This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So the number missing is over a thousand now. And I was thinking, you know, I felt bad when there was just one. person so I don't even know how to feel so many trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space space has a name but no form it's not something you can pick up or put down and you certainly can't grab it beyond this mind you will never see a Buddha.

[01:02]

The Buddha is a product of your mind. Why look for a Buddha beyond this mind? If you don't see your mind is Buddha, invoking Buddhas, reciting Sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking Buddhas results in good karma. Reciting Sutras results in a good memory. Keeping precepts results in a good rebirth. And making offerings results in future blessings, but no Buddha. Even if you have a mountain of jewels and as many servants as there are grains of sand along the Ganges, you see them when your eyes are open. But what about when your eyes are shut? You should realize then that everything is like an illusion, like a dream. So this teaching is called the Bloodstream Sermon, and it's attributed to the Indian master Bodhidharma, who came from the West to China to teach Zen.

[02:13]

The Zen tradition itself, as we know, marks its own beginning from the moment when Shakyamuni Buddha, at an assembly of his disciples, held up a flower and blinked his eyes. at which Maha Kashapa, the great ascetic, faintly smiled. Then the Buddha said to him, I have the treasury of the eye of truth, the ineffable mind of nirvana. These I entrust to you, Kashapa. So on our lineage charts, this is the first warm hand to warm hand transmission of the teaching within the Buddha field attributed to Shakyamuni, you know, the one that we're in right now. A little later in the same story, as told in a text called The Transmission of Light, which was written in the 13th century by Zen master Kezon, a Dogen disciple, it says, The treasury of the eye of truth is entrusted to oneself, and therefore you cannot call it kashapa or shakyamuni.

[03:24]

There has never been anything given to another. There has never been anything received from anyone. This is called the truth. This truth about nothing being given and nothing being received sounds a lot like those verses that we chant before each meal, twice daily. May we, with all beings, realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. The idea about giving and getting nothing, much like most Zen language, runs counter to our usual way of thinking about things. And as a result, it's somewhat easy to imagine that those Zen people who transmitted the Dharma, even further west, like all the way to California, were really different from us. You know, being from another place, from a different culture, with a different language.

[04:26]

So not only different, but completely separate from us. Way over there. And yet when we're thinking that way about those people and places as way over there, then as Bodhidharma just said, there is no Buddha. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we only thought this about the teachers of the past who really were from somewhere far, far away, with names like India, China, and Japan. But unfortunately, it seems as though we think that way about the people sitting next to us as well, way over there. You know, quite literally, not me. The only me is right here and I've got it, not yours. Or as Oscar Wilde cleverly said, you might as well be yourself because everyone else is already taken.

[05:32]

So this way of thinking isn't really anyone's fault, it's just that it's wrong. There is no second person. The Buddhas as well as our neighbors only appear or disappear depending on whether we ourselves, as Kezan says, are diligent or slack in coming to understand the workings of our own mind. The only warmth that the Buddha's body will ever have is the warmth that is taken from us. And no doubt that's the reason for Mahakashapa's smile. You know, he felt the Buddha's warmth inside of himself. He felt it as inseparably as the beauty is from the fragrance of the flower. It's just because we do not understand ourselves that Shakyamuni passed away in olden times. If you never see him, you will be remiss, and even the hands of a thousand Buddhas will not be able to reach you.

[06:42]

I know this sounds a little discouraging, but I don't think that's what Kazon is intending. I think he's intending to inspire us to keep smashing away at the layers of our habitual thinking that is trapping us inside of this illusion of a separate self. Like the mother hen, you know, calling to her chick inside the egg, you know, you got to get out of there or you're going to die. Or maybe worse, you're not even going to be born. So all of the enlightenment stories from the transmission of light take place at the moment when the student has exhausted all of their tricks. All of the arrows have been shot out into the sea. And the mind can find no place else to land. So there's this image of the mind and its thoughts in Karl Bernholz's book, the one I recommended to you all, called The Heart Attack Sutra, that seems really familiar to me from...

[07:45]

those many hours that I've spent sitting on a black cushion. In particular, it resonates with the image that I shared with you at the beginning of the last session, the image of my mind as a small boat out on the open ocean with no land in sight. Adrift. And then, as the author suggests, our thoughts are like land-dwelling birds. and for some unknown reason, have come along in our boat for the ride. And once we're far out to sea, those birds don't get very far in their flight before returning to the boat, because it's the only place around for them to rest. So in the same way, our thoughts and our emotions fly off into the sky of exciting things. But since they can't really go anywhere or get anywhere outside of our own mind, they always come back and settle down at the very place from which they arose.

[08:46]

And so it is with those thoughts of separation or acquisition or of anything else, for that matter. And as a result, we really don't have to nail down our thoughts or our feelings or worry about them when they've gone because they can't get very far. They'll always come back, just like my old dear dog Mac, you know. He'd always return home by himself. So I think this is the good news about the mind. Always comes home. The bad news about the mind is how often we fail to recognize that we can never step outside of our own minds to see what the world looks like from some other point of view. We just can't. We certainly can imagine it, and we do often. For example, I know what you're thinking. Those people are like that, and so on. We do it all the time.

[09:47]

And we could call it mind-reading, because that's what those projections truly are. They're mind-reading, but only of our own vivid imaginations. Like those land-dwelling birds arriving back on the deck. Homo Bula Est. Homo Bula Est. It's a phrase that I got on a card from a student some years back, meaning, man is a bubble, a bubble of awareness, no more and no less. So this is a Latin phrase that was very popular, apparently, in the Middle Ages as a metaphor for transiency. And this image of the bubble was often painted by these talented medieval artists who had very deep Christian faith. And alongside the bubble, there were images of wilted flowers, of skulls, and of rotten fruit. And on the surface of the bubble, they would cleverly detail scenes from hell, just to remind us sinners, one and all, where we're going when the bubble pops in a bonfire of our vanities.

[11:01]

So the word shunyā, as in shunyata, meaning emptiness, comes from the Sanskrit verb to swell, implying this very notion of hollowness like a bubble or like a balloon. So when our minds are inflated by ignorance or unearned privileges, we take a very little nothing and blow it up into what appears to be a rather large something, you know, a thought bubble, in some occasions even a blimp. The thing about a thought bubble is that both the inside and the outside are exactly the same, dependent core rising from which everything has the potential to happen. It's just that there is no way to know if anything ever does. Did anything happen? Is anything happening right now? How would we know? Happening doesn't just sort of happen, it instantaneously passes away, you know, like tathagata, thus come, thus gone.

[12:18]

And it's hard to tell about what's happening because knowing something or telling something requires words, and words are what thought bubbles are made of, one word after another, popping as they go. In Sanskrit, the word for thought bubbles is prapancha. Sounds like popping, doesn't it? Prapancha. Meaning mental elaborations or conscious construction only. So this is from the Pali Canon. This body is like a ball of foam. Feeling is like a bubble. Perception is like a mirage. Formations like a hollowed out tree. And consciousness... is just a trick. And still, as it says in the Mahayana text, emptiness is not nothing, nor is it something. Emptiness is just another word pointing at the ungraspable nature of our thoughts while they pop.

[13:27]

And the same goes for inside or outside, for here, for there, and for everything in between. Now you see it. And now you don't. Which is why Maha Kshapa faintly smiled. Emptiness not only means an end of the world as we know it, but that a world outside of ourselves doesn't really exist at all. At least not the way we think it does. Just some land-dwelling birds out on the open sea with no land in sight. So why did Bodhidharma come from the West? So go on. Greg?

[14:29]

Oh, you read ahead. Okay. I always get nervous when people start getting called on. So I'll stop. So, well, I think maybe he was getting tired of waiting to be invited. Which might explain why Bodhidharma asked his teacher, the Right Reverend Mother Prajnatara, having realized the truth, to what land shall I go to work? When his teacher suggested that he go to China, he asked, Will I be able to find people in China with the capacity for the teaching? Will trouble arise after a thousand years? He had a long-range plan. Prajnatara replied, Innumerable people in that land will attain enlightenment. There will be a little trouble.

[15:34]

Just a little. You should humble yourself, she said. So it really struck me once when I was reading the Diamond Sutra where it says, by this humiliation you shall be liberated. Kind of opposite of what we hope for, isn't it? By this humiliation you shall be liberated. Which I found somewhat shocking. But on reflection, I think it's profoundly true. Just as on entering the tea house, when we enter Buddha's house, This one, we lower our heads. When the time was right, about 60 years later, Bodhidharma went to his patron, the Raj of East India, to tell him he was leaving and that he would come back when his work was done. The Rajah wept. What's wrong with this country? Let me tell you. What's auspicious about them?

[16:38]

The Rajah cried. Well, anyway, when you're done, come back. Don't forget the land of your parents. Some years ago now, quite a long time now, I was traveling in Navajo land with some Navajo families and also with some families from Marin. We created a program together. They visited us and we went and visited them. It was amazing. Anyway, one of the young boys, whose name was Mateo, pointed to a very distant plateau and he said, that's where I live. The land of his parents and his grandparents and his great-great-great-grandparents, seven generations back, as they say. And I was really struck when Mateo said that because I have no idea where the land of my parents is. I don't even know which direction to point. truly homeless and truly ashamed to be descended from invaders who took so much for themselves that really didn't belong to them without sharing.

[17:50]

Seven generations back. So later, in the night of that same week that we were visiting Navajo land, I sat in a sweat lodge with the elder women and all I could do was to cry. But they went on chanting and pouring more water on the hot stones. There's some misunderstanding that you don't leave until everyone has somehow found some relief. So we stayed a very long time. And finally, the eldest of the women said to me, it's okay. You're here with us now. And I think... I know now that she was speaking, as Angel said to us, from her scars and not from her wounds. A little later, I asked some of the elders how they felt about Chinese people as distant ancestors, as I had been taught.

[18:53]

Native people coming over the Bering Straits and all, right? I learned that. I was being very smart. And the same woman from the sweat lodge, her name is Etta, smiled faintly and pointed to this very deep hole in the ground where we had gone to hear the story of creation. And she said, fool, we don't come from them, they come from us. This hole is where the people, all the people, came up onto the earth. You know, that at least made me very happy because now I do know where I'm from. And all of you as well. They call that whole the navel of the world. So Bodhidharma left his native land, perhaps for very different reasons than my ancestors had. He had something to give to others, not to take from them. And he willingly traveled by sea for three long years before arriving in southern China in 527, where he was met by Emperor Wu of Liang.

[20:02]

The emperor asked, what is the highest meaning of the four noble truths, the holy truths? A first turning question. Bodhidharma replied, vast emptiness, nothing holy. A second turning reply. So the emperor questioned him again. You know, it doesn't say, but I get this feeling that maybe the emperor was a little irritated at that point. Who are you facing me? he said to the monk. Bodhidharma said, in all honesty, don't know. In other words, by what sign, by what characteristic, by what knowledge or time sense could I possibly know who I am? And then off he went, which is probably a good thing, because emperors don't usually like to play. being somewhat insecure from a lack of honest reflection by those around them, which is really too bad.

[21:07]

You know, it's a great loss to them, and even more so to all of us who suffer the consequences of their childish tempers. But then enough of politics for now. As for Bodhidharma, he headed north to Shaolin Temple in the kingdom of Wei, where it says that... No one could figure him out, because all he did was sit in a cave day and night. So they called him the Indian who stares at the wall. For nine long years, without any noisy explanations and without hastily teaching, just as his teacher had instructed him to do. And then one day, his first true disciple, Hueka, in Japanese, Taiso Eka, came to visit, and following... a rather gruesome petition, was finally allowed to stay and to learn. And with that meeting of teacher and disciple, the second wheel was again set to turn far, far away from its native land.

[22:11]

One day, Hueca said to his teacher, I have ended all involvements, all conditions. To which Bodhidharma said, doesn't that turn into nihilism? Vekka said, no. Bodhidharma said, prove it. Vekka said, I am always clearly aware, therefore words can't reach it. Bodhidharma said, this is the essence of mind which all Buddhas realize, doubt no more. So Vekka spent eight years with Bodhidharma asking him questions all the while, such as... Can I hear about the seal of the truth of the Buddhas? Meaning, can I have Dharma transmission? And the teacher replied, The seal of the truth of the Buddhas is not gotten from another. Go back to work. On another occasion, the teacher instructed Hueca, saying, Outwardly, cease all involvements.

[23:19]

Inwardly, have no coughing or sighing in the mind. With your mind like a wall, you can enter the way. With a mind like the wall, you can enter the way. So I kind of wondered if a mind like a wall might be samyak samadhi, leading to jhana. Kind of sounds like it, mind like a wall. But then I think we all know that the Zen school is much more fond of poetry and koans, metaphors and jokes. whereby the ancient traditions and systems of thought simply lose their way. Until, under the unblinking gaze of the emptiness teachings, step by step, the pathway to enlightenment simply vanishes beneath our feet. It's not exactly groundless, but it's pretty close. And yet, generation after generation, systems keep trying to sneak their way back in, as we'll see in the story up ahead, when the Sikh's ancestor wrote a poem on the monastery wall.

[24:25]

Eventually, Bodhidharma bequeathed the robe and the teaching to Vekka, saying, Inwardly, transmit the seal of truth for the realization of the enlightened mind. Outwardly, transmit the robe to certify the Zen succession. So this seal of approval from Bodhidharma didn't change for the next five generations until an illiterate Chinese woodcutter by the name of Hui Nong appeared on the scene having awakened on hearing a traveler reciting this verse from the Diamond Cutter Sutra, a Prajnaparamita text. You should activate the mind without dwelling on anything. you should activate the mind without dwelling on anything. So up until that time, Bodhidharma's successors had been promoting the Zen school through the mind-only teachings of the Lankavatara Sutra, as in, for example, this very mind is Buddha, which sounds kind of reassuring.

[25:35]

In fact, there's a saying that when the babies are crying, say to them, this very mind is Buddha. After Hui Nong, who would become the sixth Chinese Zen ancestor, the Zen school became characterized by the emptiness teachings such as the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra. The saying for that approach to liberation became, when the babies stop crying, say to them, no mind, no Buddha. Which may very well start them crying again. And it usually does. A natural consequence of taking away our toys. So these emptiness teachings are tough love, and certainly not for everyone. As I said, 5,000 monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen walked out on the Buddha when he presented the emptiness teachings. Huynong, on the other hand, already struck dumb, went on seeking further instruction from a meditation master who said to him, You have an unusually serene appearance, not like that of ordinary people.

[26:43]

I've heard that the Indian Bodhidharma is transmitted the mind seal, and that it's been handed down to Hongren, who lives in Huangmei, you should go there to seek certainty. So after another famous exchange takes place between Hongren and Huynong, revealing to his teacher his enlightenment, Huynong got sent to the kitchen to pound rice for eight months without rest. I thought that would be encouraging to the kitchen crew, you know? It's a very good sign to be sent there. So the rest of his story takes place within the competitive structure of the monastic institution. I shall repeat that. The competitive structure of monastic institutions, which culminated in a contest for the teacher's approval. At that very time, the monks had been invited by the abbot to submit a poem expressing their understanding and thereby to become his Dharma successor. And yet none of them dared to do so except the head monk, Xing Shui, although he himself broke out in a sweat and nearly fainted at the thought of demonstrating his understanding to his teacher.

[27:57]

So I think it's always been true that nobody wants others to see how badly we are broken. Even though as Zen master Leonard Cohen sings, There's a crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in. It's also the place where we love each other, the place where we're broken, the place where we hurt. Finally, Shen Shui did write his poem on a wall at midnight, so no one would know it was his. By this humiliation, we too shall be liberated. Here's what he wrote. The body is the tree of enlightenment, the mind like a clear mirror stand. Time and again, wipe it diligently. Don't let it gather dust. When the teacher saw the verse on the wall, knowing it had been composed by Zheng Shui, his head monk, he praised it to the assembly, saying, If later generations practice in accord with this, they too will realize an excellent result.

[29:10]

And then he had everyone memorize it. So this verse by Singh Shui is in keeping with the mind only or the Yogacara tradition based on the Lankapattara Sutra, which, as I said, had become the standard for the Zen sect up until that time. Singh Shui, in fact, was to become a very famous and revered teacher of the Northern School of Zen, later referred to by the Southern School, that's us, as the gradual approach to enlightenment. versus our conceit as proponents of sudden enlightenment. Got it? If not now, when? I'm teasing. That's the joke part. The gradual approach is very much in keeping with the teachings of the first turning of the wheel, as we've been discussing today.

[30:14]

in class. There are steps and stages to be cultivated until finally arriving at the apex of understanding that we call enlightenment. But as Bodhidharma said in the opening verse that I read at the beginning of this talk, invoking Buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in good memory, keeping precepts results in a good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings. But no Buddha. So when Huynong hears Sen Chui's poem being recited in the mill, he asks the student, what writing is this? When the student tells him what had transpired upstairs, Huynong says to the monk, please recite that poem again. And after a silence, he says, well, it's very nice, but it's not perfect. The monk laughs at him. What does a common sort like you know? Don't act like a madman. Huynong says, you don't believe me. well, I'd like to add a verse to this. The student just looked at him without answering, laughed, and walked away.

[31:18]

So that night, Huynong took a servant boy with him and while holding the lamp, told the boy what to write next to the verse by Xing Shui. Enlightenment is basically not a tree, and the clear mirror not a stand. Fundamentally, there is not a single thing. Where can the dust collect? no mind, no Buddha. After writing that poem, the master recognized that Hui Nung was his true Dharma heir. He gave him the robe and the bowl, and then he told him to run for his life. And it's a good thing he did, because when the other monks heard about him receiving Dharma transmission, they ran after him, monasticism being a competitive institution after all. So one of them, who had been a general in the army, caught up with the fugitive on Daoyu Ridge. Hui Nung then said to himself... He apparently was rather slight-bodied.

[32:23]

This robe symbolized faith. Why fight over it? So he put the robe and the bowl on a boulder, and he hid in the bushes. When Hui Nung arrived, he could not pick them up, even though he tried with all of his strength. And then trembling, he said... I have come for the teaching, not for a robe. By this humiliation, you shall be liberated. Huy Ming bowed to Huy Nung and he said, Please reveal the essence of the teaching to me. Huy Nung said, When you don't think of good or evil, what is your original face? Huy Ming was greatly enlightened at these words. He then asked, is there any further secret meaning beyond what you've just said? Wei Nung said, what I have told you is not a secret. If you look into your mind, the secret is in you. Turn the light around.

[33:26]

After Wei Nung received the robe and the teaching, he hid himself away for ten years among the hunters in the forest. And then in 676, he left the forest and traveled to Fajang Temple, where he listened to a lecture on the Nirvana Sutra, after which he went outside where a strong wind was blowing the temple banner, and he overheard two monks arguing. Someone said to me yesterday that our abiding teacher here at Tassajara, Leslie Roshi, said that the two things that we do here at the monastery, is to sit zazen and argue with our friends. So I think nothing's much changed over the centuries. One of the monks had declared that the banner was moving, the other that the wind was moving, and so they argued back and forth, back and forth, without ceasing. So Wei Nung said politely, may a layman interrupt your lofty discussion for a moment?

[34:31]

It's not the mind or the flag that is moving. It's your mind that's moving. So there we have it. The beginnings of the Zen school in China and the famous ancestors who carried it there. So I'm also running out of words and we're going to soon run out of days. So I'm going to end by thanking all of you truly for your tremendous effort. to the practice committee and the staff and the kitchen, to Leslie, to all of you in this room who sit together every day, you know, as if our lives depend on it. So in an institution that thrives on competition, you know, what can we do when everyone is clearly doing their best? Well, we could raise the bar. Until, as Suzuki Roshi said to Mel, Not hard enough for you, huh?

[35:33]

At which time, once again, no doubt, Mahakashapa, the great ascetic, will faintly smile. When I reach for it, it becomes a hand. When I look for it, it becomes an eye. When I speak of it, it becomes a tongue. When I become it, a blue-green frog jumps out. of a star-studded sky. Thank you very much.

[36:26]

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