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. I just realized I have ink spots. and I see that cup of water there, but I don't think I'm going to wash my hands. I just let them. It's interesting about these spots because I had a dream the day before yesterday during, after lunch, nap, post-prandial lunch, nap. And it was a very short dream, or what I remember of it, which has to do with this koan that I probably have been working on unconsciously for about 20 years about arising and vanishing.

[01:17]

I don't know if you know that koan. It's in the Book of Serenity, and it's a very short one. I think it's Loshan asked another teacher, when arising and vanishing are unceasing, then what? And Loshan says, who's arising and vanishing? That's the koan. And in the commentary, there's a poem, and in the poem it says that a leopard changes its spots, hides itself in the fog and changes its spots. That's part of the... I'm giving you these little snippets. But the dream was about the leopard, and the dream was... Because I think the difficulty with that poem was leopards don't change their spots.

[02:23]

If you're a leopard, you're a leopard. And you've got that leopard coat, You know, so what is it talking about? And the dream was the answer to my query, which was, if I can let you know about it, or the response was, and the poem thing says, the leopard hides itself in the fog. And I thought that leopard that I always thought was like, You got your spots, that's it, is empty of all being. Of course it changes its spots. Its nature is... And the fog was like emptiness, and the leopard was form, and you just cover yourself in fog. Form is emptiness, and form is form, and emptiness is emptiness.

[03:25]

Anyway... I just wanted to share that with you and hear the spots to prove it. Yeah. Yeah, the leopard hides itself in the fog to change its spots. The leopard is a no leopard. Unspotted. And spotted. Anyway, let's see. Back to Sahide 5. So we left the Buddha sitting there with a bird's nest on his head and cobwebs growing on him and just sitting very, very still. And I wanted to go back to the, I don't know if it's an alternative, but one of the stories of the Buddha's enlightenment, we go back to Yasodhara, his wife, who is pregnant. She conceived the night of his great departure in that story. And she's pregnant, and he's gone for a long time, all during his ascetic practices in the six years.

[04:30]

She's pregnant the entire six years in the story. So she's got her own transformation and journey and austerities, you know, to those of you who have been around people who've been carrying a child. Over time, it's work and labor later. Anyway, she's carrying this child for six years. Also, his parents are sending out scouts, kind of messengers to see how he's doing. And they come back and say, he's doing a set of practices. He's all right. But then she hears about it, that he's not eating. And she feels she shouldn't eat either if he's not eating. But that's not good for the child in her life. and so they decided not to tell her anymore about what's going on with Gautama, with Siddhartha, because she gets too upset.

[05:35]

Anyway, so I just wanted to let you know what's going on back at the ranch or back home with Yasodhara and her quest. The article that I read about this that takes the Pali Sutta is called a family quest, that it was in relationship with. It wasn't just this solitary endeavor. There was relatedness there, right? From the get-go and all during, which is, I think, an important teaching for us. Even though we go it alone, we are related. We can't escape that. And another, while the Buddha was sitting there, there's also a detail where the nine-headed cobra snake comes to protect him.

[06:53]

You've probably seen figures where there's this cobra behind him with these nine heads that are covering him, making shelter for him to sit and protecting him. So we have a couple more days. We'll come back to where the Buddha is at tomorrow on the last day. Just wanted you to picture him there sitting. imagine the whole roundness of his life as he sits with resolve. Yeah, so phenomena arises and appears, all things appear, and all things have no abiding self, no fixed identity.

[07:57]

There's patterns of shifting. Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. Whatever needs incorporating, weave that in. And that pattern is ever-shifting and each of the pattern each thread affects all the others to such a degree that we could say no single thread is a separate thing it's completely connected affected by conditioned by and conditioning others so how can you say it's a separate thing if it's affected and influenced and changed by other things it's That's a impossibility. So the leopard spots are changing patterns.

[09:10]

And we can't escape this. We can't somehow, well, I'd like to get out of this web, this brocade, this Indra's net, you know, the net of jewels each reflecting one another. Can I get out of that? And I think the teaching is there is no getting out of it, not only because there's nowhere to go, but you are it. You're not some separate self that can even look at the brocade from some vantage point because you're in the brocade. You've been woven in. So with that Layman Pong story yesterday where his friend Bo Ling says, whether you speak or whether you don't speak, you cannot escape. Now, tell me, what is it you cannot escape? And as Carolyn said, they're playing together.

[10:22]

And what did Layman Pong do? He winked. I met his friend, and his friend said, outstanding, you know. And Laman Pong said, you mistakenly approved me, you mistakenly approved me. Reminds me of that other story where when the teacher gave an approving thing, he put his hand over his ears and turned his back and walked out of there. Don't praise. He says, you don't have to praise me. And then O Ling said, well, who doesn't, who doesn't? And at that point, Lehmann Park said, take care of yourself and walked away. So whether you speak or whether you don't speak, you can't escape.

[11:28]

What is it you can't escape from? And in the story I told yesterday also of Buddha on Vulture Peak. Vulture Peak is in Magadha, actually. And it's a peak that's not a big tall peak, but it's shaped like a bird, I hear. That's where it got its name. It's also called Spiritual Mountain. And the Buddha was teaching probably a vast array of disciples of all kinds. And perhaps... He was brought offerings of flowers and fruit. Picked up a flower. Looked around and twirled it. And nobody said it. Nobody did anything. And he went too. Like Levin Pa went. They're in the same you know fellowship.

[12:32]

And then in the in the Chinese I think it said maha kashapya or maha ka sho cracked his face is the literal which means to smile cracked his face and they understood they understood not understood. So the Buddha was teaching in, he wasn't using words, but he was communicating fully, and he was communicating because someone was completely there, completely present.

[13:38]

completely in accord, in tune. And the rest of the folks, we don't know where they were, how they were practicing, but the story is Makaka Sho was right there. And that, you could say, is Mitsuko. Intimate, intimate language, intimate words. even though no words were spoken. The Buddha was silent, but actively alive, communicating, teaching. So there's another koan story. This is from the gateless gate. Mu, mon, khan. Mon is gate. Mu is no, so gateless. Gateless gate. This is number 32 of that collection, and it's called a non-Buddhist, or sometimes translated as an outsider, questions the Buddha.

[14:51]

And a non-Buddhist or outsider just is the way of referring to somebody who was not practicing Buddhism. It might have been a Hindu or a Jai. some other religious practice, but not a Buddhist, but came to the Buddha, and the outsider asked the world-honored one, I do not ask for the spoken, and I do not ask for the unspoken. And the world-honored one remained silent, silent and still. He just sat. And after a few minutes, the outsider praised the Buddha and thanked him with gratitude. You have opened the door of compassion for me and parted the closet delusion and allowed me to enter the way and did his prostrations and, you know, turned and left.

[16:08]

And Ananda, who was the Buddhist jisha 25 years, was there, happened to be there during this encounter. And Ananda said to the Buddha, what did that outsider realize to make him praise you so much? And the Buddha said, he is like a fine horse that runs at the shadow of the whip. Case 32, the Muman Khan. And it's, you know, it's turning very similar questions to Pauline, you know, about the spoken and the unspoken. How can you escape? And here, I mean, is it a question? It's hardly a question. The outsider says, I do not ask for the spoken and I do not ask for the unspoken. Maybe the

[17:15]

that silence after that question. You know, what is it? Or help? But no, just, I do not ask for the spoken. I do not ask for the unspoken. And the Buddha sat. Sat. And then, great praise. The world honored one has shown his compassion to me. started the closet delusion, allowed me to enter the way, bowing, bowing. What was it, says Ananda, that the outsider realized to make him to heaven praise you like this? And the Buddha says, he's like a fine horse that runs at the shadow of the whip. This... image of the horse that runs at the shadow of the whip.

[18:18]

We've heard it before, Zizekir, she has a chapter on the Four Horses, and this teaching, or on the Four Horses, using this as a teaching story or parable analogy, I guess analogy, comes from Suzuki Roshi is quoting or using this image that comes from the Anguttara Nikaya Pali Canon. There's also mention of it in the Samyuk Takama Sutra. So I know some of you may or may not be familiar with it, but the four horses are the one, the first horse is the one that runs at the shadow of the whip, you don't need to do much, you know, just... And they, you know, full effort, full on, running at the shadow of the whip doesn't take much.

[19:25]

And then there's one who needs the whip to kind of flick the hair, you know, on the back of their mane or their body to be able to run. And the third has to feel the pain on the whip on their skin, and the fourth horse, the whip, to their bones or their marrow. And in the Anguttara Nikaya Sutra, this is connected with the one who runs at the shadow of the whip is like a person, or I should say, is like a person who hears about somebody in another village who's dying or has died and immediately takes up the teaching of impermanence and makes full effort to practice.

[20:30]

You just hear about someone over there in, you know, at Salinas somewhere. Heard about it. That's enough to galvanize practitioner to full-on practice. The one who feels the pain or feels the whip on the hair of the mane is like someone who hears about someone dying in their own village. And, you know, whatever your village is, it could be tasahara. you know, Jamesburg, or someone close, somebody you know, and you take up practice thoroughly, completely knowing bodily impermanence. And the one, the horse that has to feel it on the flesh is when we hear somebody in our own family who's died that close, that much,

[21:42]

That hurts to hear. And the last horse that needs to feel the pain to the marrow, to the bones, is when we realize our own death fully. And, you know, birth and death is the great matter, the Han says. Impermanent and swift. Know forever. gone, gone, awake, awake, each one. That. So that's the fourth verse. And in this other Samyuk, Tagama Sutra, it talks about not the villager who hears about death, but monks who are practicing, and a kind of type of way that they're practicing. So, As Suzuki Roshi says, those of you who have read it, all of us want to be the best horse, the one that runs at the shadow of the whip, you know, like this outsider.

[22:56]

It didn't take much. What did it take? The Buddha just sat there, probably upright, silent and still, complete thus. The world honored one ascended the seat. And it didn't even take... Ananda or anybody to say, clearly observe. No manajushri to hit the gavel. So this outside, it was like ripe. Didn't take anything except just being there with the Buddha. Completely what? Completely what? Completely what? That was what he didn't say. I don't ask about the spoken. I don't ask about the unspoken. What is it, you know? He made of himself a what? And runs at the shadow of the whip.

[23:59]

Most of us need, you know, Manjushri saying, can everybody please look over here? And, you know, this is the world honored one. the sovereign of dharma, the sovereign of the truth. Please pay attention, everybody. We need at least that. Or much more. There's the story of the Buddha teaching on Walter Pete with thousands of people, and he's about to teach the Lotus Sutra of all things. And, you know, 500 monks and nuns have something better to do. They did do a little shopping. It was getting to be around holiday time. See you all later. You know, we're busy. So, you know, we need encouragement.

[25:03]

We need to wrestle, you know, with the teaching, with our own karmic life. But we want to be the one that runs at the shadow of the whip. Now, one thing about these four horses is that each of the horses is just exactly who they are and are practicing completely where they're at. And when the words that are spoken hit, then they hit. If they miss, they miss. Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction. There isn't, like, the one who runs at the shadow of the whip is the best horse, and the one that I want to be, and then I can't be, or I'll never be, and they're all passing me.

[26:04]

They're all just heading so fast, and I'm so slow and so clumsy, and I don't get it. And they're the best and I'm the worst. It's like that's not what this teaching is. It's more each person is completely practicing in their own dharma position, their own unique rays of reality that cannot be other than it is this moment appearing. And, you know, there's lots of poetry about this, some plumb. branches grow long and some palm branches grow short on each branch the entire spring is being is being brought forth you know so we often get caught in comparing you know and especially as we do change and will change and remember oh I used to

[27:07]

be able to do something that I now can't do, or I have an injury and I'll never be able to do that, or I can't remember anymore anything, or my eyes I can't see and I get too tired to study, or my back, whatever it is, each person occupies their unique Dabha position and practices fully right there, and there's total equality. There isn't one is better than another. We impose that on the world, you know, with our opinions and judgments and preferences. Those are what they are, but that's not somehow the truth of things.

[28:09]

So, Susan Guruji says, sometimes the worst horse is the best horse. You can't say what is what if you... And I know this to be true, and I've heard various stories of people who very easily sit, very easily... flexible zap and a full lotus can sit and haven't, aren't able to really, they don't need to make a full effort to face what needs to be faced in that form. That's not their form. And Iken Roshi tells a story student who came, I think it was a college student who came to the temple he was practicing with Yasutani Roshi, I think, and with koan practices, and Yasutani Roshi acknowledged and affirmed his understanding very soon, some passing of the curriculum of koans, and Ekin Roshi was struggling with

[29:33]

his first Kohan, Mu, for, I don't know how long, 15 years, something like that, working with Mu. And here's this person, kind of a giant, come lately, you know, just showed up. And he gets the stamp, you know, from his teacher. And it's like, darn it. And what? Kind of like Ananda, like what? It's like the outsider. The outsider comes and has... He just presents himself and asks this. I don't ask for the spoken. I don't ask for the unspoken. And then be it prostrations and thank you. And the doors are open, you know. So Ekon Roshi said about this person, as they did in that temple, it was announced. You know, I don't know about work circle or the Zendo. This one has... realization or complete, or whatever, I don't know how these are.

[30:36]

Other temples, you get a platform at your place that gets hung at your seat on the top, and you get moved in the zendo accordingly, you know, different places to acknowledge your realizations. So you can imagine the kind of how it feels to go into the zendo, especially if that was your seat, you know. Move down, everybody, move down, because here comes Sonsho. Anyway, what Ekonoshi said is that college student, they never saw him again. He didn't stay at that temple, work for a long time with his teacher, with Sangha, and with everything that comes up when you stay put with your fellow students. practitioners and with a teacher where problems come up, he went off. And so, and here's Aikendoshi plotting along with his move for 15 years.

[31:41]

But what he, you know, the way he developed and so we don't have to judge whether the college student, we don't know what his practice was later, but he didn't stay around. Yeah. So was he the best student, let's say the worst, doesn't matter, really, our judgment one way or the other, but when we direct that to us and feel like we're the worst or everybody else but me, those kinds of thoughts can be debilitating, sad, and saddening. And to break that kind of frame, which might just be, I sit, stand, in my dharma position.

[32:53]

And it cannot be otherwise. And that dharma position is not fixed. It has no abiding self. It is flowing. Fuyodokai, you know, the green mountains are constantly walking. The green mountain is constantly walking. The stone woman gives birth in the night. So what feels like stone woman stuck maybe in stone It gives birth. Green mountains are walking. So yes, we're in our Dharma position. Form is form. And there's no abiding self. Form is emptiness. And just practicing as it appears, as it appears, is our nature.

[33:54]

When I say is our nature, what I mean is, and this is, I'm talking about Buddha nature, which is a term, one of the basic kind of terms. Dogen, of course, uses it, and I think the Lotus Sutra, although it doesn't say Buddha nature per se, is talking about that, and it has a very positive quality. The Lotus Sutra is very positive. Our tendency, because of our language, the way our grammar is, is to think of Buddha nature as a thing that we have, like an essence, close to like a soul or something, this thing that's inside of us. I have Buddha nature. You have Buddha nature. And, you know, the Lotus Sutra can get confusing where the

[35:12]

never disparaging vows, you know, I bow to you, future Buddha, you know, you have Buddha nature, everyone has Buddha nature. But Buddha nature, I think that's a misunderstanding of it. It's not some kind of substance that we've got. Also in the Lotus Sutra, the parable of the jewel, that friend sews into the hem of his other friend's robe his friend who was not doing so well and poor and a little bit hand to mouth the living and he said you probably know the story they were together and had an evening of conviviality and drinking actually and the poor friend got inebriated and totally fell asleep and the other friend who who was a kind of business guy, had to go on a business trip and thought, I want to do something for my friend.

[36:13]

And he had this beautiful jewel, and he thought, this will help him. I'll sew it into his robe, and then he'll have it when he goes on his way. So I think with that parable, we kind of think of Buddha nature as this jewel, or a thing that we've got tucked in somewhere, carrying it around. some substance, Buddha-nature. But our Buddha-nature, or Buddha-nature, is not like that. It's not that, and it tends to throw us off, this term Buddha-nature, I think. So Dogen takes the character that's in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Chinese one, it's a Chinese character, and he shifts the meaning out of compassion, I think, knowing how we get caught with thinking of it as this thing we've got. And Dogen changes it from all beings have Buddha nature to all beings are Buddha nature.

[37:23]

And he talks about this in various fascicles. So all beings have Buddha nature already sets up I over here have, you know, grammatically, Buddha nature, this separate thing. I have this thing, subject, object. But to say all beings are Buddha nature, it destroys that, or it's hard to hold that as a duality, although Dogen goes even further, because even for Dogen, all beings are Buddha nature is also too dualistic. The are something else or some descriptive. So he changes it to all beings, like one word, sort of like dash, all beings dash, Buddha nature dash, all existence.

[38:35]

All beings. Think of it as one long word. All beings, Buddha nature of existence is just, that's it. And you can't escape. All beings, Buddha nature of existence, all existence, Buddha nature. existence all beings how can anyone be outside of it and of course we often think well that's fine for you to say but hey not me you know the buddhist teaching goes just so far and then it stops here because i'm a i am a worthless you know if you knew what i who i was you wouldn't say all beings buddha nature and include me

[39:38]

some kind of idea like that. But the Buddha nature and Dogen's press in this, you know, all beings, Buddha nature, all existence, of existence, has this positive quality. All of us are, not only us as beings, but all appearances, all phenomena, you know. It is empty of abidingness. You know, even say, all beings, Buddha nature, all existence, one might say, oh, there, now I've got it. That's the substantive thing I've been looking for all these years. So we immediately, or I immediately, now that's a thing. We do that. We want that. We want that really solid thing that's not going to change.

[40:41]

We can believe in it. So we then make that into, we give singness to even something that is just trying to be as clear as clear. So this Buddha Nature treatise, which is a Sutrapali Chinese, talks about thusness. And it says thusness. And Buddha nature and thus this being together really exists, it says. And you might gasp like, somebody says something really exists. However, this really exists is not, does not mean it has it by himself, but it appears.

[41:42]

And appears. Thus. that's where, you know, in relation to emptiness and dustness, it has this positive quality. Dogen has a story in, I think it's Boucho, where two monks are talking and one says, can you grab a emptiness. And the other, and the one says, sure, I can grab emptiness. He says, go ahead, show me. And the guy goes, like that. He said, that's not grabbing emptiness. He said, well, you show me how to grab emptiness. And the guy takes a hold of his nose and just like, tastes it. And his friend yells, he said, that's how you grab emptiness.

[42:44]

And you could maybe say, you know, form is emptiness. What What is emptiness? It's not some thing floating around somewhere as a thing. Each thing is, form is emptiness. So we don't even have to say form is emptiness because form is emptiness. So you could just say form for short. You can just say or do nose-grabbing. your ears and running away. Or falling. So this thusness is how things are.

[43:49]

How all existence is. And we can't escape that. How all things are. For me, this, you know, turning this and studying this, studying the self, studying the, forgetting the self, studying the self, studying ongoingly, both unconsciously and consciously, is... I want to devote myself to that. Oh.

[45:11]

I think that's all I have, even though I've got other notes and things. Maybe just a last phrase and then opening it to some questions if you'd like. This intimacy of Mitsugo, the secret words in intimacy, to me is connected with this all beings, Buddha nature, all existence, the intimacy of that. It's so intimate, there is no that. And then can we, whatever the appearance is, can we not be fooled? And can we play, as Carolyn was saying, play together? Because we are together. I don't want to forget that.

[46:12]

So is that anything you'd like to bring up? at that center about that page street about emptiness. And the teacher said, emptiness is not how things are, it's how they work. How they work. So what do you think about that? Your relationship to what you've been? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think the way things function, the way they're functioning, working. And I suppose you could also say, and that's how they are. I mean, that's how they function. That's how they exist or appear. But I think the emphasis on that's not how things are kind of undercuts that tendency to think of emptiness as a thing.

[47:23]

So it has to be undone over and over again because of this tendency to make substantialness out of all these things. Are you finished? I was wondering if you can distinguish emptiness from dependent co-arising. Since they're two separate teachings, I'm getting involved. Well, they work together. So the dependent co-arising... It's like a little triangle, dependent co-arising, that the cause and effect means that, or that there is no abiding separate self because of the cause and effect, so the emptiness is right there. And we also have conventional designations.

[48:26]

We have language that says, cup, table, things. And understanding how all that works, those three work, is middle way. So they, it's so, they all work together. Yeah. Was that? mostly mental or intellectual, although I have sort of moments where it feels more like an intuitive, bodily understanding. Did you say your concept of emptiness, did you say, is mostly a mental, intellectual, yeah? And it is helpful to sort of return to the idea over and over, and it does feel true, but it's sort of like something that I have to keep remembering, or whatever my concept of it is, to come back to that.

[49:29]

So I'm wondering, maybe in your experience, if there's a way for it to sort of be like, you know, to have like an irreversible change of art, where you have some understanding of it that changes you, and it's more like a shift, and sort of like a continual coming back, if that makes sense, or like, it's almost like a memory dream, just like remembering emptiness, just that, in your experience, or is it more like this gradual shifting that doesn't crack? Well, I think there is a gate, that's the intellectual gate, kind of understanding it with words and in an intellectual way where we don't fight it anymore because it has a... When you first hear it and misunderstand it, we usually go to the extreme of something like, I don't exist, and you can't take that from me.

[50:40]

You can't take me, I won't let you. So that's kind of misunderstanding. So to come back through thoroughly understanding the teaching of it through words and images, you know, like, I think the biggest gate for me, even after many years, was Thich Nhat Hanh's book on the Heart Sutra, where he talked about, you were reading the book, and he said, the paper that you're reading is empty. And then he analyzed what he meant, you know. The paper is empty because it's made up of trees. And, you know, he went through that. It was like I could feel sort of blockages to my... and fears even about what emptiness was. And I remember feeling, don't tell me about emptiness. I don't want to hear about emptiness. I just want to sit. Leave me alone. But that book was like, oh, oh, it's not scary. It was like doors upon doors open.

[51:44]

So I think that's a real gateway and a real opening, not intellectually, emotionally, physically even. I almost feel the neuronal pathways being forged, new ones. You know, it was a physical kind of event. And then there's direct experience of the emptiness of self and things, you know. And I think the third thing would be, you know, the dustness of self and things as kind of the further positive quality to no abiding self. I think coming back to that gate of how we understood it intellectually over and over is, what shall I say, an important frame of reference.

[52:46]

People have had experiences glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things and know self and have felt, had no place to put that no reference no and been completely destabilized you know so there's that extreme and then there's familiarity with the teachings and then remembering over and over and just continuing your practice yeah Catherine you had your hand up earlier did you I did Also in the show, Dogen, he not only says something about Buddha nature being things as they are, but he also talks about the what, which he began with. And so I was feeling in Vyada's question about functioning, that as you presented it at the beginning of your talk,

[53:55]

what the outsider responded to was the total function of the what? Behind, not behind in words, but I don't know how it fits. Thank you. Thank you, Dogen. Yes, thank you, Dogen. Let's see, Jacqueline. So in the teaching on the three natures, my understanding Is this teaching on the three natures? Three natures, yes. Understanding is number two is dependent or rising. Number three is the thoroughly established nature. Yes. So what's the difference between two and three? The difference between two and three is that you don't place... It is the absence of the first nature, the... I'm trying to remember the exact words, but it's placing the self in all things that's not... The imputational nature.

[55:07]

Say it again? The imputational nature. The imputational, yes. The absence of the imputational nature. The absence of the imputational in the second is the thoroughly arising. absence of the imputational in the codependent horizon is, excuse me, thoroughly established. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[55:54]

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