fox, just to teach his students not to ignore cause and effect, not to ignore their karma. Many, many stories about Baizhang. Anyway, this guy Yun Yan, who later was sweeping the ground, he spent 20 years as the personal attendant of Baizhang, along with his brother. His brother was a monk too, there. His brother's name was Da Wu. Anyway, everyone agrees that even though Yun Yan spent 20 years as the personal attendant of Baizhang, hearing all of his talks and seeing all of his actions, that Yun Yan just didn't get it, for 20 years. And then finally they left Baizhang. Da Wu figured this was never going to work, and so they

[09:09]

left, and they went to study with a couple of other great teachers. At one time, they were studying under Nan Xuan, another great teacher, and Da Wu was listening outside the Doxan room to his brother talking with the teacher, and his brother just was clueless. And Da Wu felt so bad that it says that he bit his finger so hard that it bled. So even though these brothers, there are numbers of stories of them giving each other a hard time and having these conversations, they were also fellows and students, fellows and monks. So as I said later on, Yun Yan became, so this is sort of background on this guy for the story, later on Yun Yan became the teacher of Dong Shan, the founder of

[10:11]

Sato Zen in China, even though he had been one of these famous Zen failures for so long. And later on, Dong Shan also, the founder of Sato Zen in China, had studied with many other teachers also, and later he was doing the monthly memorial service for his teacher, Yun Yan, who's the one in this story. And one of his monks said, hey you studied with this famous teacher and that famous teacher, why are you doing memorial service? Why do you take as your teacher this guy Yun Yan? And Dong Shan said, only because he never explained anything to me directly. So he was a great Zen failure who was a great Zen success. Anyway, getting back to the story for today. One day, and this was probably after the left Baizhang, and apparently Yun Yan had some understanding at this point, because Yun Yan was sweeping the ground. And Da Wu said, too busy. And Yun Yan

[11:18]

said, you should know there's one who's not busy. And Da Wu said, so then there's a second moon? And Yun Yan held out his broom and said, which moon is this? So this is the story. And this is an old story that people have been studying for over a thousand years, and I've been studying it for a long time. I first talked about the story when I was head monk at Tassajara 12 years ago. So, but I'm still too busy. And so Zen is, you know, we study these old stories again and again and again. So some of you have heard this story before, I know. And so I'm sorry, you know, but Zen is kind of boring. We listen and talk about the same old stories again and again and again. And we do the same things every day, and we go to the meditation hall and just sit and sweep the ground. Anyway, so Zen is a

[12:21]

little boring, so I'm sorry about that. There was a teacher around Zen Center who used to say that if it's not boring, it's not Zen. So here's this old story that I'm still struggling with, because as some of you know, I'm still too busy. But I think it's a good story for us. Right in the middle of our busy lives, you should know there's one who's not busy. So we have a very busy world we live in today, in our modern world, with cell phones and email and the internet and PalmPilots, and we all have all these these contraptions to help us in this busy world, and they make us busier, seems like. So right in the middle of this busyness, do you know there's one who is not busy? This is an important point. So

[13:26]

in all the everyday activities that you do, the phone is ringing and you have deadlines, or you're on the freeway driving and people are cutting in front of you, or the traffic is crawling. Can you find the one who's not busy? Can you remember there's one who's not busy? Which reminds me, there's a question that maybe some of you can help me with this koan. Why is it they call it rush hour when the traffic is slowest? Anyway, if any of you can explain that to me later, tell me. So our main practice, you know, is just sitting upright. Just sitting still for many minutes at a time, often 40 minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes for a week at a time, or all day. We just sit quietly. We call this just sitting zazen, sitting meditation. And actually we just do it so that we can find the one who's

[14:28]

not busy. Because as we sit, paying attention to whatever comes up, being present and upright, right in the middle of our life, we start to get a feeling for this one who's not busy. We can actually open our heart and pay attention, right in the middle of all of the busyness of our hearts and minds and of the world. So usually we find this one who's not busy in what we call samadhi, when we actually can settle body and mind and enjoy our breathing and find this concentrated

[15:29]

meditative state of settleness. Right there, you may not be able to say anything about it, but you know, you can feel the one who's not busy. We can feel our wholeness, we can feel our energy, we can feel our total interconnectedness with the whole world. So we get little tastes of that, we get little glimmers of the one who's not busy when we sit. So in the koan, in the story, the commentary to the story says that you should recognize the one not busy, then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality. In the Soto Lineage, this is called simultaneous inclusion, naturally not wasting any time. So if you're running around forgetting the one who's not busy, you're just wasting

[16:35]

time. So when we sit, I was saying to the kids that I think it's like playing. So we talk about beginner's mind, just coming fresh to everything, to be present in our life, in our experience, with each inhale and with each exhale, just like a beginner. So we may know the one who's not busy, but maybe we don't know much about the one who's not busy. We just have a sense of the one who's not busy. And I think it is kind of the ultimate playing when we can be present, whatever we're doing, and feel this one who's not busy. So again, sometimes we get a taste of this in Zazen, and maybe this is the purpose of

[17:37]

Zazen. It's enough to just know the one who's not busy. But it's not just about Zazen, and in fact it happens that even in sitting meditation, so some of you may be new to this and are here for the first time this morning and just had Zazen instruction, so you may not know this, but it happens that people who are sitting Zazen, sometimes their minds are very busy. It happens. It does. At least it happens to me. And maybe it happens to some of you, that you're sitting quietly, settled, and your mind starts playing the tapes of all the things you have to do later today or tomorrow, or all of the laundry lists. Anyway, when is that bell going to ring? So, it's possible to be too busy right in the middle of Zazen. It's possible to be too busy right in the middle of sweeping the ground. But still, there's one who's not busy.

[18:40]

Can you feel her? She's always right here, the one who's not busy. So, that's what the second half of the story is about. Yun Yan said this wonderful statement, you should know there's one who's not busy. Anyway, that's enough. But then it goes on. His brother Dao Wu said, you mean there's a second moon? So, this is also important to us. The moon is this image of wholeness and perfection, this image of roundness and completion. And we can feel that part of our life. But sometimes we can think of Zazen as a second moon, or the one who's not busy as a second moon. So, as I said to the kids, Dao Wu was testing Yun Yan. Is there a second moon? And Yun Yan's response was just wonderful. I love this. He just

[20:04]

held out his broom and said, which moon is this? So, questions are important to our practice. He just said, which moon is this? It's possible for us to make a duality between Zazen, or the one who's not busy, and our busy life in working in the world, out there, off our cushion. It's a great temptation. And the point of this is that we don't have to run away from the busy world, and the busyness in our own minds, to find the one who's not busy. In fact, if you try and run away from the world to find the one who's not busy, you'll create more busyness. And you'll really waste your time. So, if we can remember to play right in the middle of our work, if we can remember, even

[21:13]

for just a moment, oh yeah, this one is not busy, and then get back to your intense concentration on your busy work of sweeping the ground. So, in our Zen tradition, non-duality is very important. That we find this way where we're not segmenting our lives into this and that. Where we see the connectedness of all things, and other different parts of our life, and our different activities. So, this is not non-duality, separate from duality. It's not like there's the world of duality out there, in the busyness of the world, and then we come here for non-duality. The non-duality is the non-duality between that duality and the non-duality. It gets kind of subtle. So in the commentary to this story, again, there's a quote from the Surangama Samadhi

[22:19]

Sutra, which some of the students here have been reading. It says, Like the second moon, who will say it is the moon? Who will deny it? For Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, only one moon is real. In between, there is naturally nothing that is or is not the moon. So, we can't segment the moon either. The moon is whole. Only one moon is real, and maybe it's everywhere. And in one of the added sayings, it says to the line, If so, then there's a second moon, the commentator added. Only two? There's hundreds, thousands, myriads of moons. But for Manjushri, who's that figure sitting in the main altar, that large figure, holding a teaching scepter, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, the ultimate Zen wise guy, he says, Only one moon is real. In between, there is naturally nothing that

[23:24]

is or is not the moon. So this is our non-duality. And this is what Yun Yan managed to express when he said, Which moon is this? So we turn these stories, and we turn our lives between the one who's not busy and the one who does take care of the world, does sweep the ground. So this commentary also talks about the Sattva lineage, esteeming the shift of potential and the revolution of state. We do shift, we get up from our cushion, and we take care of the world. And as one of the children said, maybe it's Dawu who's busy, who's the busy body. Yun Yan is just there sweeping the ground, totally happy, completely not busy, just sweeping away, taking care of the walkway outside. And totally not busy. And here comes Dawu, checking up on him. Hey, are you too busy? So our great American Zen, one of our great

[24:35]

American Zen patriarchs, Gary Snyder, says that Zen practice comes down to two things. Zazen and sweeping the temple. That's it. And then he adds, it's up to us to decide how big the temple is. So for the people who live at Green Gulch, this is their temple. For those of you who come in on Sunday, it may seem like this wonderful, idyllic place where you can see the one who's not busy. But having lived here, I can tell you that for the Green Gulch residents, they are very busy, sweeping the ground all the time. And taking care of planting and tending and harvesting the fields, taking care of plumbing systems and upkeep of the buildings, taking care of the guests, working in the kitchen, taking care of feeding everyone. So it can be very busy living in a place that's dedicated to

[25:37]

the one who's not busy. So our Zen practice emphasizes and focuses on how do we express the one who's not busy, right in the middle of the busyness and the troubles of the world. How do we recall the one who's not busy? How do we become familiar enough maybe in our Zazen, first of all, to have this deep relationship to the one who's not busy, who's of course not separate from us or anybody else. But then how does that express itself in the world, in the temple that we're sweeping? So, the one who's not busy is not only on our meditation cushions. It's not only up in the mountains of Tassajara or in the fields of Green Gulch. So, we have to know these two moons, these two sides of our non-duality. There's another

[26:54]

story about this story that I like that happened almost 500 years after Yun-Yun. And it's a story about one of our Soto founders in Japan, whose name was Keizan. So he was a few generations after Dogen, who you may have heard of, who was the first founder of Soto Zen in Japan. Anyway, Keizan, one night was outside looking up at the moon with one of his disciples. And he said, you know, by the way, that there are two moons. And his disciple said, what? What do you mean? And Keizan said, you must know there are two moons if you want to carry on this Soto lineage. So Dawu, 500 years before, was warning us against creating a second moon out of the one who's not busy. And here is Keizan saying, but you have to know that there are two moons. It seems funny. Which planet is this?

[27:57]

I've never seen two moons. And yet, there is this side of our practice. We have to be, know the one who's not busy and know the one who gets caught up and forgets the one who's not busy. Our practice is to be very familiar. So part of this story, one part of the story is that Yun-Yun is sweeping the ground. This kind of has a technical meaning. So literally, I'm sure the story also means that he was outside with a broom. But there is a kind of practice, a kind of meditation practice, a kind of Buddhist practice which we call sweeping the ground. Or sometimes we call it purification practice. So when we see our habits and our conditioning, and when we see all of the ways in which we get caught up and that prevent us from seeing the one who's not busy, there are various practices. We

[29:01]

could almost say karmic meditation practices to pay attention and to work on those. And we could say that that's kind of sweeping the ground. So we could also be too busy sweeping away our bad habits and conditioning. This may be what Dao was talking about actually. And we have to know those two moons. We do have to take care of this body and mind and take care and not ignore our conditioning. But our fundamental practice is just to see there's one who's not busy. Just to know there's one who's not busy. And right in the middle of trying to fix the world or fix yourself or right in the middle of doing therapies and can you see that there's one who's not busy. So this cuts through everything. So

[30:03]

Manjushri up there is carrying a teaching scepter like this. Sometimes he carries a sword just to cut through because he sees there's just one moon. And there's one who's not busy. So I wanted to give a few specific examples of the one who's not busy. And this first example is the one I gave 12 years ago when I was talking about this at Tassajara when I was head monk. And it's very appropriate specifically for today. Because I was giving the example of Joe Montana as the one who's not busy. And he was the quarterback for the 49ers back then when the 49ers were going to the Super Bowl. And he was amazing because right in the middle of these huge 300 pound incredibly athletic linemen coming to crush

[31:05]

him he could just look around and see what to do and throw these beautiful passes. And I am quite certain that he knew the one who was not busy right in the middle of that situation. So this is a very good example of knowing the one who's not busy right in the middle of activity. And there are many examples like that. And there are many examples in sports right in the middle of the whirlwind of some activity. So I don't know if some of you came to Green Gulch this morning to kind of find some meditative calm to prepare you for the thrill of watching the Super Bowl this afternoon. Maybe some of you did that. But I have a tip for those of you who are into watching the Super Bowl. And you can bank on the sure thing that whichever team wins, the quarterback, whether it's Warner or Brady, will know there's

[32:11]

one who's not busy. Right in the middle of all of that fuss and commotion and all of these people coming trying to knock him down, he will be able to see the one not busy. Or else he couldn't possibly win the Super Bowl. So I will yield to my temptation to give a another sports example, since I like baseball a lot more than football. So if any of you were watching Barry Bonds hit all those amazing home runs this last year, I guarantee you that right in the middle of all those people watching and all that expectation and all the cheering and 90 mile an hour fastballs coming at him, when he was doing that he knew there was one who's not busy. He was just right there. So it's not just famous athletes, but I think many people find this one not busy in activity,

[33:12]

in running, in doing some activity. It could be in a work activity too, when you have a very busy job. I used to work in the office here at Green Gulch and sometimes, particularly on Sundays, it was quite busy. And you could only answer all the phones and sell all the books and respond to all the questions if you, you could become very busy, too busy. Or you could know the one who's not busy and just take the next thing. So this one who's not busy that we find in Zazen is very important for our world and for our activity in the world and for expressing something of this in the world. So another example I wanted to mention, last Monday night there were about 15 or 20 Green

[34:13]

Gulch students who somehow managed to get away from their busy life at Green Gulch and go up the road to San Quentin, where there was the latest of our state murders that happens up the road there periodically. So there were about 50 or 60 people sitting at the gate all night doing Zazen, practicing this one not busy. There were also many other people from other faith traditions. Actually, I wasn't there this time. I've been there numbers of times. I did go to the vigil at the Episcopal Church in San Rafael. So for some Green Gulch students, that's part of their temple, too, witnessing against our government perpetuating cycles of vengeance and retribution. It's not far. It's part of our, if we think of Marin County as our parish, then it's part

[35:19]

of the Green Gulch Temple in a way. So I'm not bringing this up to talk about the death penalty, actually. We can do that in the discussion period later if you want. Although I feel okay bringing it up because our first precept is that a disciple of the Buddha does not kill. So we support life and we support not killing. Actually, Zen Center is officially a sponsor of California People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. But I think it's a good example of something that I'm trying to talk about. So the people waiting at the gate for this event to happen, whether they were sitting Zazen or just standing peacefully. There are many Christians there, too. In some ways, they had to find a situation of knowing the one who's not busy in the middle of this extreme kind of situation of waiting

[36:21]

for someone to be killed. So I think those Green Gulch students sitting there, it's actually difficult. I've done it numbers of times. It's cold and it can be wet. You don't have all the ideal cushions although people bring Zafus anyway. It's a very powerful experience and yet part of the power is this witnessing to the one who's not busy. It turns out that the person who was killed this time maybe also knew something about the one who's not busy. So I just found out about this Monday night. This person is named Steven Wayne Anderson and he committed a terrible, horrible murder more than 20 years ago. So probably he deserved to be in prison for life. But it seems like maybe he found the one who's

[37:24]

not busy right in the middle of sitting in the hell of death row. So I haven't been on death row myself but I know some people who go there to spend time with the people who live there. It's a very powerful place and it's a very horrible place. I did want to say, again not to talk about the death penalty exactly, but even if you theoretically think of that the death penalty is appropriate sometimes, it's going to happen very soon that there'll be 100 people in this country who've been on death row and proved to be innocent. We're almost up to 100. So even if you think theoretically maybe the death penalty is necessary. In that kind of system of justice and with all of the corruption

[38:28]

in our government that you can read about on the front pages. I don't know. Anyway, this person Monday night, Steven Wayne Anderson, while he was on death row for 20 years or more, seems to have found something because he became an award winning poet and a playwright. Actually I heard that the last night he was working to finish his novel up until midnight, up until they took him away, whenever, to the room for the injections. But he wrote this poem, one of the poems he wrote, which somehow seems to me relevant to this story about the one not busy. It's called How I Got This Ache. Late in the night I wanted to see this moon, but a wall got in the way. So lying down on the floor sideways, I gazed

[39:37]

up through iron bars and wire mesh covered window to behold a full moon, uncut by impediments and impositions of the state. There I lay until sleep came, enjoying the unrestricted view and at dawn I awoke with this sore neck, that unforgiving agony, the moon's revenge for my spying. So which moon was that that Steven Wayne Anderson saw? Giving him a sore neck as he looked out from death row. Could it be that he knew the one who's not busy even on death row? So there are lots

[40:43]

of examples. Of course those people on September 11th who brought down that plane in Pennsylvania rather than letting it crash into a building. They must have known the one not busy. They were just there, doing what had to be done. But in a way these examples miss the point. In some ways it's easier for people in very extreme situations, Super Bowl quarterbacks or people on death row or people in combat, sometimes get addicted to those activities because that's where they find the one not

[41:48]

busy. Again our Zen practice is kind of boring. We don't need those melodramatic situations. Right in our ordinary life, just as it is, in whatever we're doing, can you remember to play? Can you see the one who's not busy? Can you play around in your busyness and remember to take a breath and see what's important? See how we're connected and that the one who's not busy is right here and everywhere.

[42:25]

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