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. Well, it's nice to be back here at Tonsahara. I spent time in Berkeley. And I didn't plan on doing the sashin there. They had to roll up the sashin, which ended the day this one started. So I wasn't planning on doing that. But the sashin director said to me, well, why don't you come and work in the kitchen in the morning? And I said, that's a great idea.

[01:01]

I love working in the kitchen. And he said, and then you can stay for breakfast. Well, that sounds good, too. So every morning I would come and work in the kitchen. Each morning was a different tenzo. And the tenzos are all very well-seasoned because they... do this all the time. And so working with people in the, just chopping vegetables is all I did. And it was wonderful. And I started riding my bike again. And it's wonderful riding the bike in the dark at 5 o'clock in the morning to the Zendo. But one of those days, I fell over on my bike and kind of bruised my ribs.

[02:11]

I don't know whether I broke one or cracked one or bruised it or what, but it hoyed. And it still does, sort of. So I'm still not bowing, but I will. This morning, my talk is going to be, I'm continuing with our ancestors, but I'm not going to read from the Denko Roku. I'm just going to talk about Huynong. I always call him Huynong. He has many names. Huynong, Huynong, Sokei. and Daikon Eino. We know him as Daikon Eino, the sixth ancestor, from which all of our schools of Zen, the five schools of Zen, are related.

[03:12]

They're all descended from the sixth ancestor. And we should have a good understanding of the sixth ancestor's teaching, which appears in this book called the Platform Sutra. The platform being the platform, the high seat on which the sixth ancestor was giving his talks. So it's called the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor on the high seat of the law. This book, of course, has many, has long history One of the oldest versions that we have was found in the Dunhuang caves. Dunhuang is on a silk route between China and India in the mountains.

[04:27]

There's a long history about how this was discovered, but Sir Oral Stein was a... Well, I don't know what I would call him exactly, but he would go to... He was a... researcher of antiquities. And you're in this cave, in the Dung Hwan Caves, there are many caves, many, many caves, and over many centuries, wealthy people financed each of these caves and hired artists. to make wonderful drawings and figures.

[05:29]

And the caves are remarkable, many, many caves. And so they were in there about the 1900s, early 1900s, and kind of poking around. And they pushed the wall, and it opened up. And there were all these wonderful treasures inside, which they still haven't completely cataloged, I think. But there was one of the earliest known platform sutra was there. And at one time, the platform sutra was given to a disciple as a token of their realization. So they could, you know, say... I have a copy of the Platform Switcher. It was a kind of transmission document.

[06:30]

But the Platform Switcher had been... What would I say? It's often... At times it served as a kind of political football. Because no one knows exactly who wrote it. There was a Sokayan, or Sixth Ancestor's Temple at Sokay. He's named after that. Sokay is where it says temple. There's a statue of it, or it was a statue, where the communists destroyed it. And it was lacquered. In the olden days, those days, they used to mummify important people. saw there was...Huindong's mummy was lacquered. And there's photographs of it.

[07:33]

But it was destroyed by the communists, I'm pretty sure. But it may still be there. I'm not sure. So... since nobody knows exactly who wrote it, we can see that there are parts of it that are authentic and parts that are just political. So you have to be able to sort that out. Because in those days, just after Hoi Nung, the disciples of various schools were vying for importance. And so Daikon Eino became the sixth patriarch, but there were some other teachers of the fifth patriarch who also claimed to be the sixth patriarch.

[08:45]

But anyway, Daikon Eino seems to have won out. But it's definitely worth studying because there's so much in it, and there are many koans in this. Just the stories have become koans in the Blue Cliff Record and Muang Khan. And this is my early copy, the first Zen book I ever had. It's the Platform Sutra translated by Wang Mulam. Other scholars have translated this Platform Sutra as well, but I like the original Wong Mulam translation because he doesn't translate it as a scholar. He translates it as something that he really loved. The scholars are always looking for imperfections, you know.

[09:52]

They're always looking for truth or facts. But Wang Mulam just translated it as he saw it and in a favorable kind of way. So sometimes his language is not so good, but the feeling is there. So at the end of the chapter on prajna, P-R-A-J-N-A, one time I had an old Indian man that came to the Zendo and he said, oh no, it's not prajna, it's prajna. You have to close your nose and you have to be able to pronounce this.

[10:54]

Pragya. [...] So I always try to pronounce it as pragya. But it's distinct from prana. Prana means wisdom. It means like intelligence or Oh, yeah, breath, yeah. Prana means breath. It does Panya. Panya. So at the end of the chapter on Pranya, there's a poem. Not too long, not too short, but... I've always liked this poem a lot.

[11:56]

Excuse me. So I want to talk about this poem. Can you still hear it? Okay. So I'm gonna read the poem. and then comment on it. I'm gonna also give a talk tomorrow, so I may still be talking about it tomorrow. So I'm not gonna hurry. So it starts out, I kind of tweaked it myself. I made a more satisfying translation. So he says, one who is a master of the Buddha Dharma and has realized their essence of mind may be likened to the bright sun in an empty sky.

[13:04]

Such a one teaches nothing but the Dharma for realizing our self-nature, which is their purpose for being in the world and to make people aware of Arunas views. We can hardly classify realization of the Dharma into sudden and gradual. Some will attain enlightenment more quickly than others. The way of realizing the essence of mind is above the comprehension of the ignorant. We may explain it in ten thousand ways, but all these explanations may be traced back to one principle. In order to illuminate the dark dwelling place of the afflictions, we should constantly set up the light of wisdom. Erroneous views keep us under defilement, while right views remove us from it. But when we are in a position to let go of both of them, our mind is then pure.

[14:07]

Bodhi is imminent in our essence of mind, and to attempt to look for it elsewhere is erroneous. Within our impure mind, the pure mind is to be found. And once our mind is set right, we are free from defilements, evil karma, and karmic retribution. If we are treading the path of enlightenment, we need not be worried by stumbling blocks. Provided that we keep a constant eye on our own faults, we will not go astray from the right path. Since every species of life has its own way of salvation, they will not interfere or be antagonistic to one another. Therefore, if we leave our own path and seek some other way of salvation, we will not find it.

[15:09]

And if we plod along until death overtakes us, we shall find only regret in the end. If you wish to find the true way, right action will lead you to it directly. But if you do not make effort in the way, you will grope around in the dark and never find it. One who treads the path in earnest sees not the faults of the world. If we find fault with others, we ourselves are in the wrong. When others are in the wrong, we should ignore it. For it is wrong for us to find fault. By letting go of the habit of fault-finding, we cut off a source of defilement. When neither hatred nor love disturb our mind, serenely we sleep.

[16:11]

Those who intend to be the teachers of others should themselves be skilled in the various expedients which lead others to enlightenment. When the disciple is free from all doubts, it indicates that their essence of mind has been found. The pure land of Buddha is in this world within which enlightenment is to be found. To seek enlightenment by separating from this world is as absurd as to search for the horns of a rabbit or the feet of a snake. Right views are called transcendental. Erroneous views are called worldly. When all views, right or erroneous, are let go of, the essence of Bodhi appears. This stanza is for the sudden school.

[17:14]

It also is called the big ship of Dharma, for sailing across the ocean of existence. Kalpa after kalpa, a person may be under delusion, but once enlightened, it takes but a moment to reach Buddhahood. So, there are many sections, four or five sections. And of course, one of the sections is about fault-finding, which I'll get to, but I'm going to start with the beginning. One who is a master of the Buddha Dharma...

[18:18]

and has realized their essence of mind may be likened to the bright sun in an empty sky. So, in the transmission of light, which is called Denko Roku, what is transmission of light? Dogen says, Dogen has a classical, I think I talked about this before. I don't know. I've talked about it so many times. I don't know what I talked about here and what I didn't. But I think I did. He said, the light that is transmitted is not like the light of a firefly or the light of a gem or something like that. It's not anything like what you think it is. You see it all the time directly before you, but you don't recognize it.

[19:27]

It's always present. But it's obscured by our defilements, but yet our defilements are also it. I like to think that a practitioner is a vehicle of If we could just simply open ourselves to being a vehicle for light, we will realize our essence of mind. Darkness is also light. So this light is not light that's the opposite of darkness. We have various ways of speaking about darkness and light. But in the dark, all things are one. In the light, all the differences are revealed.

[20:34]

But in essence of mind, both dark and light are essence of mind. So Huynang is always talking about essence of mind. as enlightenment. When we tap into our essence of mind, when we realize our essence of mind, that's called enlightenment. So enlightenment is transmitting light. So the sun, he says we should be like the sun. The sun is transmitting light all the time. This is Vajrojana Buddha. Vajrojana is the great sun Buddha. who sits in the middle of our spiritual solar system and transmits light in all directions without discrimination, indiscriminately transmitting light in all directions.

[21:45]

But we usually talk about the moon when we talk about enlightenment the moon is the referent but the moon is a reflection of the sun so the sun is hot and the moon is cool so enlightenment the light of the sun is reflected off of the moon because we can't really if we look at the sun we get burned up You can't just look at the sun without getting burned up, stare at it. So the moon is the intermediary, which is very cool. In order to balance our life, we have to express our enlightenment in a cool way. So we say you should have a cool...

[22:52]

Cool mind and warm feet. Cool mind and warm feet. So whenever enlightenment is usually referred to as moonlight or the moon, reflected on the water. But it's really the sun. It's all a reflection of the sun. It's a mirror of the sun, but it's a filter. So the sun is the essence, but it's filtered through the moon in order to be accessible. So we filter the sun or the light through our activity as practice.

[24:03]

So that sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's not. But there's a saying that you should hide your light. Hide your light in the dust. and then allow it to be expressed in ordinary activity, which is called nothing special. So Suzuki Roshi is always saying, nothing special, nothing special, nothing fancy, nothing extra. Then he says, such a one teaches nothing but the Dharma for realizing our self-nature, which is our purpose, is the purpose, that person's purpose for being in the world and to make people aware of erroneous views.

[25:24]

I just thought of something else before I go into that. I remember a Huitzu Suzuki. talking about, you should be, a practitioner should be like a cup or a glass that's around, but has no corners. There are no corners or no hiding places or nowhere that dust can get caught so that Whichever way you look at it, it's always the same and equal and even. So we should look for those places when we practice. Where are my corners? What am I hiding?

[26:31]

And of course we all hide something, right? Where are my corners? Where is the dust collecting? Where are the hindrances that keep the light from being expressed? It's like, you know, in the Platform Sutra, the famous response of Huinang the handwriting on the wall most of you know about this I'll read it from this version I'm not going to go into the whole story but he says our body is the Bodhi tree

[27:37]

and our mind is a mirror bright. Carefully we wipe them hour by hour and not let the dust of light. This is, what's his name? Xinshu. The fifth patriarch's favorite disciple, Xinshu, wrote this gata on the wall. And, of course, he expected that I have to go into the story, sorry. It's a long story, but I'll make it short. The fifth patriarch was looking for somebody to be his successor. And so he asked all the monks in the monastery to write a gatha that expressed their understanding. And so Shinshu, who was a wonderful disciple, the first disciple,

[28:38]

wrote this agatha on the wall in the middle of the night, hoping that, you know, that he could, that the fifth patriarch would see it in the morning. And all the other students said, we know that the fifth patriarch is the guy, so we won't write anything. And then, as it turns out, the fifth patriarch did see the gata, and he said, oh, wonderful, wonderful, and he erased it. But when he talked to Shinshu, he said, you haven't quite got it yet. And then Huynang, who was just working in the grinding room, in the granary, pounding rice, And he was nobody.

[29:40]

And he came to the, saw the gatha, and he was illiterate, so he asked somebody to, he said, I know, I want to write a gatha too. And he asked somebody to write it for him because he was illiterate. And the guy he asked, he said, how could you write a gatha? Well, please do it anyway. So he wrote the gatha. And he said, he knows gatha. was different. He said, there is no bodhi tree, nor stand of a mirror bright. Since all is void, where can the dust alight? So it looks like one data is right and the other is wrong. But actually, I don't think that's right. I think both gathas are complementary. Both are complementary.

[30:45]

The sixth ancestor says, there is no bodhi tree, nor stand of a mirror bright. Since all is void, work in the dust of light. This is emptiness, right? Shen Shu's verse says, our body is the bodhi tree, and our mind is a mirror bright. Carefully we wipe it, hour by hour, and don't let the dust light. One is talking about emptiness, and the other is talking about form. So when you put them together, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. If you get stuck in Hoi Nung's gatha, then you become a victim of emptiness. And if you're only paying attention to Shinshu's verse, then you get stuck in form.

[31:49]

So Suzuki Roshi said, this is not a good, many people don't believe this is a good gatha of the sixth patriarch, because it only expresses one side. But I think both of them together is an accurate expression. So... Anyway, I'll leave it alone. Such a one teaches nothing but the Dharma for realizing our self-nature, which is the purpose for being in the world, and for making... are people aware of Aronius views. So this should be like Bodhisattva's vow or Zen student's vow. This is what the purpose of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is considered by many to be the highest sutra.

[32:53]

Other people think the Avatamsaka Sutra is, but Dogen thought that felt very highly of the the Lotus Sutra, which expresses the reason why a bodhisattva or a Buddha enters the world simply for teaching the Dharma. So this should be what a Zen student is trying to do, meant to do. As Zen students, we all should be teachers, but first we have to be teachers of ourselves. You always have a good student. Everybody has a student. There's nobody here that doesn't have a student. And the student that you have is you. That's your first student. And then when you can teach yourself, then you can teach others.

[34:03]

I always like to say that whenever you sit zazen, you should give yourself zazen instruction each time. And then you're so good at giving zazen instruction that you can teach the Dharma. But often we teach things that are even beyond ourselves. And that's okay, too, as long as we know. I'm teaching something that's beyond my understanding. because we're always teaching something that's beyond our understanding even though we understand it even though we understand it it's beyond our understanding there are often I'd like to sometimes I talk about engines and boxcars in a train.

[35:08]

You have engines and boxcars. The boxcars are being carried along by the engines and the engines carry along the boxcars. So we start out as boxcars but we should also get to the point where also engines and we're driving the practice and not just being pulled along by it. When we're driving the practice, we really feel comfortable in the practice. When we're being dragged by the practice or carried by the practice, we don't feel so comfortable. So eventually, we should transform into engines that drive the practice. When we come to the monastery for a certain amount of time, And hopefully when we leave, we can drive the practice wherever we are so that our life is dedicated to doing this.

[36:18]

Not everybody will follow that road, but hopefully, ideally, that would be right. that would be correct. So this person who is transmitting light, their only purpose is to do that. And that's their purpose for being in the world. So, you know, Shakyamuni died or passed on when he was 80, I think. And they say, because he did what he had to do, and that was it. He lived a little bit longer in order to do that than he would ordinarily have done. So then, he says, we can hardly classify realization of the Dharma into sudden and gradual realization.

[37:28]

Some will attain enlightenment more quickly than others. Sudden and gradual was a controversy in those days, and still is. Gradual practice and sudden enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi called gradual practice step-ladder practice, where you learn one thing and then you graduate to the next thing, which is usual in... the first grade, the second grade, and most practices are like that. Most Buddhist practices are like that. Zen practice is more like jumping into the ocean and learning how to swim before you know how to swim. Thrashing around until you learn how to swim. So you're practicing right from the beginning.

[38:32]

You're practicing in the ocean of enlightenment at the moment you begin. So we say enlightenment first. Enlightenment is the beginning of practice. Just throwing yourself into it without preparation. Because from beginning to end, it's enlightened practice. But we don't have the realization of enlightened practice. Dogen says, some may realize it And some may not, even though it's there. So there's two things. One is enlightenment and another is realization.

[39:35]

Enlightenment is there. But realization may or may not be there. Somebody says, I'm sitting zazen, you know, and I just sit here and nothing happens. And I've been doing it for a long time, expecting something. As long as you're expecting something, nothing will ever happen. Nothing will ever happen from your expectation because whatever it is that is enlightenment doesn't meet your expectation. And then one day you say, oh, I see. Huh. That's it. There's a saying, a Taoist saying that the food of those who are realized doesn't taste like absolutely nothing to those who are not.

[40:56]

So sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment. And he says, this was a great controversy. And the Zen school is called the sudden enlightenment school. And other schools were called gradual enlightenment. But that doesn't mean... that there's no gradual enlightenment. Sudden enlightenment includes gradual practice. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because it's sudden enlightenment and gradual practice. Chino, who is a Korean teacher, has talked a lot about sudden enlightenment and gradual practice. So our practice is, because we've had our sudden enlightenment, we're doing our gradual practice.

[42:17]

So our practice is within. It's the practice of enlightenment. And so as Dogen says, practice enlightenment. One moment of practice is one moment of enlightenment. 10 minutes of practice is 10 minutes of enlightenment. But one may not realize it. So the other thing is, how long is long? How long is sudden? And how long is gradual? Because sudden is simply a comparative value. Something happens suddenly, right? But it seems sudden to us, but to some other creature, that sudden activity will look like a long time.

[43:24]

So you could say that our whole lifespan is one sudden moment. But to us, it seems like it goes on forever. So sudden and gradual are mixed. Sudden is gradual, and gradual is sudden. The kitchen suddenly gets up and gradually walks out. So then he says this way of realizing the essence of mind is above the comprehension of the ignorant.

[44:45]

I don't like the word ignorant so much, but there are people who have affinity. We like to think that everybody should be able to practice, but the practice, one has to have affinity for the practice. And if one doesn't have the affinity, then it's like they don't know what they're doing. Why are we doing this? Your aunts and uncles say, why are you doing such a stupid thing when you could be making a lot of money? So some people get it and some people don't. It shouldn't be a criticism of people who don't get it.

[45:48]

That's why I don't like the word ignorant so much. Maybe in its true sense of ignoring. But no matter, you know, we can explain it in 10,000 ways. And if someone doesn't have an affinity, they won't get it. But he says, but in those explanations, all those explanations may be traced back to the one principle. And in order to illuminate the dark dwelling place of the afflictions, we should constantly set up the light of wisdom. So... Chinese use the word afflictions a lot, which means greed, afflictions of ill will, delusions, all those afflictions which block our view, which put us in the dark, so to speak.

[47:03]

So he says, right views remove us. I can't read this. Wrong views keep us in defilement, while right views remove us from it. But when you are in a position to let go of both of them, our mind is then pure. In other words, to just let go of views of right and wrong, purity, in this sense, means non-duality. Pure mind means the mind that is about duality. So when we use the terms light and dark, that's a view.

[48:16]

But when light is dark and dark is in light, that's pure. So any statement has to include its opposite. That's pure dharma. Otherwise we fall into contention and duality. So it's very difficult. That's the difficult part of our practice. is to not fall into contention and duality with views of right and wrong, good and bad, even though right and wrong and good and bad are necessary. If we understand the oneness of duality, that's practice. So does the dog have a Buddha nature? No. Does the dog have the Buddha nature?

[49:20]

Yes. Which is it? So when we are in a position to let go of both of them, then our mind is pure or non-dual. So bodhi is imminent in our essence of mind. And to attempt to look for it elsewhere is erroneous. Bodhi means enlightenment. When our impure mind, within our impure mind, the pure mind is to be found. And once our mind is set right, we are free from defilement, evil karma, and karmic retribution.

[50:25]

is where the purity is to be found. If we try to separate impurity from purity, that's dualistic. So we say, a fish can't live in pure water. And these fish, us, cannot live in pure water. We have to live in the dust. This is the world of dust. That's why we live. So we have to find the impure, the purity within the impurity. How do we do that? That's our koan. That's actually the essence of all koans. That's shikantaza. How to find our way in the dusty world without leaving the dusty world. how to find our essence of mind within the dusty world with our Buddha nature.

[51:38]

Essence of mind is another name for Buddha nature. So this is one of his themes, of course, is don't try to separate the pure from the impure. The way to live within the pure mind is to find it within the pure mind. Otherwise, we find ourselves criticizing that which doesn't seem right. So this is to let our mind be quite large and accept everything.

[52:47]

Suzuki Roshi called it big mind. Live within our big mind. And our big mind includes everything. It doesn't separate out one thing from another. So how do we accept and face whatever is in front of us without creating sides? Often we get into arguments. with people because they have a different view. But one way of dealing with that is to accept that view and then present your response, which is not denying their truth. But to accept that truth and then to present your truth

[54:00]

is leave their mind open without being contentious so that they can actually accept your truth. So when you meet a fundamentalist, something, accept that. I understand what you mean. I get that. Here's our truth. As soon as you tell somebody that they're wrong, there's no way that they will accept you that's right. So, that's probably the end, right?

[55:01]

today. I'll continue this tomorrow. 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.

[55:31]

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