This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for sitting. Thank you for being here and being a sangha. the contribution of the Sangha is more than measure. And our sitting Rohatsu this week helps everyone, everywhere, in immeasurable ways. So I want to say my internet connection is a little bit dicey. So if you can't hear the

[01:03]

or can't read, if something interrupts, please let me know. And I have a different setup in a different room that might work better. So if you actually let Kodo know, and Kodo will facilitate. So I want to give thanks from the bottom of my heart to Abbott David, Thank you for opening the subject of karma and particularly for so thoroughly engaging us in the study of the wild fox koan and how it helps us understand our relationship with cause and effect. These teachings are not just for Sushi. These teachings are for a whole lifetime. and beyond lifetimes to study.

[02:08]

And the more we can study them, not just as teachings from someone else, but teaching in our own bodies, the more our lives will be accessible as help sports for ourselves and for everyone around us. And so this is a gift that reaches everywhere. I also want to thank Hensan, the Shuso, for entering the stream of Shuso practice, this practice period. And this time as Shuso, running around ringing the wake-up bell, And of helping support a practice period inside the temple and in the interconnected world of the internet welcomes people into the practice.

[03:22]

And it's an important example for us, that enthusiasm. that wholehearted dedication and that willingness to straightforwardly face obstacles and use them as food. Let's let's appreciate that. So thanks. Okay. And I want to thank everyone who's been practicing and sitting in this session. And I've been speaking with about, um, Six or seven people a day. And. That the. What I'm hearing from people is. In general. Feelings of. Difficulty are higher than. They are in a lot of sessions. And that the variety of people's circumstances be with and not ignore and understand that there are people in so many different, with so many different things going on, trying to sit sesheen at this time, trying to pull our lives together.

[04:50]

And... in the changing pandemic conditions, in the conditions of our lives. I want to read a poem by Mary Oliver to start the content part of this. I was thinking about karma the other day while I was washing my bathtub. And I often think about karma when I wash the tub because... You know, washing a tub is not a straight floor. You would think that you could just put the soap in and wash it and it would be clean. But actually, to really wash a bathtub well, you have to put the cleanser in and let it kind of stay there for a while on top of the dirt so it can have to smush around the dirt and the soap and the water all at the same time. And you can't press too hard, but you can't press too soft either.

[05:57]

You have to press exactly the right amount to touch the dirt and to touch the clean surface of the bathtub underneath. And so I'm thinking about karma and how we work with karma, particularly when we sit sesshin. You know, which is, you know, setsushin means to settle and kind of organize and order and purify and clean and refresh the mind. But to me, it's not a matter of just pouring in the soap of, you know, meditation techniques and coming out with a clean body and mind. It's not like that at all. It's more smushing around the soap. the dirt with exactly enough pressure to feel both the dirt and the clean at the same time.

[07:00]

And washing the bathtub is beyond dirty or clean, actually. It's part of living and being lived for the benefits. And I was thinking about that and thinking about how we are. The classic metaphor is a lotus in muddy water. So this is a poem by Mary Oliver. It's not about lotuses. It's about lilies, but as close as I could get in America. Okay. So this is called the lilies break open over the dark water. The lilies break open over the dark water. And I'll read it twice. Inside that mud hive, that gas sponge, that reeking leaf yard, that rippling dream bowl, the leeches flecked in swirling brass riches Babylon.

[08:10]

The fists crack open and the wands of the lilies quicken. They rise like pale poles with their wrapped beaks of lace. One day they tear the surface, the next they break open over the dark water. And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea, some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild. They are devoid of meaning. They are simply doing. From the deepest spurs of their being. What they are impelled to do with. Every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you. So, let's try that again.

[09:15]

Okay, so, she's looking at lilies in a pond. Inside that mud hive, that gas sponge, that reeking leaf yard, that rippling dream bowl, the leeches fleckling broth of life as rich as Babylon. The fists crack open and the wands of the lilies quicken. They rise like pale poles with their... They're wrapped. One day they tear the surface. The next day they break open over the dark water. And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea, some news of your own life.

[10:17]

But the lilies are slippery and wild. They are devoid of meaning. They are simply doing from the deepest spurs of their being what they are in Peltzhammer. And so, dear sorrow, are you? So, tomorrow we're going to honor Suzuki Roshi. in the morning, who came to the United States and stayed here until he died, trying to teach us then. And the next day we'll honor the Buddha, the Buddha's enlightenment, after eons and lifetimes of learning the world by experiencing the world as every kind of being.

[11:22]

And after the Buddha was enlightened, if you go to Bhagaya sometime, you'll see the Bodhi tree, which is a descendant of the original. And there's a temple. There's a beautiful stupa right there. And behind that stupa, there's a lotus pond where it's said that the Buddha sat for a long time trying to decide what to do after waking up. He just sat with his awakening. He tried to understand whether he was going to stay in Sesshin or whether he was going to go back out into the world. And he contemplated the lilies or the lotuses rising up from the dark water and floating on the dark water, those colorful flowers that are there. from the depths where there's all kinds of algae and mysterious wildlife living in the water, to the simple forms of the lotus, to the enormous sky in that part of the world.

[12:42]

The Buddha sat with all of that and in all of that, just being in the world and just understanding. how to bring his practice of awakening, the moment of awakening to a satisfying close, which would be the rest of his life of teaching. So he sat there, much as Mary Oliver did, but without trying to attach meaning to the lilies, the lotuses. He allowed them to have their own meaning. And that metaphor of the muddy water, all the pieces of that metaphor came alive for him. He prepared to teach everyone and everything. So during this seshing, we've heard a lot about how to practice with karma.

[13:52]

to recognize the patterns of the mind, the endless moving train of the mind. But did you know that the character for Nan has the now part on top? and has the heart-mind part on the bottom. The character for Nam means moment, but it also means remembrance. It also means the mind of practice. It means small mind. It means big mind. It means the practice that connects them. We've heard how to say yes. how to work with the obstacles.

[14:53]

And we've had days and days of working with our obstacles, of meeting our desire, our rejection, our torpor, our agitation, and our second guessing. And gradually we feel how desire turns into enjoyment, how enunciation, how torpor turns into stability, how restlessness or agitation, how we can capture the energy of that, and how second-guessing or doubt turn and discriminate. If we patterns, not with a reified, grasping hand of thought, but if we open the hand of thought to them, they transmute.

[16:01]

They become helpful. They become part of life. And we heard about a Zen teacher who fell into... the body of a fox for 500 lifetimes for saying that he was immune to cause and effect. So I want to just unpack that a little bit and say who is immune to cause and effect. So in the philosophical context in which the Buddha was born and practiced, There were beings who were said to be immune to cause and effect. And the name for that being is God. God is said to be immune from cause and effect. But the Buddha's practice wasn't about heavenly life or about trying to see God.

[17:14]

His practice, what he was trying to do was to look at the question of human life in the way that we could experience it right now in our current situation. And he wasn't trying for a set of experiences that was not accessible to everyone. And so he focused on the texture of everyday life. we could do with that. And so, so no one who's, you know, if you're not omnipotent and omniscient, you're not immune to cause and effect. Only those who are omnipotent, omniscient, and all of those omnis are immune to cause and effect.

[18:16]

And those are not the people we tend to meet, you know, at our front door. Not unless we have a special way of seeing. And so the reason that the old man fell into the body of a wild fox for 500 lifetimes and needed to be absolved. with the funeral ceremony, was that the way that he spoke about cause and effect would mislead people into stopping their practice. So if there was someone who could practice for a while and then become immune to cause and effect, then people were likely to stop their practice when they felt... some sort of global feeling from their meditation practice, mistaking that for awakening.

[19:20]

And that happens to us. So around five of Sashin, oh my goodness, it's day five of Sashin. You know, when the original difficulties that we entered Sashin with begin to become a little bit more manageable for us, And we occasionally reach a state of concentration. We tend to rest on our laurels and think that that's our attainment. We tend to act as if there's nothing more to do. What else to do is to enjoy the concentration that we've found. And that is a mistake because that reveals a hidden assumption. that we're now immunized against cause and effect. But I'm here to say that day five carries the Omicron variant of cause and effect.

[20:26]

And so we're not immune to cause and effect. It just pops up in other ways. And this particular variant is that we assume that our work is done. But I also want to unpack a little bit what is meant by a wild fox spirit, because if we just thought that the man was punished because he tended to mislead people and allow them to stop their practice, we would be wrong. We would be so wrong. So not only is our practice not finished, but But also a wild fox spirit is not a wild fox spirit. So it's an endlessly shifting target. So in Japanese culture, Kitsune has no concept of right or wrong, but is a trickster and with some supernatural powers.

[21:34]

I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but I believe that in Chinese, It's Huli Jing, which is a fox spirit with someplace between one and nine tails. And each lifetime of a fox, they get in. The nine tail fox becomes golden and goes to heaven and has super supernatural powers. And that in Japan, fox spirits are also Shinto messages, messengers of Inari, the rice god. And in Mikyo, or the hidden practices, the figure of the fox spirit is kind of an oracular figure, which is used to kind of explore the edges of dream time. And I also believe

[22:40]

They hold a magical jewel or pearl. And that if you catch the spirit and find out who they are, and if you get that pearl, you get a wish. And that kitsune keep their promises. And so there's actually a very old saying that says, where there is no fox, village can be established. So isn't that strange that being a fox spirit isn't just a punishment. It's also seen as absolutely essential to having an interconnected life. Why is that? So who is the fox spirit in the koan? Is the fox spirit bad and being punished and Baijiang is good? Some people would even say that Baijiang is And the fox spirit are one and the same.

[23:43]

And that the fox spirit is an older version of Bajan. And so Dogen speaks to a situation. At one point, he was invited by his sponsor to go to Kamakura and teach lay people. And so he just taught what he always taught. But he was gone for seven months. I was really upset with him. And so when he came back, he felt he had to apologize. And he gave this talk, which is recorded in the Ehe Kodoku... Case number 251. And the Ehe Koroku is Dogen's extensive records, which is translated by Taigen Layton and Shohaku Ogamora. And it's a huge collection of Dogen's little talks.

[24:50]

So the big chapters are big talks and articles that he wrote about the Dharma. But his later teaching was in the form of these little talks. And he would give a talk while standing, and then people in the monastery could ask questions, and he would answer them. So what he said was, and moving, he was confronted with people's displeasure on returning back to the monastery, and he gives kind of this wild fox talk. He says, He's talking about how he's never taught anything different. And he says here, this single matter is what this old man has been able to clarify, express, trust, and practice. Does the Great Assembly want to understand this truth?

[25:55]

And then he gets into it. He says, I cannot stand that my tongue has no means. To express cause and effect. How many mistakes I've made in my effort to cultivate the way. How pitiful it is today. I've become a water buffalo. And then he says, but maybe this is the phrase for expounding Dharma. how shall I utter a raise for returning home to this mountain? So you see, Dogen is expressing both the wholeness of his life and the inadequacy of his life. And this return is like a rebirth in his non-mystery for him.

[27:01]

You know how in the Puganzas, I think it says, when first... You seek the Dharma, you are far from its environs. In the Genja Kohan it says that when you realize the truth, you realize that something is missing. So this is what he's expressing here. I cannot stand that my tongue has no means to express cause and effect. How many mistakes I've made in my effort to cultivate the way. how shall I utter the phrase for returning home? So maybe the fox is by John. Maybe John is giving repentance and funerary rites to himself. Maybe

[28:04]

the koan expresses different parts of our whole life practice. The part that sees the valk spirit, the part that is the valk spirit. Valk spirits are not just diminished beings. They are magic beings. The karma of 500 lifetimes as a fox spirit is a magical jewel to keep promises of our life. And this is important. I'm sorry, I don't have this all written down neatly, but I wanted to give you a little example. It's more Dogen, but this is Dogen. as reported on by his main disciple, Ejo.

[29:04]

So this is someone who cared so much about Dogen, whether he was giving a good talk or a bad talk or whatever. He cared so much about him. He wrote down all his talks and published them in a book. This is Cohen, Ejo, speaking. So he writes... He writes that one time he asked Dogen, what is the meaning of not being blind to cause and effect? What is the meaning of not being blind to cause and effect? And that Dogen responded, not moving cause and effect, not budging cause and effect. Little footnote, remember, trying to budge cause and effect is how we try to control impermanence. Just saying.

[30:06]

So what is the meaning of not being blind to cause and effect? Not budging cause and effect. He just says, well, then how can we be released? How can we be freed? Dogen said, cause and effect are clear. Cause and effect are simultaneous. Cause and effect arise together. Ejo was confused. So he said, well, but then, but does cause, bring effect or does effect bring about cause? And Dogen said, well, if something like that is true every time, what about when Nansen killed the cat?

[31:19]

So there's a story where two halves of the monastery were arguing about something and Nonsense said, if no one can say a good word, I'm going to cut this cat in two. He's talking about the monastery cat, the beloved pet. He held up the cat. He said, nobody can say a good word. Bam, cat goes. Okay. His students couldn't say anything. Nonsense killed the cat. Later. Joshu, Jiaojo, we've heard about him very recently, heard about that incident, and he stuck his sandal on top of his head and walked out of the room. So Dogen points to this as an excellent action, that Jiaojo's sticking his sandal on his head and getting out of the room when he heard that story. And then Dogen adds, well, if I had been Man Sen, I would have said,

[32:26]

If you can't speak, I'll kill it. If you can speak, I'll kill it. Who would fight over a cat? Who can save a cat? So Dogen's basically saying, I would have upped the ante. So on behalf of the students, Dogen continues, I would have said, we can't speak, master. Go ahead and kill the cat. Further upping the ante. Or I would have said to them, master, you only know about cutting the cat with one stroke. Yet you do not know anything about cutting it into one with one stroke. You only know about cutting the cat in two with one stroke. See if you can cut it in one. And Ajo's even more confused. He goes, how can you cut a cat in one with one stroke? Dogen says, the cat itself.

[33:35]

So anyway, this keeps going for quite a long time, so I won't read the whole story. And if you want to read it, it's in this book called Zui Monki, Z-U-I-M-O-N-K-I. It's in the first section, story number six. But let's keep going. Dogen comments later, the action of cutting the cat is just Buddhist action. And Ejo says, but then what we call it, Dogen says, call it cutting a cat. Has doubts, he says. But is it a crime? In other words, is it murder to cut a cat? Dogen said, yes, it's a crime. Ejo says, how can we be freed from that? Dogen says, Buddha's action and the criminal action are separate, but they're both one action. Ejo said, is this what's meant by the precepts?

[34:48]

Just case by case emancipation. Dogen said, yes. And though it is, please don't use this method. They just talk about violating the precepts. Does that refer to the crimes committed after having received precepts? Or are crimes committed before you receive the precepts also called violation of the precepts? And Dogen says only after you've received precepts can you call it a violation of the precepts. Anyway, it keeps going. It's really interesting. So it goes for... It talks about how we talk about receiving the precepts as there's this ancient phrase, which means your family changes, your lineage is cut into one. Okay, so you don't lose your history, but you also become part of the Buddhist family and responsible for Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[35:58]

And so our lives, let's assume that Baijiang was both Baijiang and the fox spirit in the story for a second. Who is our life? What part of our life needs to return to the one? So... One time I was in Australia, I had an Australian sister who's a psychotherapist, and she started narrative therapy when narrative therapy was being introduced to the Western world. And narrative therapy of Australia, just like there's many parts of our life, including our system of government that comes from the U.S. their narrative therapy was picked up on as a kind of a key to actually healing people's hearts.

[37:06]

And it was a traditional practice in the first people in Australia. And so what happens is that when somebody is traumatized, the custom is to... allow them to tell their story so that that story can be woven back into the dream time. And so that's what this fox story reminds me of, that he's telling his story and is being woven back into the one, into the dream time. And so one of the people said that the point of... doing this is to tell the stories in ways that make us all stronger together. To link the individual's experience and trauma back to the whole and back to the whole world is what is the action. And Dogen himself as a teacher had a number of ways to do this, which he inherited from Buddha.

[38:14]

and which Suzuki Roshi inherited from him. So Dogen speaks about this, and I'm indebted to Taigen for talking about Dogen's different ways of teaching. And they go with some of the subtler understandings of how to see universality in particularity, how to see the many in one in our practice. And we can sit with these things. So because they also go with states of mind, we can find in Sashin, and which we could mistake any one of those for supreme perfect enlightenment, and we would be shorting ourselves and we'd be cheating ourselves of the rest of them. I want to mention all of them. And says, he actually uses the word Uji for sometimes. in the following methods of teaching. So Uji is being time. So he's pointing to the oneness of practice and realization and the intimate encounter between teacher and student as the dream time that a particular story or problem is being woven into.

[39:28]

So he uses that word Uji. So he says, sometimes I enter the ultimate state and offer profound discussion from there. simply wishing all to be steadily intimate in your mind field. So sometimes to teach, all he does is enter samadhi, the ultimate state, and shows it and just wishes that everybody be intimate with their own mind field. In other words, that each person in the zendo or in his monastery, become familiar with their old patterns in a friendly way and settle them for themselves. So to sit as a wave in the water of our deep interconnectedness and oneness that already makes meaning of the whole thing without having to reach for it.

[40:38]

So he just sits and speaks from there. That's the first way. His second way. Sometimes within the gates and gardens of the monastery, I offer my own style of practical instruction. Simply wishing you all to disport and play freely with spiritual penetration. So within the gates and gardens of the monastery, he offers practical instruction. Sometimes that's the second way. First way is just the ultimate. The second way is just to be relative. So it means, let's say, an example of this is that sometimes Dogen would go into the kitchen and say something to the cooks about practice. And so what he's trying to do is teach the monastery field far beyond form and emptiness in which Each thing that we do is a matter of freedom, playing freely.

[41:43]

So we learn our spiritual realm by moving the boat, freedom within the forms. So in Genja Kohan, he says, by riding in a boat, we make it a boat. Okay, so that's the second way. Just by saying there's Sashim, there's 915 Zazen, a 15 lecture, at 11 or whenever lecture's over, there's open kinyin, and then there's service, and then there's a formal lunch, okay? That seems, you know, it's just something you could write on a piece of paper, nothing special. But by all agreeing to it and taking our roles, taking our seats, We create a mandala that expresses freedom. So that's the second way. Universal. Specialized.

[42:48]

Speciality. I forget the two words. So the third way. Sometimes I spring quickly, leaving no trace, simply wishing you all to drop off body and mind. So he's talking about his own enlightenment experience and how. So his enlightenment experience was twofold. The first side was Shinjin Datsuraku. The second part was Datsuraku Shinjin. Body and mind dropped off. Shinjin Datsuraku dropped off. And then Datsuraku Shinjin. They dropped off body and mind. Okay. So that's his awakening. His awakening was opening the hand of God. Just drop off body and mind and live in the dropped off body and mind.

[43:52]

His fourth one. Sometimes I enter the samadhi of self-fulfillment, simply wishing you all to trust what your hands can hold. So he's referring to GGU's online, the natural awakening in this body and mind, with this history. This body and mind is a process that's part of the process and story of all beings. Appropriate response. How do we learn how to trust our own tools? Okay, so this session I've heard from a lot of people who are ashamed of their own tools. Like, oh, no, I'm sitting at home. My sushin is really bad. It's got to be the worst sushin ever. I've heard a few of those this week. And what I want to say is these are our own tools. We have to understand what they are and work with them.

[44:56]

And I could give a whole lecture about that, but I won't. And so those are the four main ways. that have uji in front of them being time, meaning their response, a practice response in time. But then the fifth way is this. Suppose someone suddenly came forth and asked this mountain monk, what would go beyond these four kinds of teaching? I would simply say to him, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind, the night mist clears. The blue mountains form a single line. Okay, so there's no sometimes there. You say, scrubbed clean by the dawn wind. So on the inhalation, receiving the particular from the universal. On the exhalation, the universal.

[46:03]

Each blue mountain sits on its own in a single line of Zenda. And here the single line of Zenda circles the earth. So I've said a lot of things. I don't know, you know, I don't really know how to end this talk because there's a lot more that I could say. There's a lot more stories that I could say. But I just want to point to them. I want to point to a possible, you know, why I would say that thing about Baijong being both the teacher in that situation, the agent of absolution and the agent of wrongdoing. Wait, there's a story in the Mahavaka, in the first Kandaka, that talks about who got admitted to the Order of Monks.

[47:13]

And in this story, there was a Naga prince, a snake, who could take humans. So he had magical powers, like a fox spirit, to take human form. And so he asked for ordination, and he received ordination. And then he was with his roommate one night and he thought his roommate was gone, but his roommate wasn't gone. And so his roommate saw him and he was all like turned back into a snake and with his snake body going everywhere. And the roommate freaked out and ran to the Buddha and went, ah, how come he can be a monk? Isn't he an animal? Isn't he a snake? He can't be a monk. And so the Buddha actually taught on that occasion, sorry, serpents are animals and animals aren't human.

[48:18]

So they don't have human life. So they can't actually take advantage of this doctrine and discipline to wake up. Animals have animal methods. We have human methods because we're human. But he said, if serpent, you can go and take huge in the full moon ceremony and the new moon ceremony every month with a vowel and repentance and rededicating yourself to the way. Then. your human nature side will come forth and you can be ordained. And at that time, he went, oh, no, I'm not capable of spiritual growth in this doctrine and discipline. And he got all dejected and depressed and wailed and cried.

[49:25]

So that story is in the first Kandaka. And so what I want to say is we have a choice. So animal in the six states of human existence, animal is the state ruled by fear, by anxiety, and by doubt. And we can resolve it. To resolve it, it needs support. The support is of staying on our seat, of avowing what's wrong, repenting it and making amends in this body and mind. Anyway, so what I want to say is the lotus, the water, it's not that the water is just muddy and the lotus is just beautiful. It's not like that at all. The water is the ground and nourishment of the creation of a lotus.

[50:30]

The lotus is the beauty and crown of the water. And so one might be more visible as beautiful, but they're both necessary. And we can be a lotus. We can be mud. We can be a lotus and mud. We can be mud and a lotus. We can transcend all of them and just sit naturally revealing awakening in the midst and for and with all beings. Okay. So it's 1107. There's one more thing I can read to you, which is kind of entertaining, but I'm not asking you to take it too seriously. It's another story for sitting.

[51:32]

Let's see if I can find this mess of stuff. So, you know, the book that David was talking about, the woman who's the person who made the commentaries in that book, he ends the book with this little set of cautions that I thought I would just read. for the rest of session. And basically what he's doing is upping the ante on the session, not to take it too seriously, but the point of it is that we won't kind of rest or despair, that we would keep going. So here it is. The way he starts every sentence is by a good thing or a thing that we're supposed to do in session.

[52:36]

And the way he ends every sentence is with a caveat. To maintain standards and follow rules is to tie yourself up without a rope. To indulge freely without is to behave like heretics and demons. To maintain the mind in solitary death is the specious zen of false quietism. To give rain to the will and ignore karma is to fall into the pit for 500 lifetimes. To be ever unclear is to wear chains and an iron collar. To think good and good is to be subject to heaven and hell. To have a Buddha view and a Dharma view is to be enclosed by iron mountains.

[53:41]

To treat each thought as realization is to trifle with your spirit. To cultivate samadhi is to practice in a haunted house. To proceed is to stray from truth. To retreat is to violate the Tao. Neither to proceed nor to retreat is to be a corpse with breath. And then he ends. And this is the advice for Sashim. Now tell me, what do you do? Work hard for realization this lifetime. you'll be regretful forever. Okay? So on that happy note, should we keep our... Thank you so much.

[54:47]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[55:12]

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