This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. I wanted to start the talk by... mentioning something you may already know but tonight is the peak the peak of the Perseid I think it's pronounced, meteor shower and it will be visible at 11 o'clock and all through the night and this comes once a year in August and this year we're in a new moon so it's the dark of the moon and Tassajara night sky.

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Some of you may know there's an observatory up the road. This is, this will be just the perfect night to see the meteors, the Perseus. And they're in the northeastern part of the sky in the constellation Perseus. And the I think the dust grains are traveling at 135,000 miles an hour, and when they hit the atmosphere, they burst into flame, and there's these long tails, and it's just so exciting. But I know we have to get up early, but I think I can't miss this. Perseus is born from Zeus and Danae, and she was kept... by her parents in a bronze chamber with no roof, and Zeus impregnated her in the guise of a shower of gold.

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So I think we get to see a shower of gold tonight in the sky. I'm co-leading a Zen and Yoga retreat with Patricia Sullivan, who is, I always have to find her, who is right over there. And we are working very deeply on, I would say, our habitual ways of carrying the body, doing activities, holding the body. And working very skillfully with props and other kinds of postures and the wall that become constraints in a certain way to our doing it in the habitual way, which frees us to do it in a whole new way.

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This is the secret of freedom, is constraints, structure. We tend to think that freedom is doing it any way I want, but we're actually in bondage to our habitual way, and the actions that we do repeatedly have effect on our bodies, and so we're working this very deep way. And I wanted to... Tonight I'm going to be talking about two Zen teachers and some stories, and... Just in tribute to Patricia, one of the stories is about the teacher Yunnan, who was a Chinese Zen master in the late 700s and into the 800s, and his disciple Dungshan, who was in the 800s. And I'll tell you their kind of teaching stories, but after Yunnan died,

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Dungshan was doing a memorial service for him, which is a traditional thing to do, on the anniversary of someone's death, and making offerings. And a monk asked Dungshan, when you were with Yunnan, what did he teach you? What teaching did he give you? And Dungshan said, he didn't give me anything. And the monk said... but you're holding this memorial service for him and making these offerings and all. Don't you approve of his teaching? And Dungshan said, half approve, half not approve. And the monk said, why don't you completely approve? And Dungshan said, if I completely approved, then I would be disloyal to my late teacher. So in tribute to Patricia, my understanding of her teaching is she draws from all the teachers that she's had for decades and decades, and newer teachers, and doesn't just wholesale take what they taught and present that, but it combines with her unique sensibilities, her unique...

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wisdom, her unique practice. And so she half approves and half doesn't approve. And that's how she's, this is my commentary, that's how she's loyal to the teachers who have given her so much. But if a teacher's given you, you can't just then spit it out, take it hook, line, and sinker and spit it out. That's how the teaching ends up dying. It has to be renewed and refreshed with each person with their own unrepeatable life and wisdom. So thank you very much, Dr. Sarah, Yunyan and Gengshan. Something else I wanted to mention to you before getting into the kind of heart of the talk, Or maybe this is the heart, but I'm going to my 50th high school reunion in St.

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Paul, Minnesota, in a couple weeks. And some people have written me saying, oh, so-and-so's going to be there. And I've had these memories come up. And there was one very strong memory of someone in grade school who went on to high school. Oh, actually, he left. So I don't know what happened to him. And I'll just say his name is Eric W. in case he ever listens to this talk or anybody knows him. Anyway, I knew him in fifth and sixth grade in Great School, Groveland Park Grade School. And he had a terrible stutter, just the worst stutter that I've ever heard anyone. He struggled and struggled and struggled to get out a simple word. And it was... He was in regular classes. Maybe he went to speech education or something at some part during the day, but he was in regular classes, and it was excruciating to hear him and watch what he went through to try and answer a question or say anything.

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And I sat next to him, and I realized that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to him because what happened is I had, I think, I started out having empathy for him, and it turned in some way which was completely premeditated by me, but I wanted to communicate with him. I wanted to be a friend. with him. He was very cute, by the way, which is beside the point. But anyway, very sweet. And so what I found that I found somehow that I would just relax my body, relax my facial muscles, you know, because it was like you'd begin to kind of mirror image, you know, what he was going through.

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So I I learned to kind of settle and breathe. This I've just realized. Relaxing my face and body and softening and just listen. And I remember thinking, however long it takes, I'm in no hurry. We're just going to listen. And it was a gift to me of... an experience of being with another person in a new way, you know. And he, I think he maybe appreciated what the relationship was, this settling and softening and just know her patience, that's what it was, just patiently, patiently. even though it was kind of excruciating.

[10:08]

When I settled into it that way, it was just what it was. It was these sounds and these, that's what it was. And I had, I wasn't in any hurry. Anyway, he gave me a present, which was around Christmas time. It was in public school at that time. We used to have Christmas trees. Maybe you still do, I don't know. But anyway, we used to decorate the tree. And he gave me a Christmas ornament for the tree. to put on, because everyone could bring something. And I don't know what happened, but I dropped it or crushed it. I remember his face, you know, with this broken gift. Anyway, then he left. I think he left before high school. But just in these last couple days, as I think about this reunion, Eric W. has come up, and I realize that And this is true always. We owe our own practice development to beings in our life.

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We don't do it on our own in a vacuum. It's by our relationships, difficult though they may be, that we mature and grapple with these areas of our life and out of love for others. So we owe enormous debt two beings in our life who help us to practice. Without other beings we wouldn't be able to. So in the workshop we've been talking about the two truths, the teaching of the two truths, the conventional truth, which is called samvrittisatta, and the ultimate truth, paramartasatya.

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And these two truths are in the earliest of Buddhist teachings and are developed in many, many ways all throughout and still being developed and celebrated and studied and grappled with. So the conventional truth, sometimes called the partial, or the inclined, or difference. Suzuki Roshi called it small mind, is our conventional life of persons, places, and things, the 10,000 things. Our life of separate, feeling separate from one another. You're over there, I'm over here, subject and object. Just regular life. we're all very familiar with. And if we think that's all there is, there's a great deal of suffering there, and there's a great deal of suffering even if we have been exposed to the teachings about there is more than that, or something else going on as well.

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The ultimate truth, which is not somewhere else, but these two truths are not separate from each other. There are two truths about the one reality of our life. The ultimate truth, sometimes called big mind, or universal, or the upright, equality, is the truth that all things do not have an abiding self, but all things And appearances and thoughts and visibles and hearables and touchables and everything in our experience is not a separate, substantial, permanent thing, but is codependently arising and depends on everything else to come to be. It has no abiding self.

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This is the ultimate truth. And in the ultimate truth, all things are equal in their no-abiding self. Nothing's privileged over anything else. In fact, there is nothing there except this flowing, interdependent, arising moment that includes everything. This is big mind. Ultimate truth. Now, one might think, ooh, I want to go there. What does Tina Fey's daughter say? I want to go to that. I want, you know, that sounds really good. Then all my problems of the conventional self will be gone in an instant, and some idea of that may come to pass. However, this is a kind of illusion that there's somewhere to get to where you're going to get to

[15:29]

some other truth, because the ultimate truth is not apart from the conventional truth. The two are traditionally, there's the image of two sides of one coin. It's depending how you look at things or what's going on, these things are not separate. Although when they're mixed, you know where you are. So the conventional truth, this idea of I want to get out of conventional truth, there's so much suffering there. There's, you know, people, animals, plants, the whole earth that's suffering terribly. Let me out. And this is kind of understandable, but there's no way out like that.

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The only way we can approach big mind or the ultimate is through and with what we've got, which is what's already here, which is this very conventional truth. We start with exactly the small self or the small mind, taking good care of it, studying the self, to see how it actually exists, what is its nature. So we don't leave behind or try to get rid of something that is a delusion, that there's anything to get rid of, because the small self, if you study its nature, you will see that it has no abiding self. And its nature is ultimate nature. At the very same time, it is unique, unrepeatable, completely each one of us is an appearance that will never come again.

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And we have our own personalities and functions and natures and way of seeing the world and language and education and lineage and family. And nobody can exchange that with us, not even one. drop and at the exact same time that there are causes and conditions that have allowed that to come forth in that very way that you we didn't make that ourselves we didn't produce that it was produced by all beings together produced each of us and all things that haven't happened When we talk about causes and conditions, there's the conditions that didn't occur. That's part of how we are. The fact that, you know, we didn't drive off the road or all sorts of things that could have happened.

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The fact that it didn't is part of the conditions in our life. It's vast, right, when you start thinking of everything that didn't happen. along with everything that has arisen, it's inconceivable. And all that co-created us and each of us is completely unique. So, you know, it's like you look at it one way and then you flip it the other way and then you flip it back. This is how these two truths work. They kind of flicker flowing this way. So we have to start where we are, which is this very psychophysical event called body-mind, and to study it, care for it, study its habitual patterns, practice the virtues, the teachings that have been given to us that we're so grateful for.

[19:51]

We start there. Where else can we start? And starting there is enough. We lack nothing. And in this, starting with the only way of meeting the ultimate truth is through the small mind, or meeting big mind through small mind. And compassion is a very important ingredient, you might say, to this. It helps us to kind of leap clear of the 10,000 things and the separateness and the ultimate. It kind of, we don't have to fall into one or the other or incline to one or the other, just upright, leaping clear through acts of compassion. The

[20:56]

Ancestor in a lineage Nagarjuna talks about grounding in the conventional, the importance of grounding, having a foundation in the fundamental conventional world, conventional life, before you can approach or open to the ultimate. You have to start in the conventional. And our compassion practice, which is our Zen mind, beginner's mind, is compassion practice, makes this connection between these two seemingly separate things. In compassion, they're unified. So the story I wanted to tell about Dhramsan and Yunyang, I just told one about the commemorative service and the... The other story I wanted to tell, it starts out, Dungshan has been studying with Yunnan for a while at his mountain place, and it's time for him to take leave and go study with, go on pilgrimage.

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And so he tells Yunnan that he's going to go, and Yunnan asks him, where are you going? And Dungshan said, I don't know where I'll end up. And Yunnan said, are you going to go home? And he says, no. And Yunnan said, sooner or later, you'll return. And Dungshan says, when the master has an abode, then I'll return. When the master has an abode. then I'll return." And Yuen Yang said, if you leave, it will be very difficult to meet again. And Dung Shan said, it will be very difficult not to meet again. So this is this intimate exchange between them.

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When the Master has an abode, this is, there is no abode, there is the mind of no abode. When the Master has an abode, then I'll return. Meaning, I'm not returning, but I will meet you. Wherever I go, I'll meet you. The teacher said, it will be difficult to meet again. It will be difficult not to meet again, because everywhere I go. And then the story goes on. Just as he's about to leave, he said, if people ask me, Dunchan asks Yunnan, if people ask me, what is your... What is the reality of your teaching? How should I respond? And Yunnan was quiet for a moment, paused, a long pause, and finally said, just this is it.

[24:15]

And then Dugshan was very quiet. One translation said he sighed. And then Yunnan said to him, and this is almost like his entrustment to him, he said, you are now in charge of the great matter. You must be very thoroughgoing. And Dungshan was speechless, he had nothing to say, and set off on foot And when I was with the pilgrimage to China in the year 2000, we went from Yunyan's temple to Dengshan's temple in China. And from this story, I'd always thought he just went for a little while, maybe, you know, several miles, and then had this experience, which I'll tell you about.

[25:19]

But it was eight hours in a bus to get from Yunyan's temple to Dengshan's temple. So he walked for a long time, maybe 150 miles, and all the while pondering his teacher's parting words, you know, the reality of his teaching, just this is it. And you now are in charge of this great matter. You must be very thoroughgoing. So... After walking for probably a long time, he came to a stream, and in crossing the stream, he looked into the water and saw his reflection in the water. And at that moment, Dung Shan realized the meaning of what his teacher had said upon his taking leave. Just this is it. And he composed...

[26:22]

a poem in celebration of this realization of his true nature. His true nature of suchness. And the poem goes like this. Just don't seek from others or you'll be estranged from yourself. I now go on alone Everywhere I go, I meet it. It now is me. I now am not it. You must understand in this way to merge with suchness or to understand suchness. Just don't seek from others or you'll be a stranger from yourself.

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The seeking to get something with some idea that it's out there somewhere and somebody else has it. Why don't they give it to me? Seeking from others when actually the reality is you already are it. It now is me. The true nature of this very appearance is suchness, is it. And the small mind, I now am not it. It now is me. I now am not it. The small myriad things, you can't say that that's the whole entire thing. However, the nature of that small mind, the nature of each appearance, is suchness. And I'll go out not alone, everywhere I go I encounter it, I meet it, which he had said to his teacher, you know, before when his teacher said it will be hard to meet, he said it will be hard not to meet.

[28:32]

I think that kind of was the pre-voice of this in some way. And then you must, one must understand in this way to merge with suchness. This isn't, it isn't a kind of easy binary thing like It now is me and I now am it. Done. It has a kind of dynamic quality to it. It now is me. I now am not it. So this is a koan. This is a teaching story that reveals... of reality you know and in this in these kinds of stories you know my tendency is to search you know to seek from others you know like read commentaries ask somebody can somebody give me the secret don't keep it from me however it doesn't work that way you know and in this memorial service when Yunnan's memorial service was happening and the monk said

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What was the teaching that you got from Yunnan? He said, he didn't give me anything. And how grateful that someone didn't try to just pour in some kind of dead words that I would repeat over and over. I think Dung San understood. He just, he said what he said and gave it to me to be thoroughgoing. You're in charge now of this great matter. This is, keep it well. Now you have it. Keep it well. Study it. Study the self. Nobody can do it for us. So this is an encouraging story for me. No one can do it for us. Don't seek from others. Or you'll get further and further away from this self, which is both small self and big self. Its nature is ultimate, and yet it comes and goes, birth and death.

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So the only way we can enter this practice is the compassionate practice of our sitting and how we extend that into our everyday life. everyone we meet, speak to. And as Suzuki Roshi said, light up one corner. Maybe we can't, some people do, but maybe we can't do the big, great, enormous, life-changing event, but we can shine one corner. And every corner, meaning everybody we come in contact with, we can shine. so thank you very much please continue your practice with care and loving hearts and maybe I'll see you out in the dark

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watching the shower of gold. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

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