Eli, do you have a teepee in your living room? TV? A teepee. Oh, yeah. Maya does in her room. Can you copy? Sometimes I don't think it lets you copy. Yeah. That's the chat. Okay. Awesome. I'm going to turn that light off so I don't have this glare. Okay. Good, good. Should we open it up? the online Zendo here at City Center.

[11:51]

Tonight's speaker is Gendo Lucy Xiao. Lucy is a doctor of acupuncture and oriental medicine as well as a resident and priest here at City Center. She ordained in 2010 and served as Shusou in 2014. will begin with the opening verse which can be found in the chat an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening, everybody.

[13:04]

Good morning and good afternoon to some of you. Can you hear me okay? So thank you, Matt, and thank you to Nancy for inviting me to give this talk. And tonight I would like to dedicate my talk to Dr. Wang, my late teacher of Chinese medicine. Earlier this month was the anniversary of his passing. And tonight I'd like to talk about medicine and disease as a way to celebrate the life and teachings of Dr. Wang.

[14:19]

And I'd like to bring forth a koan, which many of you have probably heard of. It's human medicine and disease. You've heard about that. It's... Case number 87 from the Blue Cliff Record, a koan collection from Song Dynasty, China. And so tonight I'm going to talk a little bit about the case itself. And then we'll explore what it means. To give you a little history, the Blue Cliff Record was compiled by Master Yuan Wu in the, I would say in the 11th century.

[15:40]

And the Blue Cliff Record is a collection of koan stories, koan teaching stories from the masters of, for the most part, from the Tang Dynasty earlier. And so the collection was based on the hundred cases compiled by an earlier master, Xue Dou, Sechou. and which was based on an even earlier collection, which was called the Jingde Record of Transmission of Light. So Master Sechou Shuedou compiled, selected 100 cases from the Jingde Transmission of Lam,

[16:51]

which had, I don't know, over 1,000 or close to 2,000 cases or stories of old masters. And also he selected from a collection of teaching stories and teachings of Master Yunman and put these 100 cases together and added information. verses of himself. So that's probably part of the reason why the Blue Cliff Record have quite a number of cases that are about Master Yunmen. So Master Yuanwu took Master Xuedou Satchel's hundred cases and added introduction and added commentary. And he was residing in Jiashan Mountain.

[17:58]

And that was also called the Blue Cliff. And so he named this collection Blue Cliff Record. And the case I would like to talk about tonight is Numbers 87. The title of the case is called Humans, Medicine and Disease. So with the introduction and case commentary and verse all together, it's quite long, so I'm just extracting the case itself and a few sentences from the The case says, Master Yunmen said to the assembly, medicine treats the seas according to its nature.

[19:04]

The whole earth is medicine. Which one is for you? Okay, this is my translation. You probably have heard of other translations that's different from this one. A common translation you might have heard of is medicine and disease cure each other or subdue each other. The whole earth is medicine. What is the self? And that's also a fine translation. The wonderful thing and also a peculiar thing about translating Chinese is that, especially from classical Chinese, is that it's very concise.

[20:08]

And some of the characters, they have multiple meanings. And as you translate, you have to see what the context is in order to translate it more accurately. And sometimes you have to add, fill in the blank. Sometimes you have to reverse the order, switch words around. And so there are several phrases here Medicine and disease cure each other. And I want to show you. I don't know, can you see this? Can you see this? Yes, sort of.

[21:10]

So medicine, disease, each other, cure. And there's no question about medicine, disease, and cure. So three of the four characters are very straightforward. Cure can also be treat or to manage to govern if it's a country. But if it's an illness, you would translate it as treat or cure. The question is, The third character. In modern Chinese, the most obvious meaning is each other. So many translation would say medicine and disease cure each other.

[22:13]

So that's the most straightforward way to translate. On the other hand, If you look at the context, if you look further in the commentary, and also in Chinese culture, also we often say, we give medicine according to the illness, according to the disease. And so the character xiang can mean each other. It can also mean... Accordingly. Accordingly. So most Chinese teachers, when they talk about this case, they would interpret it as medicine treats disease according to its nature, according to the nature of disease, the patterns, the nature of the disease.

[23:15]

Or medicine is given to treat disease. or medicine is given to a person according to the illness. So that's the way I would personally translate. And then the next phrase is, the whole earth is medicine. The whole earth is medicine. And the following sentence is, which is the self, which is And again, the straightforward meaning of the characters, which one is self. And again, here, sometimes you have to fill in the blank.

[24:16]

So... You could translate it straightforwardly as which one is the self, or you can say which one, which medicine, parenthesis, which medicine is for yourself, is for you. So again, the case says, medicine treats disease according to its nature. The whole earth is medicine. Which one is for you? In the commentary following the case, commentary by Master Yuan Wu, it mentions that the Buddha himself, the Buddha taught for 49 years

[25:18]

And whenever he taught, he would teach according to the nature, the condition, and the potential of his students. And the commentary says this is what it means to give medicine in accordance with the disease. You might also know another name for the Buddha. The Buddha had many names, and one of the names is called the Great Medicine King. The Buddha gave teachings to heal suffering. He gave medicine for the mind and the heart. The whole earth is medicine.

[26:21]

The whole earth is medicine. In the commentary, Master Yuanwu mentioned a story from an earlier land record, which talked about Manjushri and Sadhana. Manjushri Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of wisdom. And one day he asked Sadhana to go get some medicine. Sadhana in Chinese is known, or in China is known as Shan Cai, Shan Cai Tong Zi. He famously went on a pilgrimage to study with 53 bodhisattvas and teachers and practiced with them and learned from them.

[27:33]

And so one day, Manjushri asked, Sadhana, please go get some medicine. Oh, actually, in the beginning, he said, to Sadhana, please give me something, bring me something that is not medicine. And Sadhana went out and came back empty handed. He said, there's nothing that is not medicine. And Manjushi told him then, then bring me something, bring me something, bring me some medicine. Sadhana picked up a blade of grass and said, here you are. And Manjushri took the grass and showed to the assembly and said, the whole earth is medicine and this medicine, this particular medicine, it can kill you.

[28:46]

It can also give you life. And so the whole earth is medicine. But how do you find the one that gives you life? How do you find the medicine for you, for this particular self? And this is what this case is trying to get at. In other words, each medicine has

[29:50]

it's used for a particular disease or for some disease. And medicine and disease, they relate to each other. They coexist together. And when we have a disease or illness, we have to understand The nature of the disease and the nature of the medicine and the nature of the self. What's happening? What's happening with this mind and body? And what is feeling not quite right? What is the disease? So when we study or work with the koan, it's not about like thinking about it, thinking about what the words mean.

[31:21]

It's more about feeling it. It's more about Arousing the mind of inquiry. Qi yi qing. Arousing the mind of inquiry. This mind of inquiry is embraced, is encompassed in our awareness. So we investigate the phrase, one of the phrases or different phrases in a koan, and the purpose or the intention behind it is to use the koan to

[32:29]

to wake up our mind of inquiry, to study ourselves, to study our conditions, not so much intellectual studies, but to investigate, investigate with awareness. And I thought it's also kind of funny that the The character that I talked about earlier, the character each other, or accordingly, xiang, which caused some differences in translations. And that character in ancient time in the very ancient time when Chinese language was still in the phase of Shao and Bung script, you know, Chinese language is the pictographic, they are pictographic symbols.

[33:47]

So several thousand years ago, the character Xiang, or nowadays known as each other or according, Let me see if I can show you. It looked like this. Can you see? Yes. And so the origin of the character had a tree on one side and an eye on the other side. So it used to mean, in ancient days, to look at the tree, to observe, an eye looking at the tree, to observe, to observe carefully. And over time, this character became, looked like this. It looked like this now. And nowadays it means, when it's used as a noun, it means,

[34:54]

Look, the look of it, the appearance of something. When it's used as a connective word, connecting word, connecting word, it means each other or mutual. So it's a connecting word. So medicine and disease mutually exist. Medicine and disease are connected to each other. And to use medicine for a disease, there is a very close connection there that we need to observe. Dr. Wang, my late teacher, used to say, each human body is like a fine musical instrument, and you have to listen to it carefully.

[36:12]

And I would say that each human heart and mind also is like a fine musical instrument, and you have to listen carefully. When something happens, we want to observe and find the relationships, find our own relationship to what's going on. Where's the self? What's the self? And which is... the appropriate, what would be an appropriate response for this self, for this particular condition? For example, in real life,

[37:29]

I see a lot of repetitive stress cases in people. And now you have to understand, oh, okay, you have a lot of stress in, say, in the shoulder, in neck and shoulder. And what's the condition? What creates the condition? Maybe since pandemic, you've been staying home and working from home, and you've been spending a lot more time in front of the computer. And maybe you are carrying a lot of tension because of all that time in front of the computer. Or maybe you're feeling very stressed and... isolated, and you carry that stress in your body.

[38:41]

And so as we look at each body, each condition, we also look at what's underneath, what's How do you feel when it happens? How does it feel in the body? How does it feel in your breath? How does it feel in your mind or heart? Or maybe it's a repetitive stress in the heart. Maybe, maybe again and again, again and again, and something is hurting your heart.

[39:47]

Maybe there is a child crying in your heart. Where do you feel it? What do you hear? The whole earth is medicine. And what would be helpful in this case? What would a loving parent do for this crying child? What would Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva Guanyin Pusa give this child from her healing bottle?

[41:14]

kind of healing nectar this child would need is thirsty for or hungry for. What if what if you are that loving parent yourself, what if you are the doctor? What if you are Guan Yin, you are Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva yourself? Yeah. So the The whole world is medicine.

[42:26]

Which one is for the self? And what is the self? And what is the medicine that would ease this disease? Thank you so very much for being here tonight. May our gathering be for the well-being and healing of all, for all sentient beings and the whole earth. Thank you. attention equally extend to every being and place.

[43:38]

With the true merit of Buddha's way, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Illusions are industible, I vow to end them. Dharma gave We now have some time for question and answer. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your zoom hand. And we will unmute you, Lucy. I have a question. OK, my question is, what kind of koan or inquiry you've been working with lately or today?

[45:02]

or now. I would love to hear it if you want to share, or if you have other comments or questions, feel free to bring forth. Okay, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Joe. Hi, Liz. Good morning. It's funny. I was thinking before you started talking about how you interweave your life as a doctor of Chinese medicine, and that was what you talked about today. I think the coin I've been working on for most of my life is case 23 from the gateless gate.

[46:05]

where I forget the name of the sixth patriarch, but he asks, what was your original nature before either of your parents were conceived? That's one translation. What is your true self without thinking of good or not good before either of your parents were born? And I think that still working on that one you know i realized that i have my own inner nature apart from what i was taught by my family by my schooling by my religion etc and i think if i may say this kind of connects with what you've been talking about because It's like finding who you are.

[47:06]

So many of the koans redirect the question to the one who is asking the question. And whoever is the head monk or the teacher is basically asking, who are you? And so in Chinese medicine or in homeopathy, to connect with what you've been talking about, they talk about not... just treating the illness, but treating the whole person. What's right for Joe might not be what is right for Lucy. And also I was thinking that in both homeopathy and also in Western medicine, something and vaccines, the disease is the cure. Some element of the disease will be the cure. So. These things, I think, fit together. Yes, yes.

[48:06]

In fact, in ancient time, many of the classical medical texts called medicine, they put two characters together, which today we will read as poison medicine. So poison medicine, when you use it correctly or properly, it heals. But it's also a poison if it's not used properly. And so the case, the story, the case referred to also in the commentary Manjushu also said it could kill you, and it could live your life.

[49:09]

And what's the self? What's your true face? What's your true face before thinking good or bad, before you were born? How does it feel when these questions come up for you? I'm still talking to you, Joe. Oh, you're asking me? I thought you were asking everyone because that's a question for everyone. Well, it's been like, you know, I tell people when we moved over from Western religion to Zen,

[50:12]

that in Western religion, the purpose always seemed to be to find God or connect with God. And I said, oh, that was easy. I remember talking to Vicki Austin about it. And she said, yeah, it's like hitting the side of a barn. But finding yourself is very, very, very hard. That's taken my whole life. And so that's like the deeper question. You know, who am I? And that keeps evolving. I'm not the same person living in Bangkok that I was growing up in Brooklyn or at Zen Center in San Francisco. Well, yes, finding yourself that evolves according to conditions and finding the self that's true with you, in you, wherever you go. Thank you, Joe. And Matt, are you keeping track?

[51:15]

I'm keeping track. The question that came up for me, Lucy, first of all, thank you for your beautiful talk. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for making the interplay between medicine and disease so utterly obvious and available. What is it to make Quan Yin utterly obvious and available? That's a question that came up for me. How do you make Gwanyin obvious and available? What does it take? What does it take? What does it take to make Gwanyin?

[52:20]

Utterly obvious. Utterly obvious and available. And before that you said, what does it take to make medicine? No, I said before that, I said, thank you for your talk. Oh, yeah. Well, I heard that one. How your talk had made this coin seem, the interplay between medicine and disease seem utterly obvious and available. does it take for Guan Yin to be available to hear and see Guan Yin? To carry, carry that, those little drops

[53:37]

of nectars from the bottle that Guan Yin carries and keep a few drops in your pocket, in a little, tiny little bottle in your pocket. Maybe one drop, or maybe you have several little bottles. one little bottle might be labeled gratitude. And the other little bottles, you have to make your own labels. Thank you, Paul. I'll keep thinking about my labels. Thank you. With your answer, I could already taste the drop.

[54:43]

Thank you. I think we have time for one more exchange. Marie. Please. I've been working with something, but it's not a koan, it's a haiku by Basho. that I've been working on interpreting. It goes like this, the slanting sun, the shadow of a hill with a deer on it enters the temple gate. And my first inclination was just to take it as a purely visual thing. You know, the sun moves and then the shadow moves and the shadow enters the temple gate and it's a beautiful image. But I started thinking about it more and it, It made me think about the movement of the sun might be connected to the movement that happened in the Buddha when he left the palace and when he saw the old age sickness and death and he was propelled to leave the palace and seek a spiritual path.

[55:56]

I interpreted that as like the motion of the slanting sun and the shadow of a hill with a deer on it. It made me think of... You know, in some Zen temples where instead of a Buddha statue, there will just be like a rock that is sort of a Buddha-shaped rock, which is also a hill-shaped rock. And then the deer made me think of, you know, the deer. I don't know if this is in Zen, but like in Tibetan Buddhism, where they'll depict the deer. What's the word I want? The deer skin on the Buddha's shoulder to represent peacefulness. So I saw the hill with the deer on it as... The Buddha himself and the peaceful energy. And also maybe the fact that the hill is in shadow is a little bit related to that idea of the unknowable nature of the Buddha. And if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. And that idea of not becoming attached to appearances of who or what the Buddha is. And then the last line enters the temple gate.

[56:58]

I think that one sort of speaks for itself. So that's what I just happened to be taking a poetry class, and that's what I was working with today. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you, Marie. How does it become medicine for you? How is it a medicine for you now? Well, I tend to find a lot of comfort in the Buddha images. But, you know, you're in a difficult situation. Like my father's dying. So, you know, I may be in a hospital room. There's no Buddha image there. But there might be the shape of a certain shadow on the wall or outside the window that I could draw some comfort in, you know, to be able to relate with the more abstract qualities of the Buddha and not be so attached to the form. So this poetry gives you comfort.

[58:00]

Yes, yeah, it does. Thank you for sharing, Marie. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our time. Lucy, do you have a closing word for the assembly? Good night. Well, thank you very much for being with me tonight. Good night. Good night, Lucy. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you, Ed. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Beautiful talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Lucy. Good night. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. Thank you, Lucy. Good morning, Joe. Thank you. Okay, see who is the last. Hi, Patrick.

[59:01]

Hi. You're in the dark. I didn't see you. I know, I am in the dark. Good medicine, though. All right. Okay. Good night, Lucy. Good night. Good night. Joe, good to see you. Good to see you. Good night, Cheryl. Denise. Good night, Brand. Good night. Good night, Judy. All right.

[59:41]

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