So again, welcome, welcome. I wanted to mention some of you may have come on, tried to come on last week. I know a few of you contacted me about that. And about four o'clock last week, those of you on the West Coast, there was a big storm. And a little after four, electricity went out, and that was it for an entire day. So I missed being able to... see you and to offer this next round of teaching. So this is what I would have said, had the electricity not gone out last week. So, as I've said, I've mentioned to you that my plan for the upcoming months is to look at Suzuki Roshi's teaching, I'm starting with Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and to find the koans that he mentions. and to do some research on them and to see what we can learn from the koans, you know, why he brings them up, what's the context, what he's talking about, and some of the other teachings that those koans and the teachers that are featured in them have given.

[01:19]

So the first one is a really interesting one, and so is the teacher that's mentioned. So I wanted to begin by saying a little bit more about koans first, which I am very much enjoying. Koans have played a major role in the Zen tradition. think i've said in the past and it's interesting to note that in the early phases of buddhism what the monks were doing in the monasteries was studying the sutras and the commentaries and the the um the abhidharma so the three baskets the vinya the the rules of practice the abhidharma which is kind of a distillation of the various sutras into some categories that could then be studied the way you might study something university style then the sutras themselves so that was the primary activity of the monks and and meditation some of them were also specialists in memorization so they had these amazing memories and the sutras were memorized by those monks others of them worked and a lot of them basically lived a really quiet cinematic life of contemplation as buddhism moved its way into china

[02:31]

Something really amazing happened there, which is this dialogue between a teacher and a student or a teacher and a teacher. So koans are basically the kind of, you could say, evolutionary stage in how Buddhism was practiced. And rather than having these libraries of people sitting and studying texts, Now you have people meeting face-to-face. So we talk about face-to-face transmission or going to meet with the teacher, which is a big feature of what we're doing here in our own community. When I first came to Zen Center, the first thing I was told is that in order to be a resident, I would need to meet with the teacher three times. So I made those arrangements. It took a while. He had a lot of people to see. In those days, it was Richard Baker. Roshi was the teacher. And so I went three times to meet with him, and it was pretty stunning. I had never met with another person that close, face to face, without knowing what I was going to be meeting or who he was or what I was going to say.

[03:39]

I had no clue what was going on in that meeting. I just remember going in, having my eyes cast down, and then looking up and seeing these great big brown eyes just looking at me, and I was like, Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Not what. But of course, at the same time, it's all very intriguing, you know, because one of the hallmarks of Zen is intimacy. And I don't think there's another form of intimacy that I'm aware of unless it's with a partner, you know, a physical sexual partner where you have that kind of face to face meeting where you're sitting with another person, you know, directly facing them and not having some agenda. You're not there to sort of figure something out, you've got a problem to solve. You're really working with what's coming up in that moment, at that time. And it's not exactly an acquired taste, but it's something that you begin to understand, it's okay. You don't have to go into the meeting with a plan, you don't have to have a question already prepared, although we all tend to do that.

[04:42]

I think over many years I began to just go into the room and see what it was that was percolating inside of my secret life. What is it that I'm holding that wants to be said or that wants to be looked into and with help from someone who I trust. And that's a process I've been doing for years myself with students. I just had a meeting this morning with a lovely young man who's liking and enjoying and talking about how much he wants to break all the rules. So that was very interesting. It was a good challenge. How do I work with these 21, 22-year-olds who are not quite sure what they're doing here either. And they're feeling challenged by there being authority or being rules and so on. So I was rather enjoying him. And I did warn the Tonto, I said, this young man, you want to keep an eye on him. I think he's really playful. I mean, he's not, he wasn't, there wasn't anything harmful about him. He was very playful.

[05:42]

But certainly it will take a while before he might understand that it might be okay for him to follow the training program that we lay out here rather than his own ideas about how he wants to be learning things. So anyway, that's a little bit of what happens here in the camps. So these koans really did evolve out of conversations between teachers and students that overheard. So they're public cases. There is the private conversation. So when we meet together with students, it's called, when an abbot meets with a student, it's called dokusan. And then there's also practice discussion. And that's private. We really don't. talk about those meetings. But the conversations we have in public that you may be like this morning if you tuned in to Jiryu's talk, at the end of his talk there were questions from the people who were there, and then he responds. So those responses and questions, particularly if they're somewhat memorable, and many times they are, the students would write them down.

[06:47]

And then little by little over centuries they became collections. of these stories, and some of them are quite famous. And the ones that Suzuki Roshi has chosen to talk about are really well-known teachers, and their collections are also accessible. So if you're interested in looking at koan collections, there's some really good ones. The role that koans play is really the same role that I think everyone who gets near the Buddhist tradition is looking for help, and that is in how do you do this thing, the stated goal of the tradition of waking up. It's like Buddha means awake. So if we're the awake tradition, how do you do that? What does it mean to be awake? What is this profound vision of ourselves and of the world that the Buddha had? and was quiet about. He didn't say anything at the time. It was later on that he reportedly said, I and all beings together awaken at the same time.

[07:50]

I and all beings together awaken at the same time. So a great deal of what he had to say had to be around this, what's called a non-dual vision. where there's no inside and outside of either the subject, and there's no object outside, there's no subject inside, that the meeting of the subject and object is basically like that. They require each other, they're dependently co-arisen. The subject and the object can't exist separately from one another. If I exist separately from sound, then I don't hear anything. Or if sound exists separately from me, There's nothing to be heard. So there has to be intimacy. There has to be intimacy for us to experience the world. But we have this funny idea that the world is somehow outside of our experience. So we all know that. And that's one of the great challenges is how to, first of all, believe that it's not. And then second of all, have an experience of non-dual nature of reality. So that's the basic vision that the Buddha had in the morning of his own awakening.

[08:54]

So as I mentioned two weeks ago, the emphasis in Soto Zen, or Suzuki Roshi brought Soto Zen to California, is on the oneness of the conventional, or the relative truth, and the ultimate truth. That those are not too different. There's not this ultimate truth over here, somewhere outside hanging around the ether, and then there's this relative truth that we wish we could get out of it, just get away from relative truth, that would be great, because that's where all the troubles are. So finding out that these two are not separate, again, is emphasizing this non-dual nature of reality. Ultimate truth and relative truth, I and all beings, from the perspective of awakening, are conjoined, are one. And then Dogen says that, we looked at the Genjo koan some time ago, that the location of that enlightened vision is nowhere other than right where you are at all times.

[09:56]

Right where you are in your everyday life and practice is where this non-dual universe is appearing. It's appearing as you, and it's appearing as trees and grass and rain and other people and so on. And that is the non-dual universe. It's not something that you have to go find. You know, if you were, Jerry's talk this morning again, he talked quite a bit about that, that being just this person, just this right now, accepting that who you are right now, which is best seen or best known when we're quiet, you know, when words are not kind of distracting us, meaning we're not looking for some meaning we're basically inhaling and exhaling or walking you know left foot right foot there's just basically our our living presence is is what we're looking for and we don't have to look it's already there it's always there so in soto zen meditation it's it's said that we are basically unfolding this one great awakening

[11:00]

know all the time it's it's a kind of ongoing unfolding of what in in our tradition is called kensho or seeing your true nature now in rinzai zen on the other hand which is a another approach another major branch of zen which really emphasizes koan study which is what makes this kind of interesting that we're going to be looking at cons now so they have a whole program a whole curriculum of Koan study that they do. And some of you may have done some Rinzai training with Rinzai teachers, where you really go in to see the teacher, and it's pretty short from what I hear. You go in, you say, I'm so-and-so, and I'm working on the Koan Mu. And then you do something, and then the teacher most often says, nope, or rings the bell, and off you go. You know, that's the end of the interview. And occasionally they say, okay, and then please move to the next Koan. So I've never experienced this other than having some very sweet Rinzai students who were practicing with me down at Tassahara.

[12:02]

I asked them, would you come in and do your thing with me just so I get a feeling for what it was. And one lovely man brought me a bowl of oranges and he said, okay, what are you gonna do with this? So I ate one and he said, that's pretty good. So I was sort of enjoying having some exposure to the Rinzai approach to realization of justice is it. So, and still, the Rinzai Zen, they emphasize this idea of breaking through the veil of delusion, the delusions which make us think we're separate, make us think something's outside of ourselves, or make us believe that people do think what we think they think of us, and all those kinds of things that are really causing our distress, our suffering. So much of it is just our imagination, if not... I don't want to say all because there are some things that maybe we could say, yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty real. That's actually happening in the way you think. But a lot of what is happening is not happening the way you think it is.

[13:05]

And that's just a great relief, or it can be a great relief to begin to doubt what you believe is so. So this breaking through the veil of delusion and seeing one's own true nature or your Buddha nature on the spot. is what the Rinzai folks are after. And that's what's called Kensho, you know, like, boom, you just have this awakening in the moment that can be verified by the teacher. So in our study of the Book of Serenity, I'm sorry, the Transmission of Light, there were those moments that introduced each chapter of the Transmission of Light. So it's not that that isn't valued as something that someone can actually bring to a teacher and discuss or that the teacher can help to induce. It is valued. But it's kind of in the context of your everyday life. It's not like overvalued. And soto zen is sort of like maybe even a little undervalued. Like sometimes people will, during seshins, will get very, have some very exciting experience.

[14:06]

And they would like some confirmation of, you know, that that's just really it. Kind of like now you're Buddha sort of feeling. And I think they kind of feel that way. There's something amazing and different that's happened. And usually what... we often will do is just say, well, I think maybe you need to go back to the kitchen and just start washing dishes and maybe helping with the cooking. Bring it all back into your everyday life. Whatever it is that you've seen, if it's right, if it's good and if it's true, it's not going to go away and it's not going to wear out if you just go back to taking care of your everyday life. It'll just be kind of like a nice little spice. know some sriracha or something that's going to add some glimmer some glamour to your life some glitter something a little wider more spacious perspective on what's there and and i think that's that's pretty much how the soto folks tend to treat those big experiences and yet kenjo is is considered in both camps to be an initial insight not full-blown buddhahood that's

[15:10]

Everyone says you've got about 20 years from that moment of insight. to actually go through all of your old habits. It's like your old library catalog. You've got all this stuff that you've done throughout your life, and you begin to go through those cards one by one, and that habit, and those habits, and that apology that is overdue, and all these other things that we actually do to take care of our karmic life. Because all of us have a long tail of karmic behavior, our conditioning, that takes work. It takes us approaching all of those parts of ourselves with openness and kindness and generosity and all of the things that we value most. And so this question of breakthrough is actually where these two schools diverge. I mean, I think that's where the emphasis really is what is, you can feel it, is different.

[16:11]

I suggested the last time we met, which was two weeks ago, that you might want to consider what are the koans in your own life, you know, to contemplate some of the questions that arise for you that have some, some, you know, persistence, that those, those little ghosts that keep showing up something that's maybe not kind of like nine, something nine on you, or deep curiosity about something about yourself or about your loved ones. these questions that are very much intimate, also, again, the word intimacy. So you may already know what it is that you're working with, you know, what it is that excites you, or what it is that seems to be dragging you down in some way. And those are koans, those are personal koans. And I find it very helpful, I have in my own practice life, to try to keep those questions as simple as I can, you know, so that They might be useful if I'm able to articulate them to myself, then I have a good chance of perhaps articulating them with my teacher or with my Zen comrades here of many years.

[17:20]

They are simple questions like, what is it when I'm just standing outdoors looking at the beautiful world? What is it? What is it? What is it? And who is it? Who am I? What is it and who am I? These are classic questions. And where am I? Where am I? Where am I going? What am I going to do with this amazing life now that I'm here? It's not the answers so much that matter, really. It's really these questions that we're willing to stop and look more deeply at things that perhaps we assume. Oh, I'm in California and my name is Fu and I do this and I do that. That's kind of what we tend to do when we're asked about ourselves. I did a class yesterday with some students. There's a queer Dharma group here at Zen Center, and people from all over the world, it was quite sweet to speak with them. And I had sent forward, they do prompts, so I had sent forward a prompt around the koan that is featured in both the Book of Serenity and the Blue Cliff Record of Bodhidharma, the first

[18:33]

Zen ancestor who came from India, meeting with the emperor of China, Emperor Wu. And the first thing that Emperor Wu asks, being a devout Buddhist himself and having founded many, many temples and helped with the ordination of many, many monastics, he asks this Indian ancestor, who is a rare visit to have a master come from India, the Buddha's birthplace, so I'm sure Emperor Wu was excited to be able to meet with him. So he asks him for the highest meaning of the holy truths, the four holy truths, being the four noble truths, suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the cause for the cessation of suffering. And so rather than giving him a little talk, Bodhidharma says to him, vast emptiness, nothing holy. And if you kind of imagine, first of all, that's a rather courageous thing to do if you're speaking to an emperor. know um they can be a little bit they have a lot of power they think they do so uh anyway he gave this very you know um zen answer to this question you know vast nothing holy vast emptiness nothing holy nothing unholy non-dual you know everything there's no another zen saying there's no place to spit everything is sacred so um

[19:59]

that's not what bodhidharma said he said vast emptiness nothing holy and then the next question from the emperor was who are you facing me and that's like that doksan question who are you facing me and bodhidharma says don't know don't know so i asked as a prompt to the group yesterday i said so what would you say to the emperor if they were to ask you who are you facing me you know that's that's a pretty good coin and it was very interesting what the people answered they had just just short answer not a big long bio or anything just a few a few things that came to their minds and it was quite it was quite sweet i i appreciated it you know people said things like you i am you i'm you and um I'm you know green grass or they had a different very I thought very sweet and and and simple and and It felt very like their their understanding was was was really very good.

[21:04]

I felt that way so So that I wanted to along with these these koans that we're going to look at I think if you would want to take up a little bit of an introduction to them, which might give you a little more meat around koans. There are some really good introductions that are in both the Blue Cliff Record, that's the collection, and the Book of Serenity, which were translated by Thomas Cleary. And Thomas Cleary is quite a brilliant scholar, and he's translated huge numbers of books from Chinese Buddhist books, but he's also written these very good introductions. So if you read the introductions to both of those texts, you'll get a lot of background on koans and particularly about the ones that are appearing in those collections. There's another book I would recommend, I think I may have mentioned it already, by contemporary Zen teacher, John Tarrant. And John Tarrant, who is Rinzai trained, he's done the koan curriculum, wrote a little book called Bring Me the Rhinoceros, which has been around for a while now.

[22:11]

I very much enjoyed Bring Me the Rhinoceros. I actually taught a koan class from it some years back. And it was so accessible. I think everyone could kind of get it, the way John was presenting these teaching stories and talking about them. So here's a few things that he says in his rhinoceros book that I thought were helpful and I share with you. He said this book, his book, offers an unusual path to happiness. It doesn't encourage you to strive for things or manipulate people or change yourself into an improved... new model, more polished version of yourself, which if you were at Jiryu's lecture this morning, that's what he was talking about this morning too, to be yourself, which is probably the hardest thing for us to be. Just be yourself, you know, without some idea that you have to be better or that you're not good, worthy enough or so on. This is very challenging for us humans. So no need to change yourself, improve yourself into a more polished version of yourself.

[23:13]

Instead, Koans suggest a way to approach happiness indirectly by unbuilding, unmaking, tossing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. So rather than going after happiness, it tends to unmake the unhappiness that we're carrying around, which is... has a very unstable existence anyway. It's very hard to find. Well, where is that unhappiness coming from? My body feels it, but what is the basis of it? So his koans are going after the unhappiness, dismantling unhappiness. And then he tells us there are seven things that we might notice about koans. The first one is that you can depend on some creative moves. happening so creativity is one of the hallmarks of these conversations between teachers and students and he uses the example instead of one two three four nine you might try one two three four rhinoceros you know this kind of leap of categories and then he says number two koans encourage doubt and curiosity

[24:24]

So koans don't take away painful beliefs and replace them with positive beliefs. They take away painful beliefs and in doing so provide freedom. And what you do with that freedom is up to you. So we're not substituting one set of beliefs for another set of beliefs. That would just be another burden. fact in in buddhism it's called the iron chain is the chain of samsara the chain of our our conventional thinking and we don't even haven't even heard the idea of some ultimate truth or some realization or some non-dual universe i mean that's all you know i don't even know what you're talking about so that's the iron chain of samsara the golden chain is the chain of buddhadharma where you basically have substituted an iron chain for a golden chain, which can become as much of a trap for ourselves. So we got to get that one off too. Koans do away with the painful beliefs, but they don't give you another set to replace them with.

[25:29]

Koans rely on uncertainty as a path to happiness. When you are certain, certainty is like a prison, which although you might consider redecorating it or adding a new couch, still it's a prison. And the koans, on the other hand, do not support us in our redecorating projects. They demolish the walls of the prison. Number four, koans will undermine your reasons and your explanations. Koans open a pathway of happiness that comes for no good reason. It's not justified. You can't say, well, why are you happy? I don't know. I don't know what's making me happy. I can't explain it. That's the path of happiness that doesn't need a reason. It's not based on something good or something you acquired. It's just there. It just arises with no excuse, no reason. Number five, koans lead you to see life as funny rather than tragic.

[26:33]

so that's a kind of a leap for a lot of us but every now and then i sort of get a little hint of that i'm that you know like oh yeah i've really changed from you know leaning hard into the the sad tragic part of human life to like um kind of like it is pretty funny a lot of what's going on and um not to make fun of others that certainly would be not the point of that but rather inside yourself you sort of got this is just funny in fact um I was telling the teachers here that I had a conversation with my partner, Karina, has a young niece who's just a really lovely, lively young woman. She's going to acting school and she has just so much of a head. She's just graduating from college. She's 21. And she was talking about her friends in college. She said, there's a lot of my friends are just DeLulu. And I said, DeLulu, what is that? And she said, Oh, delusional. And I said, oh, that's great.

[27:35]

So, you know, we talk about delusion all the time. So I was telling Reb and Linda and Jerry, I said, greed, hate, and delulu. I mean, I think we should catch up with the next generation in our terminology. So anyway, it's a little, and it's funny, right? Instead of delusion, which doesn't sound very funny, delulu sounds pretty funny. and probably more appropriate to what our friend and her friends are doing in college these days, is getting confused about stuff. Number six, koans will change your idea of who you are and this will require courage. So it's that moment when the walls of the prison are falling down and you are standing there somewhat naked in an open meadow. the image of a white ox on open ground is is is one of the poetic images for awakening, the white ox on open ground. You know, there's just this starkness, this power and starkness of freedom from all of from the Lulu, you know, that you're no longer falling into those traps.

[28:41]

And what's there for you is somewhat, I think, for a lot of people, it's a little scary. when freedom arrives, you know, when when the constraints or the beliefs that have been pretty much holding them together for a long time, you know, we kind of count on those stories we tell about ourselves fall away, you know, what have you got in its place? I think I may have mentioned to you, I went to Reb a number of years ago, having some moment of the walls falling down. I was, you know, feeling Sashin and things had become rather disorienting and I was not really feeling like I had a grip on my usual stories. And it was frightening. And so I went to see him and I told him, this is really scary. And I said, what do I do about the terror? And he said, you have to get used to it. Which made sense. You know, I think that's really true. It's not going away. It's not like I've never had fear.

[29:42]

I don't have the fear of aging, sickness, and death, just as the Buddha did. I certainly have my share of that as I'm aging. I'm not sick yet, but I expect I will be, and I certainly expect I will die. So it's not that there isn't fear there, but I certainly have gotten a lot more used to the idea than I was when I was younger. and wishing that that would just go away. If I go hide, I just go hide. Buddha tried to run away from the facts of life and he didn't get very far. Finally sat down and just faced what he was afraid of. He got used to it. So again, as I mentioned last week, this word koan is a Japanese pronunciation of two Chinese words, kong and an. And kong is a table. where a magistrate sits and makes judgments. They're in public. It's a table that's outside. And people would bring their conflicts to the judge and they would, to the table.

[30:48]

And then there would be a judgment. And the an would be this judgment. And so an is not only the judgment, but also is a reference in our case to a good story. So this is a good, Cohen is a good story. that has an ethical basis or an ethical judgment. They're not just random, you know, that's a good joke, or that was funny that that happened. There's an ethical core or a liberative core to the stories, which is what makes them a good story. Koans, as authoritative teachings, really made an appearance in the Tang Dynasty, which is called the Golden Age of Zen. The Golden Age of Zen was in China from the 7th to the 10th centuries. It's a little mythic. I mean, scholars have pretty much dismantled the idea that that really was the Golden Age of Zen, that actually the Golden Age of Zen was created in the Song Dynasty as a kind of retroactive attribution to the Tang Dynasty, something that human beings do, which is you make your ancestors, you elevate your ancestors,

[31:56]

They were this amazing, enlightened ancestors like Bodhidharma, who there's very little evidence that there was a Bodhidharma, but he has a huge presence in the Zen tradition because the people, the scholars in the Song Dynasty created him. It's kind of like Santa Claus. Whatever we do when we create these larger-than-life figures, they have these very larger-than-life... figures in the Tang Dynasty that are the originators of Zen. So the tradition did this in a rather skillful way, and the kind of scholarship we have now couldn't really go back and check that out. You know, we have computers, we can all talk to each other and be kind of wise guys about all of this now, but that wasn't possible then. So if I was told, as I was when I came to Zen Center, that these are actually the Zen ancestors and they start with Shakyamuni and they go through all these Nagarjuna and Vashibanzu and all the names that I've chanted since, you know, I arrived.

[32:58]

I chanted them this morning again. And I actually believed all of that. There's no reason I wouldn't. You know, I... It's a sutra, I mean, it's a text, you know, that's being chanted during a very solemn and precious ceremony, just as it was this morning. I'm very moved by the things that we chant. And scholarship says, well, that's not exactly, they didn't really meet each other. It's very unlikely that this guy lived, you know, 100 years before that one and so on. But it all got glued together and made into a very good story, which is interesting in itself. there are some really wonderful books that have been written there's one called seeing seeing through zen and uh it is so good it's just so wonderful mccray is his name professor he's saying you know it's not big it's not even though we can say that these stories are uh somewhat mythic they're still inspiring

[33:59]

just like that we like myths. Myths are what help us to understand our lives better. So even though they have a mythic or legendary foundation, they're still invaluable in terms of carrying, conveying wisdom and conveying compassion and so on. So there's no point in faulting them for, you know, for the imaginative part of it. It's more like we can learn from this because these stories are good stories and they really do help us, you know, right now. They can help us right now. so as we begin to look at these zen koans and over the next few months this this themes or main themes are again non-duality that's a major theme that we'll see of these two truths the two truths relative and ultimate truth pivoting on one another oftentimes that's what the koans are doing some monk comes forward with a relative truth and the teacher splits it, you know, pivots it to an ultimate truth. And the other way around too, if they're too much into the ultimate side, the teacher might flip it over to a relative side.

[35:03]

You know, what's the highest meaning of the Buddha Dharma? One monk asks and the teacher says, what's the price of rice in Lu Jing? Very practical and not separating the relative from the ultimate. What's the highest meaning of the Buddha Dharma? What's the price of rice in Lu Jing? So we'll begin to see this, I think you'll begin to get the flavor of how these two are pivoting one on the other, and a great many of these stories that Suzuki Roshi has brought to us. So from the relative truth to the ultimate truth, from the ultimate truth to relative truth, from form to emptiness, from emptiness to form, from function to essence, from essence to function, and so on. So you kind of keep both eyes open, you know, as they or switching from one to the other. I also wanted to share with you a quote by a Zen teacher, another Rinzai-trained teacher, his name is Victor Horis, and he says that when we begin looking at koans, we might think it's about the object which appears in the koan, such as a dog, or a fox, or Buddha nature, or as we've seen in many of the Transmission of Light stories, a whisk, or a shout, or a staff.

[36:20]

You know, these are all the subject matter. So when we begin to study them, we really are focusing on the subject matter. That's what we tend to do, you know, looking at what's in the story. But then, after a period of repetition, we begin to realize that the koan is the dynamic activity itself of looking for an answer to the koan. So you begin to notice that... You are looking for an answer to this seemingly insolvable problem, and it is you looking for an answer is actually the koan. It's like how you're functioning and addressing whatever kind of problem you're faced with, you know, one after another. The koan is your engagement with the problem. You know, it's not just the problem. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. So the very activity of seeking an answer to the koan is the koan. And the koan, therefore, is both the object being sought and the relentless seeking by the subject, which are non-dual.

[37:21]

The object being sought and the relentless seeking by the subject are non-dual. And with that realization, you crack the koan. You know, you go, oh, I see. And then he says, in a koan, the self sees the self in action, not directly, but under the guise of the koan. and when one realizes like makes real this identity then these two hands become one the practitioner becomes the koan that they are trying to understand such as the sound of one hand clapping that's a famous one what's the sound of one hand clapping you know subject seeking object all one word subject seeking object So here's the first koan from Suzuki Roshi's lecture in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. A Zen master would say, Suzuki Roshi, this is quoting Suzuki Roshi, a Zen master would say, kill the Buddha, kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else.

[38:28]

Kill the Buddha because you should resume your own Buddha nature. So that's what Suzuki Roshi says. So this koan appears in the first talk Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is in Part 1 on page 27 in my text, under the heading of Right Practice, which is followed by a teaching by Suzuki Roshi, which I want to share with you, because this is the context for why he brings this koan up. Suzuki Roshi says, Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice. There is no other way of life than this way of life. And then he gives us some reminders about... So he's talking about Zazen. This is a chapter on posture, and he's talking to a room full of students who are sitting zazen. So this is a lecture he probably gave at the city center in the early years and perhaps at Tassajara. So he's really talking to people who already have accepted that this way of life or this practice or sitting upright is meaningful to them and they're already doing it.

[39:39]

So he begins with some detailed reminders about posture, which I... I think all of us probably have read, if you've read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, I am very happy to be rereading it. Every time I do, I learn something else and I appreciate Suzuki Roshi again for what a fine teacher he was, you know, for a bunch of folks who had no idea what he was talking about or where he was coming from. Non-dual nature of reality, you know, I was like, what? So he says these forms are not the means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is itself to have the right state of mind. There is no need to obtain some special state of mind. And then he reminds us about keeping our spine straight and our shoulders relaxed, our chin tucked in rather than pushed out. And he also says to gain strength in our posture, you want to press the diaphragm downward. towards your lower abdomen. And I read that a couple of weeks back and I started doing that in the morning during Zasana, just very subtly, kind of gently as I'm inhaling to push the diaphragm down a little bit.

[40:53]

And then I noticed that my rib cage expands. So by pushing the diaphragm down a little bit and the rib cage expanding, I could really feel the volume of air increased quite perceptibly. And I've been enjoying that ever since. I started following the simple instruction that Suzuki Roshi gave. Just gently push the diaphragm down and then watch this kind of nourishment, this nourishing air coming in and really kind of revitalizing the sitting. So I'm very happy with that simple thing, that one simple thing. And then he talks about the cosmic mudra, which is the way you hold your hands in our Zen practice. with the fingers overlapping thumbtips touching and he says you know neither lean to the left or right and then once you've settled into your upright posture you feel you begin to feel that your posture is supporting the sky so these metaphors for how we arcs of our experience i find to be very powerful i imagine you will you do too you know the idea that your head is supporting the sky as pretty enlivening

[42:06]

You know, and there's another one about your feet are on the bottom of the ocean and your head is above the waves. So, you know, our life is one of all this busyness. We see all the waves, the movement, the changes in color and light and day and night and all that. But meanwhile, our feet are on the bottom of the ocean where it's very still, very quiet, very dark. You can't see what's going on down there. But that's where your feet are, that's where you're walking. And I rather loved hearing that. that little suggestion, metaphor. He says, this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. It is the right state of mind. And then he says, when you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. Same thing that Jerry was talking about. When you don't try to attain anything, you don't try to get something, then your own body and mind is right here. It's complete. You already have everything. Every moment is complete. But that's not how we think, and that's not how we feel.

[43:09]

So we're actually being convinced or invited to think about that possibility of being complete in every moment. And then he says, a Zen master would say, kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Don't look outside of yourself. That's kind of a fatal error. Kill that. tendency to look outside of yourself, to seek elsewhere. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for these, for ourselves. The most important point is to own your own physical body. If you slump, you will lose yourself. Your mind will be wandering about somewhere else and you will not be in your own body. This is not the way. We must exist right here, right now. And then he says, this is the key point. Usually without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves.

[44:10]

We try to order things outside of ourselves. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. The way you do things, that when you do things the right way at the right time, then everything will be organized. You are the boss. remember reading that going like wow you are the boss when the boss is sleeping everyone is sleeping when the boss does something right everyone will do something right and at the same time that is the secret of buddhism whether we can believe it or not that is the secret of buddhism you are the boss if you cannot be satisfied with the state of mind you have in zazen in sitting practice, it means your mind is still wandering about. Your body and mind should not be wobbling or wandering about. With the right posture, there's no need to talk about the right state of mind. You already have it. So kill the Buddha. So this koan, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha, is attributed to a very famous Zen master, Linji, or in Japanese,

[45:22]

Rinzai. So he's the founder of this other tradition, which focuses on koans. So if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. That's a Rinzai. Very, very Rinzai thing to say. So I was trying to find it. I looked in all these different koan collections. I couldn't find that story. And finally, I asked Reb if he knew, and sure enough, he had a copy of the record of Linji's teaching. the teaching of Rinzai, which was published in 1976 by Shambhala Press, way back in the day when many of us were just beginning to find out about Zen here in California. And what I love about the copy that Reb lent to me was that it's full of little margin notes that Reb wrote in the book because he was kind of a new student then. So I've got all these little notes that he wrote and places that he starred and he underlined and so on. So he's just starting to dive in to this teaching. You can still get this text.

[46:23]

It's still available. online, I get Amazon, or wherever you get things. And it was quite enjoyable. I've been reading it out loud in the mornings, and it's quite a different flavor. As you'll see, I'm going to read a little bit of it. So I had read through most of it, and there was no index to tell me where I could find anything. There was no list of quotations or anything. So I was reading through it, and I was kind of discouraged. About to tell you, I'm sorry, I couldn't find this quote by Linji Rinzai. And then I found it. So I found it in section 20. So I thought I would read you the actual quote that Linji gives. Followers of the way. The lever of home must study the way. I myself was formerly interested in the vinya, and diligently studied the sutras and treaties.

[47:25]

So that's what I was saying. Initially, that's what monks did. They just read the vinya, they studied, they practiced the vinya, the rules of practice, and they read the sutras and the commentaries. That's what they did. And then I realized that they were only drugs suitable for appeasing the ills of the world. They were only relative theories. at one stroke i threw them away and i set myself to learn the way started zen training and met great teachers only then did my eye of the way begin to see clearly and i was able to understand all the old masters and to know the false from the true a person born of a woman does not naturally know this but after long and painful practice one morning it is realized in one's own body Followers of the Way, if you wish to see this Dharma clearly, do not let yourself be deceived. Whether you turn to the outside or to the inside, whatever you encounter, kill it. If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet the patriarchs, kill the patriarchs.

[48:28]

If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents... kill your parents if you meet your relatives kill your relatives and then for the first time you will see clearly and if you do not depend on things there is deliverance there is freedom so he's kind of rough you know he's he's also very famous for yelling at people and hitting them and so i thought i'd give you another little flavor of of rinsai um from the from the beginning section of the book um So there's a word called kats, k-a-t-s-u, kats, which is a shout. And once in a while I get to do that in a ceremony. There's an opportunity in the Buddha's, in the Sejiki ceremony, when we invite the spirits. You know, we do this really, it's kind of around Halloween. We do this ceremony, we invite the spirits of those who have died to come and we feed them.

[49:31]

We make food and we do chanting. It's quite, it's probably the most esoteric ceremony we do. If you've ever been to the Sejiki ceremony, it's really powerful. And there's one point in the ceremony where you get to kind of, you can if you like, you know, just shout. So I've gotten to do that a few times as Doshi. It's exciting. It's exciting. Rare. But not for the Rinzai folks. They do it a lot. So at the high seat, a monk asked Rinzai, what is the essence of Buddhism? The master raised his fly whisk. The monk gave a katsu shout. The master hit him. Second, again a monk asked, what is the essence of Buddhism? The master raised his fly whisk. Again, the monk gave a katsu. The master gave a katsu. The monk hesitated. The master hit him. Number three, the master then said, Monks, some do not shirk losing body and life for the Dharma. And as for me, I spent 20 years with my late master, Obaku, and three times I asked him on the essence of Buddhism, and three times he kindly beat me.

[50:37]

It was as if he had caressed me with the branch of a fragrant sage. Now I feel like tasting a sound beating again. Who can give it to me? He's telling the monks. A monk stepped forward and said, I can. The master took up his stick and handed it to him. the monk hesitated to take hold of it so the master hit him you know it goes on like that page after page so that's probably the most famous thing about rinsai is his shouting and hitting which we don't do um thank goodness i'm really appreciative of that um but it's kind of interesting to see what these these folks have been up to so that's what i wanted to say today and it's very close to six already and um uh let's see I'm happy to have a brief conversation. But I have to confess, I'm really kind of curious about what's going on with the 49ers. Because, you know, I'm born in San Francisco. How's it going? Oh, okay, good. 10-3. They're ahead, so I'm not worried.

[51:40]

Please, whatever you'd like to bring up, I'd be happy to happy to talk to you. Hi, Marianne. Good to see you. Good to see you, Fu. Good evening, Sangha. I just have a, it's a technical question, and maybe it's for you and Karina. But when I go on to the calendar, and it has the spot where it's the drop-in session, and I go to that webpage, and then it has a link that says the past, the past Sunday, you know, talks that you gave that are recorded. And every time I go there, it says website not found. So I wasn't sure. I had sent you an email earlier this week about that. So I just wasn't sure what that was about. And maybe it's me, but I tried on two different computers, my work computer and my home computer, and it didn't seem to come up. Is anybody else having that trouble?

[52:43]

Lisa, you have that trouble too? Yeah. You know, Guy's been helping with this. So Guy, are you here? Let's see. He's not here. So Guy is our person. He's been really helpful in organizing all the talks and getting them online and editing out parts and stuff. So I'll check with him because last time that happened, he was able to get them put on. Someone else mentioned that to me, so I checked with him. So I will do that again. And they should they should come on. I think there's I don't know what's going on there, but I'll be happy to check it out. Great. Thank you so much. I had that experience, too. Yeah, okay. We will try to see what's going on with that. I'm rather ignorant about these things, so I count on those of you who are not computer illiterate. Got any koans? How about the kill the Buddha? How does that sound for you? The first precept is not killing.

[53:51]

So I'm like, what? Hi, Dean. So this isn't necessarily about kill the Buddha, but it's kind of about the whole koan thing. And I feel like I'm kind of outing myself, and I'm already feeling just a little embarrassed. Yeah. But I've decided I'm not going to be the only one in this group. I know I'm not the only one in the world, so I'm hoping I won't be. But you were talking about, something I wrote down is the stuff that I always hear people talk about, all of the thoughts always feel to me very lofty, like, who am I and what am I doing here? I don't ever think anything like that. I mean, I was thinking about today, and I was out in the parking lot, and I thought, I mean, I was thinking, did you have any thoughts like that today?

[54:54]

And the closest I could come was, I thought, I wonder what happens with those bees in the winter. Because I was looking at that tree. But I don't have those thoughts. But I do, for example. During the talk today and something that was said last week, I thought about the way seeking mind talk. I mean, every time I hear that, I think, is it the mind seeking the way or is it the way the mind seeks? And I thought about that today when Jerry was talking. But the thoughts of who I am and why am I here? And maybe that's why metaphors just. I mean, I was really glad you said something about, well, I wrote it down. I have to figure out my handwriting. But it was really good that it's got something to do with us doing something and we're figuring out by doing it.

[55:56]

But it isn't to figure something out. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, this is good, Dean. I think you're not alone. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are really intimidated by the Zen, let alone koans, because of this feeling that you don't know what they're talking about. And I, you know, I have no, I have no reference in my life for what this conversation is about. And it does take a little while to kind of like, you know, what's called turn the light around. You've said a lot of Zazen. So certainly when you're sitting there, as, as we do, like I'm every morning now, you know, I'm sitting there for an hour and, um, there is an interest in what is going on here. What is this that thus comes? That's a question. What is it? I mean, I just thought about the lunch, what I was going to have for lunch, and I thought about yesterday and something happened yesterday. But what are those things that are running through my head i mean they're okay their thoughts and i have a category oh now i have a feeling like in my neck so there's a feeling so when the buddha was under the tree he was doing exactly that he was noticing what he was made of he was made of the five skandhas and that's what he said he said i'm not a singularity i'm not a i'm not a person that's that's a weird thing that's a kind of a name for this totality

[57:20]

But I can find these different things that seem to be experiences that I'm having. I seem to have a body. It has some solidity. So he noticed the form. There's a form here. And there are feelings that are running through the body. So he studied his feelings, form, feelings, perceptions. I seem to have notions about what's running around here, as though they're separate. He could see that. impulses oh i kind of want to get up you know i've been sitting here for hours and i'm feeling like an impulse to get up and go drink some water so he noticed the impulse and then he noticed consciousness which seemed to be very hard to get a hold of thoughts like just try to catch a thought so his his teaching had a lot to do with breaking it down breaking it meaning our living body our experience of ourselves into these components For the purposes, basically, of eliminating a self-centered belief that you are what you think you are.

[58:21]

I am the emperor of China. And don't mess with me. You know, that that solidity of being a person who then defends themselves and has a need to get a hold of various things or to be right about things and so on, is the cause of our suffering. So he was not really just doing that as a kind of philosophical quest or metaphysical quest. It was about suffering. What's causing our suffering? And self-clinging is number one. And if there's no solid self there, what are you holding on to? So it was really an effort, I think, for him to try to explain to people how he loosened his grip on being a prince and being the next king. and you know having this opinion about everything and deciding who lives and who dies and all of that stuff he gave it up he gave all of that up and he just was really in the world of colors and sounds and other beings who he wished to help also help them become free of self-clinging and of their fear of impermanence you know they were wanting permanence i don't want things to

[59:38]

go away. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. You know, it's like, well, you can't control that. So coming to terms with how it really is, was the whole point of his his offering these teachings. And these are just continuation of that. What are you holding on to monk? You know, what are you bringing here? That you're so that you're willing to stand there and kind of in this sort of defiant way. And so Rinsai guys were testing that ego. that kind of ego clinging and helping the young ones to drop it. You know, drop it. You don't need that. You don't need anything. So it's really, if you're, you know, I think in some ways, if you find some of these teachings that actually work in terms of your own inquiries, like to study the Buddha ways to study the self, you know, Dogen said, you know that. So that's what that's, what does that mean to study myself? Well, what is the self?

[60:38]

That's one of the same questions. What am I? What am I? What can I find? Or the early Zen guy said, he says, I've been trying to find my mind. I can't find my mind. And the teacher says, well, they're good. Then I've helped you. That's right, you can't. You're trying to get a hold of something that isn't a thing. so that freedom of of discovering that the no thingness of the mind gives gives us kind of like wow well then what is this don't know can we live with that don't know there's a huge spaciousness around not knowing much more than knowing so i don't know if that's too many words but i'm sort of you know trying to massage a little bit the value of these stories.

[61:39]

And maybe if we just stick with them a bit, you'll begin to get a taste of how they work, what the point. And also the fact that Suzuki Roshi is talking about them, I find very helpful. Because they're not just kind of popping out on their own. They're in the context of what he thought was an important thing to say at that point in his talk. If you read that first lecture, you'll see that it makes sense why he would say that at that point. You know, kill the Buddha if it's something outside of yourself. So if you can, and you will, and I hope you do, hang in there while we do some more of these, maybe they'll begin to see how that might be useful. You know, I've been in a koan class for a year, and it always starts with... No, don't ask me what I think about this because I'm clueless. I mean, by the end, I feel nourished. Oh, good. That's consistent.

[62:40]

Good. After I listen to everybody else talk about it because I don't get to it or sort of like just the whole thing of the way seeking mind. Is it the way the mind seeks or is it the mind seeking away? And that sort of thing. I don't know what the answer is, but there's something there that is. Certainly awfully light, like little down feathers because there's nothing to hold on to. But there's something to imagine. Or not even imagine, but there's just something. But it's not graspable and there's no need or desire to grasp it. It's just that sometimes it's hard because I just don't... It's just hard for me to... Know if there's a way for me to know if I'm missing something and a way for me to figure out that I'm missing something. Well, Dogen says something's missing is a good sign.

[63:42]

Okay, I'll take that. Take that. Okay. It's a good sign. You know something's missing. You're not fooled because it's true. You know, we don't understand. We don't know. Not knowing is nearest. But we're going to, what? I thought I was supposed to know. Well, it's a curiosity of it. Like killing, if you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha. I mean, in my mind, it's like that's because you created something. And as long as we're creating something, we're stuck. Yeah. Where's the Buddha? Are you pointing at the Buddha? First koan in the Book of Serenity. Shakyamuni gets up on the seat and the Manjushri points and says... Clearly observe the dharma of the king of the dharma is thus. And what does the Buddha do? Gets off the seat. Right. Don't point at me. It's like, don't point at Buddha. You can't do that. You have to point everywhere. Buddha is awakening. It's a quality. It's not a person. It's a quality we all have.

[64:46]

We are awake. You are awake. Well, I will stick with this. All right. All right. I'm happy. I do. Good. Hey, Lisa. Okay. Am I there? No, not really. Good. That's the point. So, you know, this was an interesting, you, you just mentioned the, um, the, that, uh, the first koan, you know, of Manjushri pointing and saying the Dharma is thus. So I just came back from listening to Reb's lectures about thus. And he put, my sense is that he put a very different spin on the word thus. And I always took note of always, but you know, whenever I had heard about that first con, I always thought,

[65:53]

You know, well, okay, so Manjushri didn't quite get it. And yet the other interpretation is that he did get it and he emphasized thus. And I find that, you know, koans make me, maybe kind of like Dean, make me think, you know, where is it here? Which one is it? That's right. Does that happen with a lot of the koans? They're not about creating, they're about uncreating the unhappiness. The things that are making us unhappy are things we've created that we think are true. So like, you know, bring whatever you've got. If you've got something, I'll take it from you. If you don't have anything, I'll give you something. You know, so there's always this kind of meeting of wherever you're at, the koan's looking for you so that it can disturb you.

[66:58]

It can basically throw you off, you know, throw you off, and so that you can get a good tackle. It's really, there's some delight. You know, I almost always hear that there's such a great relief and joy that comes when there's a dropping away of those obstinancies, you know? but what about that you know yeah what about that you know so it really is the freedom freedom from all of those things that we carry around like a bag of rocks you know like oh just did you ever see the mission with robert denaro a long time ago no Anybody see the mission? You guys see the mission? Oh, check it out. It's really amazing. Anyway, he's a conquistador, you know, 14th, 15th century or something in South America. And he, in a jealous fit, he kills his brother who's, you know, flirting with his girlfriend. And so then he's in prison, starving himself. And the padre says, well, you can do that, but why don't you come with me?

[68:01]

We're going to climb up this waterfall to where these natives or these indigenous people are. We're going to help them because they're being under attack. They're being attacked by Spaniards and stuff. Anyway, so he puts his, as a penance, he puts his armor, all of his heavy armor into a woven bag to carry with him as he climbs up this waterfall. And there's this long scene of him going up in the waterfall and you think he's going to fall any minute. And finally he gets to the top and he throws the bag over the top and this lovely person, this indigenous person, comes over with a knife. And you think this is it, he's going to kill him, you know, and he cuts the bag off of him, and the bag goes clanking down. And the imagery of freedom, you know, it's like, oh, there's good, that was really good. You've been carrying that burden, you know, and as you should, but also you need to let it go. You know, you've done your time, you've done your penance, and now you've got to help others, which he did, you know, it's kind of the whole point of it.

[69:04]

But I feel like we all have that little bag that we carry around of some sort of collection of things that we just really could let go. And we need help. Sometimes other people come along who really recognize it. You know, you can let that go. You don't need it. Yeah. Yeah. Like wanting everybody's interpretation to make sense. That's a very big bag. Professor. Professor so-and-so. Guilty. Well, thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Maybe that was good enough for today. I hope you're all well. I look forward to going through these with you all. The next one coming up is... I think it's in the very next chapter of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

[70:10]

Let's see. Yeah, he talks about Tozan, the famous Zen master, who says, the Blue Mountain is the father of the White Cloud. The White Cloud is the son of the Blue Mountain. All day long, they depend on each other without being dependent on each other. The White Cloud is always the White Cloud, and the Blue Mountain is always the Blue Mountain. So that's the koan for next week. If you want to look at Tozan, he's our founder of Soto, Soto Zen, and his disciple Sozan. So Soto are those two names, kind of reverse them because it sounds better than Soto. I mean, Toso didn't sound so good. So they make it Soto is the name of our tradition. Okay, well, you're all welcome to... May I ask one more thing? Yeah. Could you give me a little bit... I mean, I've read this book a lot, and what you just described, I have no idea where it is in there, or I have no recollection of ever reading it.

[71:20]

So could you give me an idea of... Oh, that's not Zenline... Is that one Zenline? Yeah, Zenline Beginner. But... You just said, and I'm thinking, where was that? I don't remember any of that. Chapter two. Chapter two. Okay. Chapter one is where the Linji koan I just talked about is found. And chapter two, they're very short, is where Tozan is found. Okay. Chapter two. I will find it in chapter two. Good. And think about it. When I find it, that's exactly what I'll do. That's another one. One finger. Kute. Right. Very dangerous one. All right. You all take care. It's really nice to see you all. Thank you. Thank you. Take good care. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. I hope the 49ers win. Bye. So far, so good. Are they still ahead? Bye.

[72:20]

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