I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. I'm very happy to see you all. I won't see you all again because once I put my glasses on I can't see you, so I'm happy to have a moment to see you here at the beginning of the talk. And I'd like to begin by thanking the Abbott for giving me the opportunity to address you. Again, it's been a while. I don't really remember who we were back then, but it seems like a long time ago that we were talking about boundless bodies and Walt Whitman and dinosaurs carrying us around in their mouths in embryonic form. And I'd also like to thank all my teachers, my formal Zen teachers, one of whom is here with us, one of whom Daijaku is not, and all my teachers known and unknown.

[01:10]

I love this phrase, and it will actually be pertinent in what I would like to talk about today. My teachers known and unknown. So today I'm going to talk about Manjushri, the real head monk. So Manjushri is going to talk about Manjushri. And I will start with a little magic story special for Marie. When I was in Ladakh this summer, which is the name of the Himalayan place that I spend so much time, that I've spoken about a few times, I went to a temple that I've been... on a number of occasions called Chemre, and I walked into one of the rooms. The temples there have about, the monasteries have usually between five and seven rooms, and all of them are covered in wall paintings.

[02:12]

And I walked into a room that I must have been in before because I've been to Chemre many times, and like a tractor beam, I was pulled into towards this one image. It was really a weird feeling. I walked in the room and I just went, took this hard left and came over to the wall and saw, the first thing I saw, of course, was a non-human animal. I saw this beautiful snow lion riding on a cloud and then a human-ish, humanoid being on top of... the snow lion, and I stared at it for a long time, and I took a picture, and one of the people traveling with me took a picture with his much more sophisticated camera, and I went about my business, and I woke up, as I often do there, at 2 o'clock in the morning, right on the dot, and I couldn't stop thinking about this image when I woke up, but I couldn't figure out who it was.

[03:21]

And I thought, whoever it is, I really need to know who this is. And so I did what a good Dharma practitioner does. And I Googled, I think I Googled God who rides a snow lion or Bodhisattva who rides a snow lion. And I thought it was going to be one of these Tibetan ones that I'd never heard of. And then, boom, it comes up Manjushri. And I was like, what? What? Manjushri rides a lion? Because in our tradition, generally, Manjushri is sitting quietly on a meditation cushion. And that began a summer of Manjushri everywhere I went. and I will send around two images. One of them is the darker one, and you can see the snow lion, and that's the image from Chemnoy. Greg has them, and the Benji-sama has them as well.

[04:23]

And then behind that is another tanka. I won't tell the story of that one, but there's another tanka that I saw later in my time there that turned out to be Manjushri as well. And then... I had a very magical friend traveling with me, an Indian woman that I work with at the university. And at the end of the trip, she said, I have a gift for you. And I will ask the Benji to pass me the gift that she gave me. She went to get a completely different gift for me. She went to get a Tara for me. But what she came back with, you will be unsurprised to hear. was this. And so as I was leaving, and honestly, to tell you the truth, I had this kind of like response. I don't really like it when the people who travel with me give me substantial gifts.

[05:25]

It makes me really nervous. And also just, there was some, I'm not sure about this one. But he traveled home with me and I put him in my shrine room, also known as my study, also known as the front hall of my very small house. And as I was leaving to come to Tassahara, he said very clearly, I will be coming with you. You can leave him up there, actually. I'll be coming with you. And I arrived here, and one of the first things that I learned upon arriving was who is the real head monk, is Manjushri. So I had no idea, because there's lots of holes in my knowledge of our ways. I had no idea that Manjushri... sits over the role that I've been in here, but I'm really moved by the fact that Manjushri was calling to me and appearing to me for the months before I came here and also making a link between my other practice home and this one.

[06:38]

So I felt like I had to say, I felt like I had to learn something about Manjushri and then say something about Manjushri. So that's what I'll be doing today. Not so much information, just starting with a little bit of information and then some other things. So Manjushri is always with us here in our meditation hall, sitting right at the feet of the Buddha, which is interesting because, as I'll talk about later, he's the teacher of the Buddha. And so what is he doing sitting at the feet of the Buddha when he's the teacher of the Buddha? Really interesting. Shouldn't it be the other way around? So he's, as I found when I started doing some research, and by the way, for those of you who wonder how at least some of these Dharma talks get written, it involved going to the library and looking up Manjushri in the index of every book that I could take off the shelf in the 50-minute period of study.

[07:46]

I just started taking books off the shelf and looking up Manjushri in the in the index until I found some interesting things. So he's the teacher who represents that which cannot be taught, and he's a great orator who represents that which cannot be put into words. And I'm going to talk about those features of Manjushri in a minute, but I thought I would start by saying something about a very big word which is the word non-dualism. Manjushri's sword, which you can see in the images. In fact, I should have been able to identify Manjushri by the sword. He doesn't always, always have a sword, but he nearly always has the sword. And the distinguishing feature of this sword is that it's called the sword that cuts two into one. So what could that possibly mean so beautifully Before I get into a little bit more of the formal Manjushri lore, I thought I would say something about a couple of ways in which the teaching of non-dualism has manifested itself in my life, because I think it can seem like a very complicated

[09:11]

abstract, philosophical concept. And I really feel like non-dualism has been kind of biting at my heels since I was born, actually. So the two, I could have picked any number, but the two that really stand out for me... The first one is being a twin and especially being what's called in the community a twinless twin. And I know I'm not the only twinless twin in here. After James died, I wrote something, actually 10 years after James died, I wrote something called Not One, Not Two, which I know is also a phrase used by Suzuki Roshi. I didn't realize that when I wrote it. It's also a phrase used by the philosopher that I've spent most of my adult life teaching about and writing about, Jacques Derrida. But what I found when my brother died was this real difficulty in language in trying to figure out the right tense of, when people ask me, how many siblings do you have?

[10:26]

It's really hard for me to answer. I can't say I am a twin because my twin is not here, but I can't say I was a twin because surely I must still be a twin if I ever was one. And so there's this kind of gap that language can't quite help me with that I find productive if problematic. It's really a problem of being. more than anything else for me. And as I talked about in my way seeking mind talk, it was a major problem of being for me for a long time after James died. And I wouldn't be sitting here giving this talk if people like Greg and Linda and Leslie hadn't helped me find my way through that knot of what am I? Am I a twin? Am I not a twin? Am I one in the world? Am I two in the world? I'm really still not one and not two.

[11:29]

And it's complicated by the fact that I also have a half-sister. So I'm like, I don't know, I'm like 1.785 kids in my family. But that inquiry around twin-less twin-ness is for me a kind of... really vibrant place of thinking in very literal terms about what is non-dual. What does that mean? And the other place, which I don't really know how to talk about, but I'll go ahead anyway, since I talked about it a little bit in the class a few weeks ago, is I really think my gender has been a teaching of non-dualism for me. And thank you very much to Dogen for those stones that are neither male nor female. Because I think when people who have a relatively normative gender acculturation... See, I don't even like talking about this at all, but let's just try.

[12:36]

When they look at someone like me... I think they often think that person gets up in the morning and thinks about how to mess with gender. As though the first thing I do when I get out of bed is think, what clothes will I wear today to mess with other people's idea of gender? And how will I wear my hair to really mess up people's idea of gender? And it's not like that for me. I have always had the experience of being mirrored back by the world in a way that is either not morphologically correct or confused or there's a hitch. Even when I had long hair, I got surred regularly. Surred being a colloquial term in my queer community for being called surred, as in, can I help you, sir? What's that? Oh, yeah. And so I don't... I don't feel any wrongness about my gender, and I think that's part of what's been particularly difficult in recent history, where there are many people transitioning because they feel that they are in the wrong gender.

[13:56]

And I don't feel like either one, and I do feel like both of them, and I can feel like either one if I want to... of the two usual options if I want to put myself in there. So it's a constant inquiry for me. And it's funny, I went to do the Real ID thing, and it was taking so long in Capitola that they sent me to Watsonville. And when I was there... I don't really remember how it happened, but somehow I just spontaneously changed my gender on my driver's license to non-binary, which is an option in California. And while I don't, in the ordinary course of things, really, it doesn't really bother me, there was something really liberating in terms of my relationship to the state and particularly to the police.

[14:58]

being wrongly gendered in an airport or when you're in a traffic stop is a very uncomfortable and sometimes really quite dangerous situation to be in. And I thought, I don't need to change my pronouns and I don't need to correct anybody when they do this in my ordinary life, but in my relations with the state, I am really happy to be able to say non-binary and just have that sort of be what I lead with. So I don't know if those are helpful at all, but I wanted to try to start with some really lived experiences of non-dualism for me that are just part of my life every day. And, you know, I'm happy to talk later about as a feminist. When I told my mother I'd change my thing to non-binary, she was like, as a feminist, I really object to that. And I thought, well, you would have had to find some reason to object to it. But it doesn't make me not a feminist to have an X on my driver's license. It doesn't make me less a feminist. In fact, I could have an M on my driver's license and be a feminist as well.

[16:01]

But that's another talk. So... I thought I would start with those. So, Manjushri, I have learned a great deal from Taigen Dan Leighton's book, Faces of Compassion, about the bodhisattva archetypes. And I will just go through fairly briefly, I think, I hope... just some of the basic attributes of Manjushri. We have three, as I think you all know, because we chant them, we have three primary bodhisattvas in our tradition of Lakitasvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva of activity, great activity, and Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, whose name means noble, gentle one. And I really love the idea that this is a wisdom with gentleness in it.

[17:04]

As someone who's spent most of my life in intellectual and academic environments not characterized by gentleness, it is really appealing to me to think about our tradition as evoking a gentle wisdom, even though it's not always gentle. There's a sword in his hand, but there's a gentleness with which that sword is wielded. And this could take us back to further discussion of Dogen's intolerances. So he's the prince of wisdom and emptiness. He points to the true nature of reality. And the form of wisdom that he manifests, about which I'll have more to say in a minute, could be called insight. Insight. He is relentless in penetrating to the bottom of wisdom. And in the feminine version, he is sort of synonymous with Prajnaparamita, to whom we chant every morning.

[18:15]

So we're chanting to Manjushri in drag when we chant to Prajnaparamita. So what kind of wisdom is this? It's wisdom that's pulled out of oneself versus knowledge. Beautiful. It's wisdom that is inherent in us and it has to be uncovered. It's covered up through our conditioning. So the sword is said to cut through delusion basic attributes. He rides a lion when he's not riding a zafu. But it's a noble and calm lion, I read. It's a lion that evokes nobility, not a lion that evokes ferocity.

[19:17]

Although, again, I'm all for the ferocity. But there's a kind of a serenity even with the ferocity. The Vajra sword cuts through ignorance and slices through discriminations. Either you're a twin or you're not a twin, either you're male or female, and this cuts right through those arbitrary distinctions. In his left hand, he usually carries either a text or scroll, a lotus or other kind of flower. This one carries a lotus. or a teaching scepter or stick. And I really love that juxtaposition of the sword and the flower, or the sword and the scroll, or the sword and the teaching stick. We mostly talk about the sword, but it's important to look at what's happening in Manjushri's left hand.

[20:18]

And if the lotus is, or the teaching stick is in the crook of Manjushri's arm, as they often are, he frequently is in a Baha'i mudra, which is the mudra of cutting away fear. And I've been thinking a lot lately about that line in the Heart Sutra, you know, where there's no hindrance, there is no fear. So what is that fearlessness? Interestingly for me, and I really tripped up around this or tripped around it this summer, he's almost always represented as a 16-year-old boy. which is really weird to me. I don't generally think of 16-year-old boys as evocative of great wisdom. And so I've had to spend some time over the past few months really thinking about and inquiring into what is this fresh-faced wisdom? And he usually has long, beautiful, long hair.

[21:22]

And kind of what is a, you know, I think our cultural association and particularly our cultural projection onto traditional cultures of wisdom is usually an elderly person, often an elderly woman, a wisdom woman. But here's this 16-year-old young prince with long hair that, And I think my understanding, as I've been able to deepen it a little bit, is that it's supposed to speak to this kind of purity and freshness and clarity of this wisdom, striking wisdom, essential insight, unmarked by custom or spoiled by knowledge and expertise. So really, beginner's mind, this is what beginner's mind looks like. And there's this beautiful way that Taigen Leighton describes it. He says, Manjushri's wisdom is not acquired, but an inalienable endowment always available to us, awaiting our settling into and uncovering of this deeper awareness.

[22:37]

So Manjushri's wisdom is not acquired. but an inalienable endowment, always available to us, awaiting our settling into and uncovering of this deeper awareness. So in Zen, he's particularly important in our tradition, sits on the altar in the Zen meditation hall, Bodhidharma, the Buddha, and Manjishri, and then often Kuan Yin on the back of the altar, or of Lokiteshvara, And he represents penetrating to the essence of things. He represents that uncovering of our not-acquired but inalienable wisdom. As we deepen into the body-mind in meditation, we uncover this sort of source of penetrating insight. And this is what Suzuki Roshi calls our intuition, which I really tripped up over when I started rereading Suzuki Roshi this practice period,

[23:41]

Because I was looking, frankly, I was looking for some inspiration for encouraging words. And I thought, well, what does Suzuki Roshi say about Sashin? And he says, Sashin is to uncover our intuition. And I thought, what? Our intuition? What does that mean? But I think it's this knowledge, it's this wisdom that is our birthright. that is uncovered in Sashin when, as we like to say now, we get out of our own way. You know, we get out of our own way, we get out of our stewing, the little snowstorm finally settles and this clarity and transparency is uncovered for us. So that's Manjushri's form of wisdom. is also in the meditation hall to embody purity and discipline, discipline and ethical conduct. So he prepares the way for meditation and thus for wisdom.

[24:45]

In fact, Manjushri is very closely associated with the Paramitas. I was really interested to find out that he's associated with the homeless and with almsgiving. And that's... thought to evoke the fact that when you give away your wisdom, you're not made any of the poorer by it. You can just keep giving away your wisdom to anyone and it won't damage you in any way. And I'll talk a little bit more about generosity in a moment. So he is the monastic bodhisattva, the sacred monk known as Shoso Manjushri. And he's the model monk in that he's the student as well as the teacher. So I particularly love that in this inquiry into this role of not student, not teacher that I'm living for a little while here. This idea that he's the student as well as the teacher has been really helpful for me.

[25:50]

He's the bodhisattva of poetry, music, and language. She's associated with Sarasvati in the Indian tradition. So she's the goddess of those things. And one of his names is Manjugosha, or the sweet-sounding one. So that's enough information. What I want to do with the remaining time, and then I hope that we can have some conversation, is... I spent some time looking at where Manjishri appears in teaching stories. I'm going to come out as a person who can't find my way around koan yet. This practice period was the first time I ever tried, and if it comes in a book that says Book of Koans on the front, I just freak out. So what I did instead was to go back to Dogen and then to go a little bit through the Zen's Chinese heritage teaching stories.

[26:58]

This is Andy Ferguson's book. And for some reason, when the very same things that appear in koans appear in what's called a teaching story, I don't freak out. And what I found that really fascinated me and encouraged me is that the three general points problems or topics that Manjushri appears with relation to are in many ways the three that I certainly have, I wouldn't say struggled with, but the three most fundamental questions of my own practice, and I think based on the years that I've been around here, other people's practice too. And I'm going to just reference a few of these stories and then hope that we can talk about them. So the three kinds of stories where he appears, the first one's concern, is it important to go to a special place to practice, or can you practice anywhere?

[28:02]

And as a person who goes in and out, this is a particularly... It's always a pressing question for me, and... when we get within the four-week mark of the end of the practice period, it becomes ever more pressing for me. Am I going to rearrange my life so I can live in a special place of practice, or am I going to keep doing Samanta Badra's hidden practice in the world? So I'll reference a couple of stories about that. I'm not going to go into these deeply, don't worry. So there's, is there a special place of practice? And then the second one is, what the heck is a Zen teacher? I mean, when I teach teachers, which is what I've been doing for a living, even when it's not Zen, I always say, pretty much, you can't teach people anything. You can instruct them, like in how to use a stick shift, but even that, you can't really teach them. They have to go out there and, you know, do some of that.

[29:05]

So what is a Zen teacher? That is a Manjushri teacher. question that's where he comes up in the teaching stories and then the third one which is a horse that has been beat around here for a long time is can anything really be said is anything said or not or is silence better silence preferable because things can't be put into words so All of these are very alive for me. These are not academic questions. Sorry, that's such a weird thing for an academic to say. There's nothing wrong with academic questions, but these are very live in my practice. So I'll just give you a couple of examples of each, and then maybe we can have some conversation. So the first one is, is it important to go someplace special to practice? And I found this wonderful quotation from Linji Yishuan, who's the founder of the Rinzai School, that says, I wanted to yell this, but I won't.

[30:09]

Linji said, there's a type of student who goes to Mount Wutai to seek out Manjushri. That student has already made a mistake. There's no Manjushri at Mount Wutai. Do you want to know, Manjushri? It's just what's in front of your eyes. From first to last, it's not anything else. Don't doubt it anywhere you go. It's the living Manjushri. So whatever is right in front of your eyes is the living Manjushri. Whatever is right in front of your eyes is the opportunity for wisdom to be evoked in yourself, and it's wisdom expressing itself in the world. So, you know, as one who likes to go to monasteries and go off to dusty lands of holy places, it's really helpful for me to always be turning this koan. What is gained by going to these special places, and a great deal is gained, and also what is gained by staying home and listening to the not rain hitting the roof.

[31:17]

So that's a setup for another version of this same Manjishri story. And this one comes from my second favorite Dogen fascicle. Shobhagenzo Ongo. Yes, you may ask me which is my favorite later. Shobhagenzo Ongo, so practice period. And some of you probably know this one. Shobhagenzo Ongo, by the way, is one of the more lucid... and accessible. I really recommend that everyone read it. I read it at the beginning of every practice period. I love it. It's beautiful. And it talks about some practices that they had in Dogen's time at the beginning of practice period of going around to visit each other in their rooms and stuff. It's really cool. So I recommend it. But at the very end, there's this great story that you maybe know. So it's the last day of the practice period in the Buddha's Sangha. They've all been practicing during the rains retreat. And everyone is about to do the final confession and repentance, and Manjushri shows up. He hasn't been there for the retreat.

[32:19]

And Mahakashapa says to Manjushri, where have you spent the summer practice period? And Manjushri says, oh, I've spent it in three places, a demon's palace, a wealthy man's house, and a brothel. And Mahakashapa goes, wait, what? What? And he says, yeah, yeah, a demon's palace, a wealthy man's house, and a brothel. And Mahakshchapa goes, and he gets all the monks together, and he says, we're going to expel Manjushri right now. Okay. He's broken the precepts. And he lifts the mallet to strike the, what's it called? Thank you. I can never remember what it's called. Sweet chain. And just as he lifts the mallet, countless monasteries appear. And in each one, there's a Mahagashapa and a Manjushri. And the Buddha says to Mahagashapa, which of these Manjushris are you going to expel? Which one are you going to expel?

[33:22]

And Dogen's comment on this is really beautiful. He says, although the world-honored one practiced a practice period in one place, and Manjushri practiced in three places, Manjushri was not a non-participant in the practice period. There are no descendants of Buddha ancestors who are non-participants in the practice period. So this has been so true for me. When you all are here in practice period, and this will be me in January, February, March, and the beginning of April, there is a point every day when I think, right now, the monks are here. Or right now, the monks are here. Or I wake up in the morning and I think, oh, it's service. And it's so encouraging to me. That's really encouraging to me. I know it's not encouraging to everyone. As I've been learning lately at tea. Some people don't love service as much as I do.

[34:24]

Particularly chanting the names of the teachers. Can I just say that they're all your teacher. So if you don't like chanting those names, does that mean that you don't like venerating your teacher? So this idea that Mangshishri reminds us that, of course, these practice places are special practice places. We wouldn't still be having practice periods if there wasn't some point to having practice periods. We can't just say, oh, we're all just going to go off and do our own thing out there in the world. And at the same time, we can't get stuck in the idea that this is the only real practice that's happening right here in this special, special valley of ours. So that's one set of these stories that's been very powerful for me. And we can talk about that. I'm happy to talk about that. The second one, second set of stories, have to do with teachers.

[35:28]

And they're pretty simple, these stories. They're all, interestingly, 9th and 10th century Chinese were really interested in Manjushri. So there's a teacher named, I don't know what he's called in our, I couldn't figure out who these people were when we're chanting their names, but Tu Zi Datong, a monk asked him, Manjushri had seven Buddhas as disciples, did Manjushri have a teacher? And the teacher said, when you speak in this manner, It's as if you're belittling yourself and praising others, by which I think he means when you speak in this manner, you expose yourself as a complete idiot and make other people look much better, right? So did Manjushri have a teacher? There's another version from a contemporary. A monk asked Nanta Manjushri, was the teacher of seven Buddhas? Did Manjushri have a teacher or not? And this time the teacher says... This is so fascinating. Manjushri was subject to conditions and therefore had a teacher.

[36:32]

Manjushri was subject to conditions and therefore had a teacher. The monk said, who was Manjushri's teacher? Nanta held up his whisk. The monk said, is that all? Nanta put down the whisk and clasped his hands. I've been sitting with this story and with this sentence now for a week or so. Manjushri was subject to conditions and therefore had a teacher. And to me, it really evokes the sense that every condition is our teacher. And we may or may not recognize it as such, but conditioned existence gives us the opportunity to wake up. If that's what a teacher does, helps us wake up, then everything about living in conditioned existence allows us to be taught if we're willing to become students of conditioned existence. For me, when I've had periods of greater suffering around living in conditioned existence, when I've felt the pain of that more, it has really helped me

[37:49]

in a non-spiritual bypassing way, in a sincere way, to feel like I'm going to be a student of this situation. And not I'm going to grasp it, you know, I'm going to like figure out what the teaching of this is and put it on Facebook. It's just more this thing of like, okay, you know, one of the teachers that I've studied with is a Garchan Rinpoche, who was in a Chinese prison for 20 years. And he talks, he's the happiest person I've ever met in my life, and he talks about while he was doing this prison labor that he would just think, well, you know, I'm cleaning my karmas. I'm cleaning my karmas. So he allowed himself to be taught that. And yet that still leaves the question, well, then what is the relationship with people who are appearing as teachers in this movie of our Zen life? What exactly is the teacher-student relationship?

[38:52]

In the Boon tradition, we say a prayer to our teachers that I still say every morning at the very beginning of our day, which is, bless me to recognize my true face with my own eyes. So isn't it interesting that we need someone else to help us recognize our true face with our own eyes? You know, it's truly the mirror, the mirror that is, you know, my teacher, the mirrors that we are for each other. But to actually ask that, you know, it's not bless me to wake up and be an enlightened rock star. All I need to do is recognize, as another then prayer says, help me to see my own true nature as Buddha. So I really appreciate that. And Hoja-san directed me to an essay by Norman that I have read before, but that I didn't think that I really absorbed until now.

[39:59]

And so I just thought I would share with you what he has to say. It's called No Teacher of Zen. It's a really great essay. I have it if anyone wants to read it. He says... No one can communicate a truth worth knowing. The only worthwhile truth, I would say, the only worthwhile wisdom is the one you find uniquely for your own life. On the other hand, Zen is not Lone Ranger practice. I love that. Zen is not Lone Ranger practice. Yes, there are Zen teachers because Zen practice is not nothing. real transformation occurs. Zen teachers can't show you how to affect this transformation, they can't cause it to happen in you, and they are not masters of it. But they do play an essential role. So they can't show you how the transformation happens. They're not masters of it, and yet they play a role.

[41:01]

So what is this role? And he goes on to say, in the ordinary educational, I don't know, I would disagree here, but let's just leave it for now. In the ordinary educational model, there are teachers who teach students who learn subject matter, standards of knowledge, an educational institution that contains and certifies the educational process. While in some ways Zen might look like this, In fact, Zen is not an educational process, but rather a transformational one in which both teacher and student fully engage, each playing his or her or their proper role. The process itself affects the transformation. The teacher, not actually teaching anything, must occupy his or her place in the process. The teacher not actually teaching anything still plays a role in the process. And what is that role? If you sit for a moment and think about someone who's been an influential teacher for you in this tradition, and if you can't think of anyone, then maybe in another tradition, not what did they teach you, but how did they teach you?

[42:16]

Or how do they teach you if they're in this room? that work in our tradition they help you clean the mirror of your own heart they help you uncover but there isn't there isn't a subject matter that gets passed along and there's no gold stars So Manjushri and special places of practice. Manjushri and what is it that teachers teach in Zen? And then perhaps the most well-known is the question of silence and language.

[43:22]

In the Book of Serenity, Case Koan 1, Case 1, there I did it. Very famous story. Manjushri is acting as an attendant in the Buddha hall. He pounds the gavel to signal the arrival of Shakyamuni at his lecture seat. Shakyamuni walks in, starts getting up to the seat. As he's sitting down, Manjushri says, clearly observe the Dharma of the King of Dharma. The Dharma of the King of Dharma is thus. And the Buddha gets down and walks out of the hall. So this is read by... Taigen and others as a kind of a poor reflection on Manjushri. Manjushri has said too much when he should have kept silent. But I'm not buying. I'm not buying. They both play an essential role in this story.

[44:25]

In the ending of the Vimalakirti Sutra, Of course, Manjushri plays a crucial role. He's the only bodhisattva with the courage to visit Vimalakirti in his sick room. And very close to the end of the text, Vimalakirti challenges all the bodhisattvas to explain how the bodhisattva goes about entering the gate of non-dualism. Okay, it's a very famous chapter of this book, and all respond. Nobody says anything when they respond. They all respond by the book, right? They respond from their knowledge, not necessarily from their wisdom, although they say pretty good things. And Vimalakirti doesn't say anything the whole time. But at the end, they all turn to Manjushri and say, what is your response? How does a bodhisattva enter the gate of non-dualism? And Manjushri, the 16-year-old boy, says to my way of thinking... All dharmas are without words, without explanations, without purport, without cognition, removed from all questions and answers.

[45:28]

In this way, we may enter the gate of non-dualism. Okay, so he gives a big speech about no words. And then Manjushri asks Vimalakirti, could you please answer your own question? And unsurprisingly, what? The Malakirti remains silent, at which point Manjishri then gives another speech. Excellent, excellent, not a word, not a syllable. This truly is to enter the gate of non-dualism. So it's really easy to think, well, there goes Manjishri again saying too much, right? But that's not it. I really don't believe that that's it. I think it's a failure of dana, right, to not... make what effort we can to put these things into language. It doesn't lead to joyful community, right? If we're all walking around in a kind of stern silence with each other. And I mean, I know I already gave a talk where I extolled the virtues of silence.

[46:30]

So I'm all about silence. But we also have to say something. It's back to this category Roshi, right, that I talked about earlier. Returning to silence, you have to say something. And so I went and got that out of the library. And here's what Kategori Roshi says, and this is the penultimate thing that I will say. Kategori Roshi says, we finally ask ourselves, what is life? But there is nothing to say, just silence. This silence is Buddha nature or suchness or emptiness. This silence, this eloquent silence, as another book calls it, is Buddha nature. or suchness or emptiness. Sooner or later, we all realize the presence of this silence. But then we ask, what is this silence? How can I speak of it? Do I just keep my mouth shut? And he says, no, I don't think so, says Kategori Roshi.

[47:37]

No, I don't think we just keep our mouth shut. Even if you don't say anything, there's still a problem. There's still a problem. Silence, Buddha nature, is not something apart from your life. It compels you to speak. It compels you to speak. That is why the Zen master had to speak. He had to say something. He had to speak from that silence. So what is it to speak from silence? What is it to teach from silence? We always come away from these things feeling like we said too much, I think. I always come away from these things feeling like I said too much. And at the same time, I don't want to be in a practice world in which we sort of top each other with our silences, you know? I want us to try to speak to each other and share with each other

[48:41]

and be the conditions through which each other learn. And I think that is a request that's been made of us here. Otherwise, we would be in caves. And I really thought about cave practice. I mean, really, really thought about it. I even have a cave that has a practice house around it. I can show you a picture of me sitting on the steps of my cave. Naropa is supposed to have meditated there. It's a beautiful valley, high up, And the Himalayas, somebody would bring the food, you know, it'd be great. But in a certain way for me, it's too easy, you know. It's too easy, just me and the birds and the mountains and none of y'all. So I'll finish with a poem, not with an insult. So our old friend David White, this is a nod to Paul who brought David White into my life.

[49:46]

And it's called To Make a Promise. Some of you may know this poem. I'm going to change the title, and I don't think David White would be mad, to make a vow. And I'm going to change the word promise in the poem to vow because I like it better. And I think it touches a little more closely what we're about here. To make a vow. Make a place of prayer. No fuss. Just lean into the white brilliance and say what you needed to say all along. Nothing too much. Words as simple and as yours and as heard as the birdsong above your head. or the river running gently beside you. Let your words join to the world the way stone nestles on stone, the way the water simply leaves and goes to the sea, the way your vow breathes and belongs with every other vow the world has ever made.

[50:55]

Now leave them to go on. Let your words alone to carry their own life without you. Let the vow go with the river. Have faith. Walk away. So do we have time for some conversation? Okay. I think we have time for some conversation. Thank you, Kitchen, for everything. Do you have any questions? Kate, do you have a question? No, you were bowing at someone. Okay. There's a goodbye bow. Teachers.

[51:59]

Yes. What should we converse about? We could converse about language and silence. We could converse about teachers. We could converse about special places of practice. The thing is, I know I'm probably the only person who's thinking much right now about special places of practice versus just practicing out there in the world. So we don't have to talk about that one if it's not of interest. Teachers, wisdom, language. Yeah, Rio and then Greg. Greg. How does one approach a situation like that? Ears forward. Yeah, I mean, I think that you already, you already signal the note of caution, right, that comes.

[53:04]

And I think your question gets exactly, thank you, because I think it gets exactly at what the conundrum, the productive distinction that's happening, right? You can't just blurt out your wonderful things that you learned here and your transformative experience, right? But at the same time, you don't want to leave your friend alone with his, her, or their challenge. And it feels like if you let your ears do the talking, maybe Maybe your friend will uncover their own wisdom in the conversation. Just by being that kind of a listener, I think, you're already teaching something that you learned here. Does that make sense?

[54:05]

I mean, I don't think, I just don't think telling people, I remember Shiso from another practice period saying to me, coming to me and asking me, it was really weird because the person didn't generally talk to me, but they came and asked me, like, these people are always talking in the bathhouse, do you think I should say something to them? And I said, well, it might stop them talking that day. but I'm pretty sure nobody stops talking in the bathhouse until something comes up from inside them that says, you know, we were asked not to talk in the bathhouse, so I'm not going to talk in the bathhouse, right? So I think it's like that. I don't know if it's any helpful, but I just see more and more that we have to come to our own learning, and yet we have this indispensable gift of teachers and teachers who... with their skillful questioning and occasional apt comments, help us to uncover that wisdom that we already have.

[55:09]

So maybe you can help your friend uncover their own wisdom. Or maybe they need to suffer some more. Gregson? The case in the book of Serenity. Oh boy. Yeah. I think one song is beautiful commentary on the case. The last line says, but nothing can get done. And she's leaking. Right. And so actually, that's as much of a quote for me as the whole case, that one line. Because is he shrugging his shoulders to say, ah, there's . Yeah. Right. And the squirrels that scream at each other over breakfast. Yeah, I say yes, beloved teacher friend.

[56:14]

Yeah, I mean, I think it was read in almost everything that I read for preparing for this as a really stern judgment. You know, what can be done about when she's leaking? And in all honesty, Taigen reads it that way. He has a long section called Manjushri's Leaking. And I have another reading of it, which is, nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking because we live in conditioned existence and because we're trying to live in joyful community. And so... we have in some sense made an agreement to allow each other's leaking, to remain present for each other's leaking, and also not to, you know, language is a bridge. It's a bridge. And it's a beautiful, flawed,

[57:25]

gift that we have to share with each other and connect with each other. And yeah, sometimes Manjishri is leaking. This is what it is to live in a dualistic universe. I need Manjishri to say the wrong thing or to say anything. in order to uncover a little bit of my own wisdom. And we need that, you know, I think. And also it's kind. It's kind for human animals and other kinds of animals to communicate with them. Sasha, and then Kai.

[58:41]

Yeah, you bet. Manjishri brought it up, not me. I very much enjoy being here. And I love the forms and sometimes . And sometimes I do get enamored with these Chinese stories of ancient masters and the weird poetry that we have in water, all this stuff. And at the same time, sometimes I think there's a voice saying, no, don't get lost in this. Because I can see, I mean, I won't, but still, like, feel as cold.

[59:44]

And then there's a word out there. And we do have this thing in our practice where, you know, just like you said, the practice where you are now. And so, you know, it is sad. And then still there is And there's the ropes and everything. And some people are here. And something that came up. You know, in those non-religious singers, people come once and they come twice and then they don't come back. Because it's too weird. You know, people like the regular . So anyway, what do we do with that? So there are many of these ancient stories, there are not so many stories about contemporary 21st century living, where the same stuff happened, right? There seems to be very much, I mean, this is a very classic practice, right?

[60:51]

And in many ways, I see, I stumble upon that. So one thing, and I do this to you, is to talk about places like this, but there are no places like this. Tazahara is a pretty unique institution, and one of the things that my venerable friend teachers have said again and again to me and help me to remember is this is called a training monastery. So this is a place that we go specifically to do intensive practice with the thought that we will take that practice back to the marketplace. And some people, some of us do that by coming, cycling in and out over and over again, and some come for three years and then they go out. And so I think it's helpful maybe not to think of this as sort of generalizable

[61:57]

And, you know, as Hojasan keeps saying, we are going to be the makers of those stories. I think what I was trying to say today is, like, these are 1,000-year-old stories from China, and all of them are happening for me on a daily basis. Mount Wutai? Or just stay in Santa Cruz on the west side? You know, do I need to go to Ladakh? To see Manjushri on the wall of the temple? Yes. Do I need to stay home and take care of my precious life? Yes. So the stories are alive, I think. And part of what's shocking to me about reading this Zen's Chinese heritage book is that they're just so normal, these stories. They could be happening right here. They really could. So easily the conversation hasn't moved much in a thousand years is what I thought at one point when I was reading it. It's like, oh, God, we're still talking about the same stuff.

[62:57]

I think I'll go to India. You don't need to go to India. You know, so it's like... I think I'll leave Tassajara and go to India. Well, you could. So, you know, I don't... Again, I think this is the encouragement for me of this, even though sometimes I find it exhausting, is we're not going to settle these questions. But... As I said to someone the other day, if you're not asking yourself every day, what the heck are we doing here in these funny outfits, spending our time in this way, then you are asleep. You are. And that question should be asked robustly and frequently. And yeah, that's... You know, and some of the answer to the question that I think doesn't get talked about enough is, well, when we come here to practice, one of the differences is we have hot and cold running teachers who are established in this practice whose job description is to see us within, you know, 48 hours when we feel like we need to chat about something.

[64:17]

And I don't know about you, but I don't have that out there. I have wonderful friends, and they all have an interest in the outcome of the question. And no matter what the question is. So, you know, part of what we have here is this gift of our mirrors that is just, it's an immeasurable gift. non-dual, sure. But now this has to be clean and out there. It's like I kind of just put, I have these experiences with deeper insight, perspective on my language, it's very beautiful and subtle and in tune with my body, and then it's time to work.

[65:30]

And it's like, and once it's time to work, I don't have time for that. I need to actually put this in the right category, in the wrong category. And that's how I, that's my problem. And it occurred to me as you were talking, you're Oh. I don't have any trouble with that at all. I feel like right now the game we're playing is the game called recycling. And in the recycling game, it's really important to keep the glass and the plastic separate. In a different game, that's not important.

[66:32]

I don't feel attention there. And in a certain way, I mean, I'll just be completely honest, you know, non-dualism to which I have devoted... My work life, my spiritual life, my recreational life, it's exhausting. And so, you know, one of the reasons that the poor Benji never gets to sort the recycling is because it's like a relief for my nervous system. You know, and also it does have to do with our taking care of this precious life. I mean, this is really what Katagiri Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi are all reminding us. you know, why is that sorting important? It's not important as an end in itself. It's important because we're trying to do this activity where we take better care of the planet and we reuse things. And so for that, we're going to make this distinction. You know, it's like the bathhouse, right? It's not a perfect distinction, right? We need a bathhouse that's like something out of the Avatamsaka Sutra and it has like enough pools for all of the

[67:39]

particular combinations of gender and nakedness that come, but we don't have that. We have two sides to the bathhouse, so we do our best. But I would just circle back quickly to the work thing and say, do not under any circumstances suspend these questions while working. I've been the TA. Cleaning the floor of the walk-in is... deep inquiry, and if nothing else, it's the practice of dhana, it's the practice of sila, it's the practice of kshanti, it's the practice of virya, and if you can get meditation and wisdom in there as well, then good for you. But what could be more the practice of the paramitas than the extraordinary job that you're doing, by the way, as the TA, in helping us clean the mirror and keep ourselves healthy and safe? You know, that's love practice right there. So, yeah. One more?

[68:43]

Then we go. Yes, Rihanna. I don't know that it's a question, just a comment, of like, waiting for mind to share with me, because this wouldn't be happening. That's right. What if the law is itself not to be mind to share with you? Yeah, there's some Avlukiteshvara and Samantabhadra in there as well. Well, I think part of the role of the chuseau is in a way to play silly Manjishri in the play and get up and say too much and then allow us all to contemplate what is it to say too much? So you're sort of the fall guy for saying too much, you know? And that's incredibly humbling and also, you know, This is maybe a small gift to be like, well, I'll try to say it. That's hilarious. I'll never forget the moment when Akshay said to me, I was so nervous at some point, and she said to think that I had to get up there and talk about the true nature of reality.

[69:54]

And I was like, what? Don't put things in my head. Because whatever it is I think I'm doing here, it's not that. So, but yes, there is a, and so much of it is what Rio asked about, right? So much of it is you stop on the path, you ask somebody how they are, and they tell you, and you're like, you know, now what, right? You know, if you say, oh, I'm really starting to hear that, that sounds hard, then the person feels blown off. If you say... Well, you know, when I experience that in my practice, then they feel patronized. If you say, well, the Dharma says this, then they feel iced. So, you know, it's a... It's like that. Yeah.

[70:58]

I shall equally extend to every being and place. With the truth, you have to take a breath away. Sure, oh, and faith I know. Oh, no, we will gain faith I know. Oh, Thank you.

[71:40]

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