This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. And thank you for joining us tonight on the eve of Christmas Eve. It's really quite amazing that we're all able to zoom in like this and stay connected somehow during this time of isolation and disconnection and lots of division in the world. So I'm very grateful for technology right now. And I'd like to thank Nancy. She's the head of practice here at City Center for inviting me to give this talk.

[01:05]

And I also would like to thank my wonderful teacher, Tia Strozer, for all of her guidance and patience over the years. And then I'd like to thank and say hello to three very special viewers, my mother and my sister and my beautiful niece, Skylar, who are all joining us from So this is the first time that they've seen me give a Dharma talk. So thank you to the three of them for joining us tonight. So I'm going to talk a little bit about a very popular ko-am from a collection of stories called The Gateless Gate. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with ko-am, It's a word that in Chinese means something akin to a public case. And in Japanese, it means something like a matter for public thought.

[02:08]

So koan, and that's spelled K-O-A-N, koans are paradoxical anecdotes that Zen teachers employ to help students come to some realization that's beyond the thinking mind. So the way to become intimate with the meaning of a koan is by dropping below the words and the phrases and having a physical or felt experience or understanding of the meaning. So the practice of Zen, after all, is a body practice. Illumination and transformation happen below the neck. Confounding the logical mind helps students realize a spiritual epiphany or what we call in Zen, Kensho or Satori. These Japanese words mean something, means that someone has had an awakening moment, a non-intellectual experience of our deep and boundless connection with all sentient and non-sentient beings.

[03:18]

And what we call this in Buddhism is Buddha nature. And this is what unites us. This is why ultimately there is no separation between me and you, between somebody who holds a certain political belief and someone who holds another different political belief. So this boundless connection is beyond our ability to grasp with our thinking mind. So these are what koans help us to experience is a... A wordless knowing of the true nature of life, of who we really are. So the Gateless Gate is a collection of koans that was composed in China during the Song Dynasty. That was from 960 to 1279.

[04:20]

In Japanese, the collection is called Lu Mon Kong. Mu means nothingness. Mon means gate and con means barrier. Another way that it can be translated is like a checkpoint where usually travelers are, their papers are being shown to somebody. So it's a checkpoint that is not blocked in any way, right? So it's a gateless gate or a gateless barrier. So this collection of koans called The Gateless Gate was composed in 1228 by a Zen monk named Muman Ikai. In this collection, Muman adds his own commentary about the koan and then also adds a poem at the end that sums up his understanding of the koan. These verses and commentaries are also studied by Zen students as a way to

[05:25]

help unlock the meaning of these ancient stories. And some of these stories are actually historical, and others are probably just metaphorical. So in this koan, which is the first case in the gateless skate, there are just two speakers, an unnamed monk and a famous Zen master, Joe Shu. So here's the case. A monk asked... Joshu has a dog, the Buddha nature. Joshu answered, Mu. The way I understand Joshu's response of Mu is that he's slicing through the monk's attempt at arriving at some intellectual certainty. The monk wants to know whether a dog is endowed with the luminous mind of the Buddha.

[06:26]

Does this dog have a Buddha nature like myself? But the monk's question comes from his head and not his heart. You know, the monk is so caught up in concepts and discursive thinking, right? He's up here in his head. So instead of responding with an affirmative yes or with a solid no, Joshu responds with moon. Now this Mu can be read as a nothingness or as a meaningless sound. Joshu does not want to give the monk an answer that his thinking mind can cling on to and say, now I've got it. Now I understand the dog definitely has Buddha nature or the dog definitely does not have Buddha nature. A part of Zen practice is Noticing when we're grasping, noticing when we're grasping onto certainty, when we want to make in our mind something that we can intellectually understand.

[07:39]

So this Mu is slicing through the monk's desire to grasp onto the Buddha nature. What is this Buddha nature? Who has it? Do I have it? Does the dog have it? If the dog doesn't have it, why doesn't the dog have it? So these types of questions that come from our head often just keep us spinning around in our head. And they're far away really from the practice. This is a philosophical question, right? Does a dog have good in nature? So the Joshu is being playful, but he's also being direct. And The ambivalence, for me, the ambivalence of how this Mu interpreted also makes it impossible to grasp intellectually. And then when you try to grasp intellectually, it just keeps spinning around and around. And the way that I've practiced with Mu while sitting in seated meditation is allowing it to flow with my breath.

[08:48]

So it may start off as... a kind of a solid word, silently, inside, just the sound of moo. And then my mind starts to grasp onto it, like, what is moo? Or just tries to engage with that sound. Just go back to the breathing. Just go back to the breath. And let that moo just float through my body, coming in on the inhale, fill my body, and then an exhale. So this mood just floats with the inhale and the exhale, just becomes part of the breathing, right? It just starts to breathe with the body. And so the mood is just suffusing all the pores, right? Just becomes part of the body. And then it helps to quiet the thinking mind. It helps to quiet all those stories that arise. Once we start sitting still, we can...

[09:50]

feel and hear the mind, see how busy it is, right? Become intimate with all of its busyness. And this Mu really helps slice through all that. It's just, in some ways, like throwing cold water, if you will, right? You stop, there's a stop. There's a brief moment where there's no thinking. The same with Mu, there's a stopping of thoughts. And I feel, too, that Zen is a practice that happens off the cushion, more so than on the cushion, because we spend most of our lives off of the meditation cushion. And we can carry this Mu throughout our daily activities. So this Mu is also a sense of when I'm just doing one task, I'm wholeheartedly participating in this task. There's not... thoughts about other tasks, about what happened yesterday, about what's going to happen tomorrow.

[10:52]

Or if those thoughts do arise, just letting them go, just letting them float away and then going back to the physicality of the present moment. What is it that you're doing in that present moment? So just bringing the attention of the mind. So attention is just a mental faculty of the mind. We just bring it back. to the physicality of the present moment. Whatever that is, whether you're sitting in meditation, you're brushing your teeth, you're walking down the street, you're typing on your computer. And so this mood, you can carry with it, carry it with us on the cushion and off the cushion, just allowing that mood to undermine arising thoughts to pull up their roots so that we don't So that mind doesn't proliferate and we don't get caught in that mental proliferation. So Muman, his verse is very short that he wrote about this koan.

[11:59]

Here is his verse. The dog, the Buddha nature, the pronouncement, perfect and final. Before you say it has or has not, you are a dead man or woman on the spot. So here he's pointing to, if you say it has or has not Buddha nature, you're dead on the spot. Once we start to conceptualize, we're dead, in a sense. Once we start to conceptualize, we're far away from what's happening in the physical moment. And this is what the monk's question was about the dog having Buddha nature, right? It's like, great... Joshi was bringing back to the present moment, back to what's going on, getting him out of his head, giving him the sound of mood to help him stop grasping at concepts.

[12:59]

So in doing some research about this koan, I also uncovered a verse by a little known Zen master, And his given name is Theodore Gesell. And his Dharma name is Dr. Seuss. So here is then master Zeus' verse on this case. Every monk down in Whoville liked words a lot, but the hermit who lived north of Whoville did not. The hermit loathed words she avoided delusion. Please don't ask why, because the self's an illusion. It could be, perhaps, that her hood was too tight. It could be her tongue was not screwed on right. I think her insight was a red-hot iron ball.

[14:08]

For that hermit, she knew the truth of it all. Now, whatever the reason, her tongue or her hood, she sat upright, not thinking of how to do good. For the glow of Joshu's moon, like a vast ocean, waved through the hermit and set her in motion. Staring down from her cave with an angelic grin, tomorrow is almost here, the end of session, she thought no thought. while mindfully walking. I must find some way to stop them from talking. For tomorrow, I know all the boy and girl monks will sleep and dream of self, waking at noon like drunks. Then they'll do something the hermit-like least of all. Every monk down in Whoville, the tall and the small, will stand six feet apart

[15:12]

their socially distant mingling. And then they'll start thinking. Like ghosts, they'll start clinging to bushes and weeds and the myriad thingy. And oh, oh, the words, oh, the words, words, words. I hate the stream of words because words are absurd. They'll stand with open hearts with masks on their faces. A chat, chat, chatting to puzzle what the case is. Does a dog have a Buddha nature? Yes and no. They will ponder and wonder, how could it be so? If they say it has or has not, then they're dead on the spot. To become ruined and homeless, talking must stop. For these monks, devoted to the way, chasing the air and pursuing fragrance.

[16:16]

They will never save their hair from the fire. And their monkey minds will despair about the gateless gate, which is not even there. The more the hermit thought about this without emotion, the more she thought, I must stop this whole commotion. For nine years of wall sitting, I've sat with it now. I must... stop these idle monks from talking, but how? Then in the mine door arose a flashing volition, an idea to prevent this karmic condition. I'll make a bodhidharma staff and a red cloak, and she mused and chuckled, it'll be a sweet joke. All I need is a fast horse, and she looked around, but since thieves were scarce, there were none to be found. Did that stop the hermit? No, she simply said. If I can't find a horse, I'll sled down instead.

[17:20]

She grabbed her zafu, a bell, a service of tea, her cloak and staff, and entered a very samadhi. She folded into lotus on top of her zafu, sitting like a mountain, wearing her rakasu. The hermit shouted, Moo! And then the sled started down toward the rooms where the monks lay a snooze in their town. Like a red shadow, she glided through the twilight, the true dragon's breath pumping her heart with might. The unreal and real subfused in the darkling light, stars and sky sharing the essence hidden in plain sight. The hermit on her Zafu slid into Huville, and sat in the zenu. All was silent and still. The weary monks were nestled while snug in their beds, while visions of the Buddha swirled in their heads.

[18:24]

The hermit pulled out her thermos and poured some tea. From her cloak out came the bell, which she rang with glee. Monks sprang from their beds to see what was the matter. They breezed into the hall and started to chatter. and to their eyes what should dependably co-arise, from red-wrapped Roshi sipping tea to their surprise. The monks grew hushed, for she was so clear of dharma, of karma. They knew in an instant she embodied the dharma. Then she spoke without making a sound. The front gate of Zen is Mu, but if you try, you'll separate. Though there's no barrier, you must not hesitate. Now is the only way to enter the gateless gate. Then a star fell from the sky, striking the densha. All the monks, the tall and the small, slipped into kensha. Behind their masks, they smiled like makakasha.

[19:28]

Their minds as vast as space, their wholehearted hearts aglow. Then a soft voice said, Dear Roshi, if all is mu, then that absurd word must have Buddha nature too. And since we have to say something, what can we do? I, for one, won't ever stop saying, I love you. Hearing these words, a calmness like falling snow filled the hermit up with what she needed to know. Then she swung her staff like the sword of Manjushri, chanting the harmony of difference and unity. Just like winter streams branch into spring rivers, the emptiness of receiver, gift, and givers is what it means to embody the Buddha's way, like a tireless horse with shanks that have gone gray.

[20:33]

With that, she floated like a cloud into the air, and she emerged with the darkness. like a silent prayer. To the monks below, she gave a deep, deep gasho. They heard her silver voice shining through the moon glow. Each moment is nirvana, so drop your story because it limits your chances of sattori. Thank you for listening to my verse. And I confess that I chose the koan because I wanted to write this poem.

[21:37]

And I really enjoyed learning about Mu. And I feel that, to me, this koan as well as this poem by the wonderful Dr. Seuss. I find it really speaks to the middle way of practicing Zen. For seven years, I spent time in the mountains at Tassajara, though not in a cave, although sometimes it felt a little bit like a cave there in the valley. And I feel that... The practice of Zen, especially this tradition, Soto Zen tradition that Suzuki Roshi founded here at the San Francisco Zen Center is about bringing what we learn in the monastery or we learn Zen practice sitting on our cushion.

[22:38]

You don't have to be in a monastery. How is it that we embody this practice when we leave the cushion? And how is it that we relate to each other? So this hermit, she was so caught up in her wall sitting, staring at the wall, meditating with her cloak and her staff and her tea. And she's sitting there by herself. And even though it's not always easy to sit by yourself in a monastery and stare at a wall, because you do bring yourself with you, so it's not, as some people, Imagine the sabbatical away from everything because of yourself. Wherever you go, there you are. That's that lovely phrase. So there is lots of merit to seeing in meditation. And then sometimes we can get stuck in the mountain, on the cave.

[23:42]

Just removing ourselves from life. And And clinging, clinging on to that meditative state or that isolation and thinking that we know that this is the way. I think that came up for me when I was at the monastery for so long, just feeling almost like I didn't want to leave and come back down to the other world, to this world. to this interrelational, a lot of interrelational things that happen when we're here. All the things that we have to deal with, the 10,000 things, as we say in Zen. So for me, the hermit, she learns, you know, about the value of words, about that we need to be with each other to express, I feel, our truest selves.

[24:51]

Because all we are really is relations. We're just relational beings. Not only, obviously, the main relationship being with ourselves, and sitting meditation is very helpful for exploring that relationship and healing what might need to be healed in our bodies and minds. Zazen is definitely a wonderful tool for that. And then how do we bring that down from the mountain, down from the cave? and express ourselves in the everydayness of what we do here in the city at San Francisco Zen Center. And, and I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to be at the monastery and then also to be supported, to be here at city center. And I feel that yeah, the, Buddha nature is not hidden.

[25:57]

It's in plain sight. And it's in the mountain cave in the mountain valley. It's in here at city center in the conference room where I'm sitting. It's in my heart, your heart, everyone's heart. So for me, I wanted to express that as a way of my appreciation and gratitude. for this practice, for this life, for all the people who have shown me love and patience on my journey thus far, and to remind myself and others about the importance of dropping from our heads to our heart, especially in this past year of lots of division in our world, in this country. You know, how is it that we can drop our ideas of people, of ourselves, of life?

[27:07]

Does a dog have Buddha nature? Does a dog not have Buddha nature? Can we drop below that and just love the dog? Just get to know the dog? Just... not make people and ourselves into permanent fixtures, not reify them, not concretize them, not judge ourselves and others for views. So for me, this move really helps me practice with that right now, practicing with when stories arise around people whose political views I don't agree with, how can I just settle into the body drop the stories. And it's not even like I'm talking to these people who have different political views than I do, because it's all here in my head, right? So how can I drop below all those stories and just allow my heart to feel, allow my body to feel just to be over and over again.

[28:09]

And I think for me, that's the practice of moot, just letting go, just being, dropping stories. letting the mind settle and allowing myself to feel this connection to what's happening in the physical moment because that's the place where there are no words and there are no red and blue states where there's just a deep boundless connection that unites all of us. And my wish, I guess, as we go toward the new year, is I hope that we all can learn how to live harmoniously and still be able to speak our truth because it's not about hiding.

[29:12]

How can we be in dialogue instead of debate? And how can we How can we express our true nature and use our words like the girl in the poem? Use our words, our words in a kind way and a compassionate way. And know that there is a time for silence and there's a time for speaking. Thank you all very much.

[30:20]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.23