This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This morning, I'm going to present a case, go on, from the collection... of koans called the Blue Cliff Record, case number 26. So I'm going to read the case and then talk a little bit about the background and the commentaries. So the case is very short. A monk asked Master Hyakujo, what is the most wonderful thing?

[01:07]

Joe said, I sit alone on this great sublime peak. The monk made a very special bow. Joe took his stick and hit him. That's the case. The story. Hyakujou was a very well-known, famous teacher in the Tang Dynasty, somewhere in the 600 and 900. That was 300 years of the Tang Dynasty, called the Golden Age of Zen, where Zen was really shining and became the leading school of Buddhism in China for that period of time.

[02:20]

Sometimes the teachers are famous for using extraordinary and extreme... and creative ways of teaching, as you probably know, as we all know. So Hyakujo, one of the things that Hyakujo was famous for was standardizing the practice of the monasteries. Before that, sometimes the Zen students would use the monasteries of other schools. Matter of fact, often various schools would be practicing in the same monastery, but they had their own way, their own schools within the schools, sort of like a university.

[03:26]

And so... Zen school gradually developed their own monastic rules and way and their own monasteries. And so Hyakujo, we talked about the Hyakujo rules of monastic order, which has been lost. But the system, I don't know about the system, but the feeling is still there in... monastic way. So, when we talk about that, Hyakujo hit the monk. What did he hit him with? So I'm going to just go word by word through this story.

[04:30]

a monk asked Yakujo. So what were they doing when he asked him? It seems to me that they were sitting together. We have some interview called Dokusan. And in Dokusan, the teacher and the student sit facing each other. And sometimes the And they're very close, actually. And the teacher usually has some kind of a stick. Long stick or a short stick. This is the short stick. But the long stick is the same thing, but it's longer and used in a different way. You know, in monastic practice during zazen in Japan, and it was in China as well, and it was in America as well, until the 70s, late 70s, or maybe early 80s, when we stopped using the stick.

[05:54]

We used the stick every period of zazen for many, many years, and it was called the kiyu saku. The wake-up stick, I call it the wake-up stick. And the monitor goes around with a wake-up stick during Zazen. And if anybody wants to wake up, you know, we sit Zazen early in the morning, 5 o'clock, 4 o'clock, depending on where you are. And monks are very sleepy. And we're going like this. The monitor goes around with a big stick. And when you want to receive it, you put your hands like this. And boom, bang, bang. And you wake up. And everybody wakes up. It's good for everybody. You hit one person, everybody wakes up.

[06:57]

So it's actually very nice. Some people are aggressive. when they carry it. But basically, you know, it's something that's helpful, not vicious. Of course, depending on the nature of the person who uses it. I don't want to go any further into that. So the stick was used rather freely in Zen practice. So I just wanted to make that clear. So the two of them are sitting facing each other. And the monk asks Hyakujo, what is the most wonderful thing? Just wonderful could be extraordinary or great or

[08:06]

In this case, the translator used the word wonderful. I like the word extraordinary. I like both of them, actually. But I like the word extraordinary because extraordinary is the opposite of ordinary. What is the most extraordinary thing? But here he says, what is the most wonderful thing? Okay. So, the monk asked Hyakujo, what is the most wonderful thing? Hyakujo said, I sit alone on this great sublime peak. So, usually we think of alone as isolated. Actually, when

[09:07]

The students or the monks sit zazen. It looks like each one, we're sitting in a row, sit on a taon there, and everyone is absorbed. Each one is absorbed in their navel-gazing. That's what we used to say, navel. Each one is absorbed in their zazen. And so it looks like each one is alone. although each one is sitting next to the next one. But alone is a very interesting word because it holds its opposite. Alone, the etymology of alone, means at one with. That's very interesting to me. Alone.

[10:09]

means either isolated or together with. So when Hyakujo says, I sit alone, yes, he's sitting isolated at the same time, at one with everything. This is the nature of Zazen. In Zazen, meditation, Buddhist Zen meditation, when one sits cross-legged this way, sitting upright, the whole universe is included.

[11:11]

When we let go of our small mind, we allow, as my old teacher used to say, we allow our big mind to express itself. Excuse me. So to sit at one with big mind, our big mind. which includes everything. As soon as we start to discriminate, then things start to become divisive, divided. So I don't want to go into that right now, but I sit alone, or I sit at one with. that one with everyone, with everything, on this great sublime peak.

[12:24]

It just so happens that there was a small peak in Mount Hyakujo, on Mount Hyakujo, which Hyakujo is named after, called the sublime peak. So what does sublime mean? Sublime is sub, right? Substantial or sitting with allowing that which is very deep, subliminal to appear, to find its way up. Sublime means bringing what is very deep to the surface. So that's also the nature of Zazen, is bringing what is endlessly deep to the surface and allowing it to express, to be expressed or express itself in the world.

[13:42]

Sometimes we call it light. You can call it light because it's so dark. Light and dark being the same thing, two expressions of the same thing. We say in the dark, everything is one. In the light, all of the various things are distinguished. When you turn on the light, everything is there in its own individuality. When you turn off the light, everything is still there, but it shares the darkness as one thing. This is our understanding. So what is the most wonderful thing? Joe said, I sit alone on this great sublime peak. the monk made a bow and Hyakujo hit him.

[14:52]

Bam! With his stick. Well, so what is hitting? What is the hit? Hit means various things in Zen. Dashaan is famous for Master Dush on his famous part is 30 blows. He said, right or wrong, 30 blows. Give me the right answer or the wrong answer, I'll give you 30 blows. 30 blows can be punishment, but it's not. Or it can be praise. Which one? Praise or punishment? Same thing. Various commentators have their take on what the blow means here.

[16:05]

They say, well, this is a good monk, or they say, this is a dumb guy, or asking a foolish question. He wanted to, the monk wanted, apparently, something extraordinary. He wanted Yakujo to say something extraordinary. What is the most wonderful thing? Well, yeah, you want something extraordinary. And he said, I just sit here on this great sublime peak with everyone. So when the monk bowed, it was a very sincere bow. And Tiago Jo met him with a very sincere blow. It was like perfect match. Perfect match.

[17:08]

So the blow was like a kiss. I remember when our teacher, Suzuki Roshi, used to walk around to Zendo back in the day and hit us with his stick. And it was so wonderful. We're not masochists. People sometimes think that we're masochists in Zen, but some of us are. But basically, we're not masochists. That blow was like a kiss. It was so wonderful. He communicated his essence through that blow, through that hit. He would hit us twice on each shoulder. Bam, bam. Bam, bam. Everybody wake up. And feel his energy flowing through us.

[18:13]

I remember people would ask, every once in a while, someone would ask Suzuki Roshi, what is the most important thing? And often he would say, the most important thing is to ask, what is the most important thing? So he would never tell us really what to do. His way of teaching was, you should keep asking, what is the most important thing? You should keep asking, what should I do now? What should I do? Where am I? What should I do? Instead of looking for the answer, the answer's always in the question. We have to understand that the answer is in the question.

[19:23]

What is the most important thing? The most important thing is to ask the question. Answers are a dime a dozen. But the real treasure is in the asking of the question. And to follow the question. Keep following the question. The question is what leads us. Question, what's the meaning of question? Quest. Request. Follow your quest. So life is the big question. What is it? It is what? What is it? What is it?

[20:26]

It is what? And what is what is not a question. It's a question and an answer. It is it. I always have to laugh when I see these little ice cream bars. It's it. Well, the reason I... One reason that I'm using this koan is because I woke up the other day and I... It just popped into my head. What is the way to Mount Dayuho?

[21:28]

What is the way to Mount Dayuho? It's a great question. So then I thought of this koan of Yaku Jo. Master Dogen has a commentary on this colon. He says, my response would be, nothing. When the monk asked, what is the most wonderful thing? I would say, nothing. He also said, bringing my mendicant bowl, my eating bowl, my monk's eating mole from Joe Gigi to Mount Tendo and using it to eat rice. Pretty mundane, you know, pretty mundane response.

[22:46]

So what is extraordinary and what is ordinary? That's why I like the term extraordinary because extraordinary means something beyond the ordinary, right? But actually our life, what is extraordinary, the most extraordinary thing is what is ordinary. This is the essence of our Zen practice. What is ordinary is what is extraordinary. Washing the dishes, making compost, sweeping the floor, extraordinary activity. Eating rice, extraordinary activity. Washing the bowl, what extraordinary activity. When we are a baby, everything is extraordinary. And then as we grow up, what is extraordinary becomes ordinary.

[24:01]

And then we keep looking for something more extraordinary because we get bored with what is ordinary. But when we wake up, we realize that what is ordinary is the most extraordinary. When Hyakujo hit the monk with a stick, He was like, wake up. Bam, wake up. What's ordinary is the most extraordinary. Dogen says, what's extraordinary for me is carrying my eating bowl from one place to another and eating rice with it, washing my bowl. sweeping the floor. It's like going to a tide pool, you know, and it just looks like nothing's happening there until you really focus on what's going on.

[25:10]

And then you see all this life emerging. So sitting still and not discriminating so extraordinary and so ordinary. think it was Dogen who said when we realize that all our actions have the same value as eating rice we will find the most important thing this is called the horizontal you know

[26:30]

The way we construe our activities, or our life actually, is horizontal and vertical. Horizontal means that everything is the same. Vertical means that everything is different. The problem we have, or one problem that we have, is that we see, we tend to live in the world of verticality, hierarchy, and difference. But we very rarely look and see how everything is actually the same. Horizontal.

[27:31]

In our understanding, there are four wisdoms, four aspects of wisdom. The first one is like a big mirror. Life is like a mirror. And when we see, the mirror sees everything exactly as it is, without bias. When you look in the mirror, it's interesting. We look in the mirror and we see... our reflection as it is. But the second time we take a glance, we adjust the mirror to make ourselves look better. We don't actually change the mirror, we just change our mind. And our mind distorts the mirror, what we see in the mirror. Anyway, the mirror itself sees everything exactly as it is.

[28:36]

So that's important because it means unbiased. No favoritism. No distortion. We distort by discrimination. The second wisdom is the wisdom of horizontal sameness. We see everything as one piece. The third wisdom is we see everything horizontally, hierarchically, and in relationship to everything else as it is. The fourth wisdom is being able to see, to act according to that understanding in the world, which is called enlightened activity.

[29:45]

Because the other three, we based our understanding on those first three wisdoms. The fourth wisdom is actually acting out according to enlightened wisdom. So we were able to see the extraordinary quality in everything. This is being able to see Buddha in each person. We can see the Buddha nature within each person. The Buddha nature, there are many ways to talk about that, but in this particular way, we all have the Buddha within us. But in order to reveal it, we have to let go of all our biases.

[30:51]

Bias means seeing something from one angle. So to see the complete thing, we have to let go so that the mirror shines on everything equally. the great equality and the great difference. So Master Hakujo says, I sit alone on this great sublime peak. That's why we call him So through Zazen, through letting go,

[32:13]

and opening ourselves completely to the universe, we gather ourselves together and allow our true nature to emerge and then we offer that to the world. So each one of us is a vehicle for enlightenment, the enlightenment that is already within us. And when we release that enlightenment that is within us, we induce the energy of the universe. And we become a free-flowing, I don't know, tube. Or inducing, I don't know about inducing that enlightened energy and offering it to the world.

[33:26]

I just want to say one more thing about Hyakujo and the monk. Hyakujo hitting the monk. And the statement, I would say, would be, you're bowing to me as if I had said something extraordinarily wonderful. A monk named Nansen, and as his student, Joshu. Joshu was a young man. Nansen was his teacher. And Joshu asked him a question.

[34:50]

question. It's a similar question. What is the most wonderful thing? What is realization? Should I go after it? And Nansen said, if you go after it, you miss it. If you don't go after it, nothing will happen. So should you go after it or should you not go after it? Should you chase it or should you do it alone? That's the koan of our practice.

[36:10]

If you go after it, you stumble past. If you don't go after it, you miss it. very much thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center our programs are made possible by the donations we receive please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support for more information visit sfzc.org and click giving May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[37:15]

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