This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. It's great to be back. I haven't been here in quite a long time. As time goes on, I notice Zen students get better and better looking. Beautiful. Everybody looks so good. You're all healthy, right? healthy and strong, ready for anything. Great. Well, this morning I want to talk about the Pong family, Lehman Pong and his family. Lehman Pong, his wife, Mrs. Lehman Pong, we don't seem to know her name, as is often the case in these ancient stories his daughter whose name we do know Ling Zhao and his son whose name we also don't know usually his text is referred to as Laman Pong and we think of Laman Pong but really there's no Laman Pong there's the Pong family the four of them husband, wife, son, daughter all practicing Dharma together originally

[01:28]

The Pong family was a family of some prominence. They had a big house, lots of possessions. The layman was some sort of government official. But at one point, they took everything they owned, put it all on a barge, sailed the barge into the middle of the river and sank it. You think... If they wanted to get rid of all their possessions, they would have given them to somebody who needed them, right? You'd think. But no, they put them on a barge and they put them in the middle of the river and they sank the barge. Maybe they were saying, this stuff is no good anyway. It didn't do us any good. And why would we want to pass it on to people we love? So they sank it. And after they did that, they lived very simply they made their living fashioning utensils out of bamboo and sandals out of straw sometimes the younger ones worked in the fields but mostly what they did is practice zazen and hang out and have dharma dialogues with their friends who were the local chan masters they happen to live in an area where there are a lot of chan masters

[02:59]

And the most illustrious of the Chan masters were their good friends. And it says at the beginning of the Layman Pong text that he studied with the two greatest Zen masters of his day, Shudo and Matsu, who were the two great source Zen Chan teachers for all of the Chan lineages. So before I tell some stories about the Pongs, I want to ask the question, Are these stories true? Are they true? But then if I ask that question, I have to ask another question. What do we mean by true? What does true even mean? And this becomes a question a lot in our disturbing moment when we're asking ourselves, is this news true or is it fake news? Are the stories about the Pong's true news, or are they fake news?

[04:03]

Yes? I think maybe when I move my head, you lose a word. Is that what happens? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that... Yeah, okay. Sorry, yeah, I could tell that, I think if I move my, I should stare straight ahead and shock. And then I think you won't lose words, right? Yeah. Should I start over again? No. Hi, everybody's so good looking. Yeah, layman pong, etc. Wife, daughter, son, and so forth.

[05:08]

True stories? Fake news? What is true? Anyway. Well, a saying in the Dharma is that everything is true and everything is false. I've always appreciated that saying. Keeps us all honest. Everything is true, everything is false. Historical truth, factual truth is actually always approximate. So it's always true and false. Reasonable people will agree that this or that is so, more or less, it's so. And so we base some decisions on that being so, provisionally, until we know more later than we change, right?

[06:15]

So we understand that whatever truth we have is also false, which makes us pretty relaxed about the truth, right? We don't have to insist on it and be beating up other people with the cudgel of our truth. But we do need something to be true. You can't really live if nothing is true and only false. So we investigate reasonably. And we find the best truth that we can find. And we also understand that sometimes there are people who, for their own advantage, will invent stuff that most reasonable people would agree is false. So we take it as false.

[07:20]

So in other words, my point is even though everything is true and false, we don't need to be confused. We can actually make determinations and choices and decisions. Because we believe in common sense to be common. We believe in intelligence to be intelligent. And we believe in goodness to be good. So all this is just to say that I think all Zen stories are indeed true and false. But they contain some truth that gives us a way to practice and extend the truth of our lives. And so we prize these stories and we tell them, even though possibly they're not historically, literally, factually true. Somehow I'm always thinking about history, although I'm don't know much about history really. I think about history, you know, what happened before?

[08:24]

What happened even yesterday? I can hardly remember what happened yesterday and if I remember it, I'm not sure I remember it accurately. Does anybody really know what happened? And yet we do know that we are alive now and we do know that Because of this we have to find a way to live that sustains us and that is kind. Because when we live with kindness, it feels right. When we live with cruelty and resentment, it doesn't feel right. And so, insofar as these stories will help us to live a kind and sustainable life, we know for sure that they're true. Anyway, that's a big aside. Now I'm going to tell you the story about how the Pangs died.

[09:27]

Because in Zen stories, death is always a very big moment. There's lots of Zen stories about people perishing. In a way, you could say that the real reason to practice Zen is to get ready to die, to learn how to die. So anyway, here's the story. When the layman was about to die, he called Ling Zhao, his daughter, and he said to her, go outside and let me know when the sun is at high noon. So she went out, and soon she came back in, and she said, the sun is at high noon, but there's an eclipse. You should come out and see. So the layman got up from his meditation seat and Ling Zhao slipped into his meditation seat, sat cross-legged, and immediately died.

[10:33]

And the layman came back into the house and he said, oh no, my daughter beat me to the punch. And he cremated her remains and scattered the ashes. This reminds me of our dear friend Jerry Fuller, whom some of you, a few of you in the room will remember. Jerry was one of the early Zen students, one of the people who built the guest house out of Green Gulch and many other things, Greens Restaurant. He was a carpenter and also a tea master. He studied in the tea house out of Green Gulch. And he died pretty young, maybe 20, 25 years ago. And I remember, you know, in tea ceremony, there's a phrase, osakini.

[11:40]

You say osakini when someone serves you tea or a treat, and you're going to drink the tea or the treat before the next person. So you say osakini, excuse me for going first. Excuse me for going, you know, before you. So when Jerry was dying, he whispered to somebody in his last moments, Osakini. Sorry for going before you. Lingja was not that polite. She snatched up the death banner and didn't say, excuse me. Anyway, about a week later, Layman Pang, who was quite ill the whole time, laid his head on the knee of his friend Mr. Yu, and he said, everything is empty like shadows and echoes, goodbye.

[12:44]

And then he got up, sat in meditation where he started a few weeks ago, and he died. And according to the text, a strange fragrance filled the room, And a great wind came up, filling the air with heavenly music. And his body too was burned and the ashes scattered over the mountains and valleys. Somehow, Mrs. Pong wasn't around when all this happened. And when she heard about it, she said something like, that stupid old man and disobedient girl have gone away without even consulting me. This is terrible. So she went out into the fields where their son was hoeing, and she told him about it, and he let out a yell and died on the spot. You idiot, you too, she says to him.

[13:52]

And then she went around, said goodbye to all of her friends, and disappeared into the mountains, never to be heard from again. So that's the story. True or false? It's hard to say. But anyway, is death itself true or false? We come and go so swiftly. like an echo, like a dream. And when someone passes away, what a great phrase, right? Passes away. When someone passes away in that moment, what just happened?

[14:57]

Does anybody even know? Once somebody is gone, it seems absolutely impossible. And you wonder, like, were they ever really here? Was that really a dream that I remember that person? Recently, we lost a really close Sangha member, and it was just like that. How sad, how uncanny, how stupid... death is. It's no wonder that death is such an important central part of our practice. Life and death are true and false. There's no life without death. There's no death without life. Maybe that much is true, right?

[16:01]

If we are born, we're going to die. Sometimes I joke with my doctor friends, they should write on the death certificate, cause of death, birth. Because that is the cause of death. Anything else is just simply incidental detail. The actual cause of death is birth. If we're born, for sure we're going to die. And if we die, that's why we die, because we have been born. And we're being born and dying all the time, moment after moment. Everybody always says, you know, Zen emphasizes the present moment. That's why people like Zen, I think. It sounds so good, you know, the present moment. We say the past is gone, the future

[17:05]

isn't yet here. The only thing there really is is the present moment. And that sounds so terrific. We're not responsible for what happened before. Forget about it. Wonderful. We don't have to fret about the future. That's great. Just be present. But actually, there isn't any present moment. There's no such thing. as the present moment. Because as soon as we are present, it's already past. And the future is already here. The present moment includes the whole of the past. So the sad but profound truth is that to be alive in the present moment, really alive in the real present moment, is to be in grief, and wonder about the whole of the past and to feel responsible for this entire human catastrophe.

[18:21]

And also to be alive in the present is to embrace the whole of the future with radical hopefulness. Not hoping that something good will happen, because for sure something good will happen, and for sure something terrible will happen. But to be hopeful beyond good and bad. So the present moment isn't what we think it is. And to be alive is far more than we expected. So as David said, we'll, this afternoon, bring up some layman-pong stories and we'll talk about them. But for today, I just have one for this morning. This is the 30th story in the collection, Sungshan Staff.

[19:31]

One day, when the layman arrived at Seungshan's place, he saw that Seungshan was hewing a staff. So he said to him, what's that in your hand? Seungshan said, the time has come when this old monk cannot even take one step without support from this staff. And the layman said, even though it's come to this, don't you still have some vitality left? And Seungshan then whacked the layman with his staff. And the layman said, can you put down that staff for a minute and let me ask you something? And Seungshan did. He put down the staff and the layman said, doesn't this old Chinaman have anything to say about what I just asked him?

[20:38]

And Sungshan let out a fierce Zen shout. And the layman said, from out of the clear blue sky, suffering arises. Well, that's the story of Sungshan's staff. a wonderful story to me especially for this stark and wonderful final line from out of the clear blue sky suffering arises in usual Buddhist discourse we say that suffering comes from causes and conditions the first noble truth the nature of conditioned existence is suffering and the other following noble truths say that once we can identify the cause of this suffering and overcome this, we can be free of suffering.

[21:42]

Suffering can end. So in ordinary Buddhist discourse, suffering doesn't just come from out of the blue. There's a reason for it, and we can overcome it. But the layman says something different. Suffering is just here. It just arises pure and free like the clear blue sky. To see the pristine and gorgeously clear nature of suffering is the Zen way. It's a deep truth. Maybe the truth. deepest truth, and it's very, very hard to appreciate. When we're suffering, we usually don't like it.

[22:48]

In the story, Sungshan, it seems like some of us, is getting old. He can barely walk without a stick, he says. I think the layman probably is around the same age. So there are two old people talking about being old, which is something that I can appreciate quite a bit at my stage of life. When you reach an age, sorry about my throat, when you reach an age which can officially be called, according to the government, old, which I think is 65, When you're 65, you're officially an old person. When you reach such a stage, you start to think, you know, how old am I really? How much time is left?

[23:53]

You don't talk about it or try to think about it too much. Seems unhealthy, but... Let's be honest, such thoughts creep across your screen every now and then. I wonder how many years I have left to be vital. How vital am I right now? And it's hard to say, you know. It's hard to know. It's so easy to get stuck on ideas of youth or age. Clocks and calendars are so very, very persuasive, but of course they're totally fake news, right? Maybe you're young and you have the illusion that you're young. But if there's no present moment, really, then also, really,

[24:58]

There's no past moment or no future moment either. Really, every moment is like a dream. So who's young and who's old, really? And how do we live this dreamy moment? That's really what the layman is asking Sungshan to respond to. As long as you're alive, even up to the very, very last moment, you are alive 100%. And when you're not, you are 100% not alive. And this is really our practice, to be 100% alive. and 100% dead when the time comes.

[26:03]

Anyway, life and death, really, really, what is it? And where do we go when finally we're done with this phantom body? And really, what does this phantom body actually mean? Even right now. It's one of the things that I love about doing Zazen. Those of you who are devoted to Zazen will know the feeling of sitting in Zazen and knowing is there a body or not? And what is it? The other day we did a cremation ceremony for our dear Sangha member who died.

[27:08]

We chanted a sutra and we put his dear human body, now several days dead and pretty stiff, into the big oven and we pushed the button and turned on the fire and then we went out and had a picnic. During the picnic, smoke came out of the chimney and the body of our friend turned into smoke and ash. After a while, you go back to the crematorium and you collect the box of ashes and then you scatter them somewhere or you bury them somewhere. And you realize, although the box is a lot smaller than the person was in life, actually nothing has been lost. Every part of the body still exists.

[28:11]

It just changed form. Scattered to the winds. And the mind, the consciousness, the identity associated with that physical form, where does it go? Who knows? Who ever knew to begin with what it was the whole time? So in our story here, Soongshan is no slouch. He hits the layman with his staff when he's asked the question the first time, and he shouts at him when he's asked the question the second time.

[29:12]

The hit and the shout, meaning always in Zen, yes, yes, yes, life, life, life. Here I am without stint, holding nothing, here and now. So he's right there. every step of the way with the layman. And together, in their sweet, loving dialogue, they go beyond the ordinary human confusion of birth and death and sickness and old age. They're committed to facing life with courage on every occasion, just as we hope we too are committed. And their courage and humor in facing life as it really is.

[30:15]

Not as we would wish it, not as we were told, not as we read about in the newspaper, but really facing life with courage. Their dialogue expressing this courage makes for me the last line of the story especially wonderful. From out of the blue, from nowhere, from everywhere, from the beautiful blue openness of the sky, from the preciousness of life and death itself, suffering arises. And we stand in awe of it. And we face it. with full appreciation. And this is our vitality. This is our aliveness.

[31:18]

Not to avoid suffering, to think somehow we're going to make it go away, we're going to successfully avoid it or game the system somehow so that we can win, but instead to completely embrace the suffering, to understand the suffering, to know the suffering as it really is. When we know suffering as it really is, when we're really willing to truly face it and take it in and see it as this blue, vast sky, becomes love. It becomes peace. So I'm hoping and I think we're all hoping that with dedication to our practice with a lifetime of breathing and sitting upright in the middle of our unknowable life we will

[32:40]

this point one day and we will live it every single day. Thank you very much. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[33:18]

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