This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Morning, everyone. It's a joy and honor to be with you all again. We continue on our journey of Rahatsu Sushi. And I imagine at this point you might be feeling... more or less settled in and perhaps even beginning to relax and open and maybe touch some deeper currents of both your karmic conditioning as well as your unconditioned being. So this is often a time when things can become a little bit more, I'd say, complex, maybe, particularly around the karmic energy patterns of body and mind, asserting themselves in particular ways, maybe some deeper knots of habitual obstacles, making themselves known and yearning to be released.

[01:12]

So if we're experiencing difficulties, either physically or emotionally, it's a time when we need to be particularly compassionate and gentle with ourselves. We each have our own particular struggles. Because we are karmic beings, all of us karmic beings. We wouldn't be sitting here without our karma. Karma, the reality of intentional causation, is the ocean we swim in. So this is a time to generously extend to ourselves encouragement, loving kindness, patience, tender care, and curiosity. Even as we continue to make a determined, wholehearted effort to stay with whatever experiences arising, doing our best to meet it with the inherent spaciousness and the receptivity of our Buddha mind, our fundamental boundless mind,

[02:29]

Allow the awake mind to be the spacious container that embraces and liberates all experience in this moment. So in this morning's talk, as well as tomorrow's, I want to explore karma, surprise, and causation with you through a very famous teaching story that is often referenced in Zen circles whenever the subject of karma comes up. And I'll start by reading the koan, which appears in this case in case 8 of the Book of Serenity, which is a collection of koans. When Bai Zhang lectured in the hall, there was always an old man who listened to the teaching and then dispersed with the crowd. One day he didn't leave. Bai Zhang went to him and asked him, Who is it standing there?

[03:32]

The old man said, in antiquity, in the time of the ancient Buddha Kashapa, I lived on this mountain. A student asked, does a greatly cultivated person still fall into cause and effect or not? I answered him, they do not fall into cause and effect. And I fell into a wild fox body. for 500 lives. Now, I asked the teacher to turn a word on my behalf. Blijan said, they are not blind to cause and effect. Sometimes it's translated as, they do not ignore cause and effect. The old man was great and enlightened at these words, which usually happens in many of the koans. Now, there's an extended version of this koan, which I'll share with you tomorrow.

[04:37]

But for our purposes today, I'm going to use this shorter version that I just shared in case eight. And this wild fox koan, it's also known as Baijan's Fox or Hakujo's Fox. It's an influential koan story in the Zen traditions, dating back, apparently, over a thousand years ago. And the word koan is a spelling of a Chinese, meaning public record or a legal precedent. It also means story. And as it's come to us now, koan is a story, a dialogue, a question, a statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke deep inquiry, as well as to, by the teacher, to practice or test a student's level of Garama understanding. And this particular story, Bajan's Fox, also appears as the second case in the gateless gate, what's known as the Muldman Khan, which is a 13th century collection of 48 koans.

[05:41]

So I'll be drawing from both of these two cases, but today focusing on case two, the Book of Serenity. So in the Rinzai tradition, there are five classifications of koans. And Bajan's Fox is classified as a nanto, koan, meaning difficult to pass through. And from one perspective, this story seems to be clearly speaking about causation, about karma, about the incredible power of our actions, our body, speech, and mind. And the miry consequences, both wholesome and unwholesome, to which they give rise. And while this aspect of the koan is certainly true, there's also another aspect. one that points to something deeper, something more fundamental, something about going beyond karma, by going beyond dualities, including that of good or bad or right or wrong, mistake or no mistake.

[06:47]

It's also something about discovering joy and liberation in this very Dharma position, whether as a human, or a fox. And I also think about it, that it's about the healing power of deeply understanding and embracing our unique place in the vast web of life and interbeing. To just live this one wild and precious life. So the main characters in this story are Awao Fox and Baijon Kuehi, who's known in Japanese as Hakujo Ikai. So you might hear this koan, as I said before, referred to as Hakujo's Fox. And we're told that Baijon lived from 720 to 814. And his bio says that he was born to a powerful aristocratic family, although he entered monastic life as a teenager.

[07:55]

And then while he was in his 20s, he sought out the master, Mazu, and became his disciple. And later on, Bai Zhang established an early set of roles for the Chan or the Zen monastic discipline. And they were called the pure roles of Bai Zhang. And these roles are something that we still follow today in many cases here at Ibn Zen Center. And Bai Zhang was also credited with originating the Chinese tea ceremony. And he founded his monastery, Bai Zhang Monastery, which contained a monk's hall. And at the time, a monk's hall was an innovation that later became very typical of kind of the Chan model of how monasteries were set up. So both the lifestyle that Bai Zhang spelled out, as well as the architectural form of his monastery, bikini models for later Zen monasteries.

[08:58]

And also, unlike the Theravada, the early Indian monastics, the Zen moks farmed. And because of this, it actually helped them to survive what was known as the great anti-Buddhist persecution, which happened in the mid-850s. And they were able to survive because, unlike other sects, they weren't as dependent on donations from the communities and from the government. So they were able to grow on their own food and survive. And Bai Zhang's rules are still used today in Zen monasteries. His rules include the aphorism, which you probably have heard often, a day without food is a day without, excuse me, a day without work is a day without food. And his work practice ethos as well as his monastic innovations are very much echoed here at Sun Center. Suzuki Roshi, in his limited commentary on this koan, notes that a majority of the fundamental forms that we follow were set up by Jean.

[10:07]

So if we think about it, they're over 1,200 years old, continuing this practice 1,200 years later. So... The narrative of the koan goes that every day an old man would sit in the back of the hall, in the Zen, the Buddha hall, while Bai Zhang was giving a time of time. And each day, as soon as the talk was over, the old man would disappear. However, one day he stays behind. So Bai Zhang goes up to him, curious, and asks, who is standing there? Basically, who are you? This is a perennial Zen question. who or what is it that stands before me? What is it that thus comes? What is this temporary wave of causes and conditions appearing before me due to cause and effect? Or maybe more essentially, do you know your true nature?

[11:12]

What is it? And the old man replied, long ago in the time of Kshapa Buddha, I lived and taught on this mountain. So in the time of Gashapa Buddha basically means in the time before the historical Buddha. One of the Buddhist canons identifies seven Buddhas of antiquity or heroic Buddhas as it's called, of which Shakyamuni Buddha was the seventh and the last set. And Gashapa Buddha was the Buddha immediately preceding Shakyamuni. So he was the sixth. In any case, the old man is saying he used to be the abbot of this monastery a long, long time ago. And his karma is also ancient. And he continues. One day a monk asked me, came to me and asked me this question. Does an enlightened being fall into causation or not? In other words, is an enlightened being subject to the law of cause and effect?

[12:16]

And I answered, no, an enlightened being does not fall into causation. And for that, I was made to live 500 years as a fox. Another translation has, as a consequence, I had been condemned to be a fox for 500 reapers. Now I beg you, say a turning word, and please release me from this fox body. For just a A quick aside, Dogen in one of his commentaries on this cone implies that the old man in the story may in fact be one of Bai Zhang's past lives. So Bai Zhang, the old man, and the fox are just different manifestations. And that Bai Zhang, by helping the old man come fox, is cleansing his own comrade in this present life. Now it's important to understand that In Chinese Buddhism, being a fox is not a desirable state of being.

[13:18]

First of all, fox in Chinese culture is traditionally seen as a slive, somewhat nasty or vechevious trickster spirit, a creature that will try to trick you and sometimes even seduce you. And it doesn't necessarily have sinister intentions to do harm, but it's basically fundamentally not trustworthy. In my own... personal experience with foxes is somewhat limited. It's mostly limited to hearing their very distinctive and haunting, you think of it as a bark, scream, howl. If you've ever heard of fox, you know, it's just this combination of bark, scream, howl. You hear these at night at Tassajara. Although at the last time I was at Tassajara, leading the practice period there, a fox stole one of my sandals from my cabin stoop, right? And it was a brand new sandal. I'd just bought a brand new pair of sandals from Tassajara, and within two weeks, the fox snatched away, right? And actually, the only sighting I've ever had of a fox at Tassajara was after the Basin Complex failure in 2008, when a solitary fox took refuge for almost a week under the garden cabin before eventually voyaging on into the black and wilderness around.

[14:39]

So there was something special about all these creatures and animals, including a fox, who came to Tassar, which was the only green oasis for miles around in the middle of a blackened zone, to take a momentary rest and refuge. However, certain myths in Asia had thought the fox was capable of shape-shifting and could be either a benevolent or a man-evolent spirit, so bringing either good or bad omen. And if you think of in terms of the six realms of Buddhism, that animal realm is considered a lesser realm, a step below that of the human realm. So the fox's capacity for transformation from human to fox, maybe to human again, as we'll see later, as well as capacity for redemption, is an important context in this story. So the key question here on which this koan turns is, does a greatly cultivated person, a person who practices with great devotion, still fall into cause and effect?

[15:52]

A greatly cultivated person in this context, of course, means a fully enlightened person, what Dogen calls a person of great practice, one who is fully awake and has a great devotion to the Buddha Dharma. By contrast, a wildfire fox, refers to someone who misleads others by giving false teachings. So the student asked, do enlightened beings fall into cause and effect? In other words, are they also subjected to the same law of causality as the rest of us common, less awake folk? We might have the idea that an enlightened person would be somehow free of karma. Isn't that the promise of nirvana? to become free of the samsaric cycle of cause and effect that perpetuates rebirth, just to be able to step off the wheel of birth and death and finally be free of suffering and for the so-called rest of eternity. And I've previously mentioned how on the eve of his enlightenment, the Buddha saw deeply into the nature of cause and effect.

[17:05]

he saw into the endless cycle of birth and death, which is samsara, and the way that our three poisons of greed, anger, hatred, and ignorance, turned the will of life and death until we clearly see into the nature of delusion and thus are able to put an end to it. And after his awakening, the Buddha subsequently taught that in order to be truly liberated and awake, one needs to fully understand the law of causation, the interplay of cause and effect. Because to fully understand causation is to understand the nature of things, to understand the process for the unfolding of phenomena. And it means to understand that every action, whether arising through body or mind, gives rise to some effect. Every action has consequence.

[18:09]

And the ipaka, the fruit of that consequence, is colored by the intention behind the action. We could say perfumed by it. And that consequence, then, is another action, which then gives rise to another effect. And this unfolding of action and consequence continues as endless ripples, you could say, throughout all time and space. And all of these actions and their effects are born out of and then perceived through our human karmic consciousness. And often we misunderstand, we have this misunderstanding that karma is a system of retribution or or of reward and punishment. But this is not what the Buddha taught. The Buddha taught that if we act in a self-centered way, out of hatred and selfishness, then we create karma that is negative, unwholesome for ourselves and others.

[19:21]

And understanding karma means that we understand that good intentions lead to good results, and bad intentions lead to bad results. And yet, we often have the question, why then do bad things happen to good people? And good things happen to bad people. Where's the sense of that? I remember when I saw the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors by Woody Allen many, many years ago. It was shortly after I moved to San Francisco. And in the movie, basically, the bad guy gets away with a crime. And that movie hit me in such a way, I was depressed for weeks afterwards, thinking, where's the justice in this? Where is the justice in this? How could it be? How naive I was.

[20:24]

So the Buddha also taught that karma is vast and complex. And most of it is beyond our comprehension unless we are a greatly realized being. So until then, what do we do? We do our best. We do our best to just act in ways that are wholesome. Having faith that our internal integrity is what matters most in the end. And the question that we're grappling with here, however, is, what did the old man do that he lived as a fox for 500 lives? What karma brought that about? When asked by a student if an unliked person falls into cause and effect, the former abbot responded, they do not.

[21:28]

Now, There is a great risk of being a Zen teacher. And I should say, I'll put this in quotes, Zen teacher, whatever a Zen teacher is. I still haven't figured that one out. But anyhow, a Zen teacher having students and others come to you for Dharma guidance. What if you say something that misrepresents the Dharma or worse, misguides the students? You know, the teacher is only able to effectively teach what they themselves have worked with and had insight into. So they're always responding from their own place of insight and understanding, however limited it might be. And if their understanding isn't complete or properly attuned for the benefit of the student, they may mislead the student. And of course, the student mustn't take this teacher's words as true. Not just, you know, swallow them as belief.

[22:36]

What is it? Sink in line or whatever the fishing analogy is. They must test and verify their substance, the substance of the teacher's offering for themselves with their own eye of practice. And the Buddha repeatedly advocated this approach. And yet his students, can be sent down the wrong path for quite a long time if a teacher gives them, you can think of it, inaccurate directions. So the former abbot answered that an enlightened being does not fall into cause and effect. And for that, he says, I was made to live 500 years as a fox. Now I beg you, say a turning word and please release me from this fox party. So in Japanese, turning word, ichitengo, literally translates as one-turn words, meaning words that have the power to transform another.

[23:39]

So instead of turning words are words that teachers say to provoke insight or awakening in their students. And turning words are not intended to test or challenge the students, but rather make them instantly see things in a new way. So they're designed to invoke insight, to transform the phenomenal into the essential, to see the relative through the absolute. And turning words are usually carefully chosen by the teacher to help a particular student to break beyond their conceptual framework, their ideas, and have a taste of, you could say, non-conceptual awakening. So this time it's the old man who asks the question. Does a greatly cultivated person still fall into cause and effect or not? And Bai Zhang offers a turning word.

[24:42]

They are not blind to cause and effect. Other translations have Bai Zhang saying, don't ignore cause and effect. They are not deluded about cause and effect. Or an enlightened person is one. with the law of causation. And also, they do not evade the law of cause and effect. I think there's something very important in the former abbot being the one who asks the question this time. As the fundamental practices then to continually inquire, the practice of continuous inquiry, the process of asking again, Even if we think we got the right answer, that we've got some understanding, it's the process of inquiry that actually brings vibrancy to practice. To ask, what is practice?

[25:48]

Or what is practice asking of me? What is my understanding? What is the most appropriate response? What is it in this moment that would be truly liberatory? To ask the question again and again until we are free of our tendency to hold to fixed and limited views. What is this? What is this really? Who am I? Who am I really? Who am I? How am I a product of cause and effect? How am I getting caught here? How is my karmic view tricking me, deluding me, trapping me in a fox body, forced to repeat my lies and errors again and again until I learn how to break free, perhaps through the help of Buddha, Bodhisattva,

[27:01]

one who themselves has broken free and is now able to offer a turning word. And so, from a place of profound humility, one that took him 500 lifetimes as a fox to cultivate, the old man sincerely inquires, does a greatly awakened person still fall into cause and effect? And Bajan responds, they are not blind to cause and effect. And with these words, the old man immediately has great realization. Really? It was that simple? Just one phrase and he's enlightened? Perhaps the turning word that Bajan offered would not happen

[28:04]

efficacious, that the old man not lived through 500 previous lives as a fox. One life less. And maybe he would still be trapped as a fox. Sometimes, it seems to me that each time I sit down for a period of zazen, it's like watching a movie about one or more of my Fox lives. All these thoughts and memories and emotions seem to drift up out of nowhere to replace some past experience. Or create some future scenario. Or maybe entertain some fantasy about having a different life altogether. And while I know that all of this is simply consciousness at play, I still fall for it at times.

[29:09]

I still get caught. I find myself falling into a body-mind state that I don't really want to be inhabiting. Do any of you have this experience? And whenever I notice this has happened, I then I make the effort to turn my mind around and return to the present moment, to the first Nen moments. Pure consciousness, pure experience, to life as it truly is in its vibrant and flowing immediacy and veracity. Before the second Nen, The Nen of ego and self kicks in and appropriates the first Nen. And then the whole train of Nen, Nen, Nen, Nen continues, taking us away from just this.

[30:18]

Taking us away from true things as it is. So by choosing to sit zazen in practice, we bring to light our fox button. we are illuminating our karma, seeing the ways that our minds move and create dualities, dualities which we then act on, reify. And while it may seem that much of what happens to us is beyond our control, the point of studying karma is to see how much of our life experience is a matter of the choices we've made. How they are a product of our volitional action, of our intentions. Carl Jung, as Carl Jung said, I am not what happened to me.

[31:20]

I am what I choose to become. I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become. Our choices or what we are made of. Even when we're not aware of the ways we have choices, or making choices, choosing, karma, additional action, is still happening. This is one of the points of the koa. Our life is the reality and fruit of our volition, which is currently alive and well as you. effects of your choices today birth our future you. In the version of the column presented in that Book of Serenity, it ends rather abruptly with the old man having great realization.

[32:29]

There's more to the story, however, which we'll dive into during tomorrow's talk. But before moving on, I'd like to share Wumen's commentary on various that accompany the case in the version of the khan that's found in the Gateless Gate, Wumen Khan, as they offer us yet another aspect. So first, the commentary. Not falling into cause and effect. Why was he turned into a fox? Not ignoring causation. Why was it released from the fox body? If you have an eye to see through this, then you will know that the former head of the monastery did enjoy his 500 happy, blessed lives as a fox. So in other words, not falling under the law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect cannot be obscured. And

[33:32]

Wuman says, if you have eyes to see through this falling into causation, that is, if you see with the one eye, the true Dharma eye, not blinded by duality, right? Therefore not ignoring, not being blind to causation, then you will know that the former head of the monastery did in fact enjoy his 500 happy, blessed, lives as a fox. That's a key part of the koan. We might think, oh, he's being punished. It's not a punishment. In fact, Master Ruban commenting on this koan says that the old man enjoyed his 500 happy lives. So what is that? If it's not a wrong answer, then why did he fall into a fox body? And if it is the wrong answer, if you gave the wrong answer, then how is it wrong?

[34:35]

What's going on here? When we don't fall into dualities, discriminations, preferences, likes and dislikes, then we can enjoy our life as a fox and as a karmic human being, whatever manifestation of being you are in this moment. And awake being enjoys any condition of their life when they are continually abiding in samadhi. Pure concentration, oneness with what is. Samadhi in the endless flow of immediate experience, in the ocean of non-dual awareness. And the notes of the Mumankan describes this as a playful samadhi. The samadhi of a child who is fully resorbed in the game. The Buddha as an ancestor's play in the fields of the Dharma.

[35:40]

There's joy in practice. And then there's a woman's verse in poem. Not falling, not ignoring. Odd and even are one die. And die here is the plural for, or is the singular for dypes. So two sides of the same dypes. Not falling, not ignoring, odd and even are on one die. Not ignoring, not falling, hundreds and thousands of regrets. Falling, not falling. Ignoring, not ignoring. Two sides of the same coin or the die of life. Either way, you flip it. You will make a mistake. If you see and stick to either side, overlooking the other side, overlooking the underlying unity at oneness.

[36:43]

So don't divide your life into good or bad, right or wrong. Good's awesome, bad's awesome. And it's not hard to do this. We do this all the time. We're human after all, right? And we shouldn't regret all of our past lives and our past mistakes. Nor our tendency to make the same mistakes over and over. Continually blinded by our limited perspectives and our conditioned karmic views. You know, we only truly learn by doing. That's how a baby learns to walk. They get up, they fall down. They get up, they fall down. One continuous mistake after another. But each mistake we make is essential. I think of it as adding one more tear in the curtains or the clouds of ego which obscure our clear seeing into the

[37:56]

the fundamental non-duality of the totality of existence. All these little insights, just little tears, little rips, cutting through the curtain of delusion. In time, we begin to be able to see that there's something beyond our delusions, our sense of self, something greater, more vast. We start trying to actually ruring and fraying those little insights, trying to make them bigger, trying to see, getting a larger picture of what's true behind the curtain of our delusion. So right now, at this moment, how are you abiding in your life? Whether you are a fox or a human or an ancient Buddha, whenever we can be thoroughly as and at one with this present moment existence, then there's nothing wrong with being who we are.

[39:09]

There isn't a mistake. What we are is not a mistake. It's not a problem to be a fox. But it's a problem when we think it's a problem to be a fox. not a problem to be a human, but it's a problem when we think it's a problem to be human. The problem is thought itself, which divides the experience of whatever being we're manifesting in the moment into duality, good, bad, right, wrong, us, them. It's through this division that we fall into delusion, either by ignoring the interdependently co-risen and empty flow of existence, or by grasping onto it and falling into emptiness existence, or emptiness, sickness, excuse me.

[40:27]

The only difference between a common person such as me, an enlightened being, is that the awake beings don't get tripped up by or tangled in cause and effect. They don't ignore it, and they're not blind to it. They see with their dharma eye how cause and effect works, and they respect it. They are free of cause and effect insofar as they don't deny or negate or resist cause and effect. They are said to have great faith in cause and effect. They trust it. They trust the unfolding of the universe, both the relative and the ultimate expressions of it. They see and respect both difference and equality. They dance knowingly on the razor's edge.

[41:31]

And because they have faith, because they respect the law of causation, they are free of the law of causation. Only those who ignore or don't see the reality of cause and effect get tripped up and fall and fall. again and again into a life of trickery and delusion and ignorance. How many lives have you been a fox? So, I want to end by sharing with you a Mary Oliver poem. And I imagine it's one that many of you are familiar with. But as you listen to it this time, I invite you to see it through the lens of this wild fox color and what we've been turning today about karma.

[42:36]

The poem is a summer day. Who made the world? Who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean. The one who has flung herself out of the grasp. The one who is eating sugar out of my hand. Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down. Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I've been doing all day.

[43:49]

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Who made the world? The mind moved and a world appeared. As a swan, a black bear, a grasshopper. As a fox. and human. Each one unique and special and particular in its Dharma position, in the universal matrix of Indra's nets, reflecting each other. So how will you worship? How will you practice this miraculous reality?

[44:54]

How will you take your place in it fully and wholeheartedly and maybe even joyously what other way is there than by paying attention by being aware to pay so much attention that you enter a state of non-dual samadhi in which you and the swan and the bear and the grasshopper and the fox and you and me and the whole world are one. All of it water. All of it indivisible luminous awareness. Just pure consciousness. Buddha nature. Taking shape as the world. plain as the world. What else can I be and do when I am all things?

[46:05]

And I am all things when I am just this one person. Doesn't everything arise and pass due to impermanence? and unfathomable causation. So tell me, what is your deepest intention? How do you want to live to wholeheartedly embody and embrace this life as this life? do you want to do now with this one wild and precious life? This Nen moment. This experience moment. It really is only one Nen.

[47:11]

Let me remind you, it's the only one there ever is. the only man the only life you'll ever get how will you live it so perhaps we can start answering this question there's some more zazen there i say zazen is the deepest form of worship I know. Thank you very much for your kind attention. 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.

[48:20]

For more information, please visit sfcc.org. and click giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:28]

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