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. How is the mic? Good? Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. And... This is the first time I give a talk in the Zendo since we have this new setup. And very happy to see you all. First, I'd like to take a moment acknowledge that we have a Sangha member in Tassajara who's gone missing for a couple of days.

[01:17]

And I'd like to take a moment to hold her and her family and our community in Tassajara. Hold them in our heart. As I said, it's the first time I came here to give a talk here. And when I walked down Pei Street, I saw this big sign above 300 entrants.

[02:21]

Zendo is open. Enter through Laguna Street. Is that what it says? Enter through Laguna Street. That's something new. And that reminds me, in temples in China, oftentimes when you are in the temple, all the buildings would have a plaque above the entrance. And for the new people who who are going to practice in the temple or stay overnight, they will first go to the reception hall, the guest hall. And above the guest hall usually it says, guest hall. And sometimes there's a plaque that says, enter through here.

[03:29]

So enter through here. That's the secret of Zen practice. What is it that we're entering into? And what is here? This is... warm up for what I'm trying to talk about tonight, which is a koan from the Blue Cliff Record, a koan collection from Song Dynasty in China. And the case I'm trying to talk about tonight is number three. Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha.

[04:38]

Actually, that's not the title of the koan. The title is Master Ma, Not Feeling Well. Does everybody here know about the Blue Cliff Record, the koan collection? So, in the old days, Well, when Zen practice was flourishing, mostly in the Tang Dynasty, there were lots of stories of the master's life and master's teachings recorded in these collections called The Transmission of the Lamp. There are many... or at least a handful of them circulating around.

[05:42]

And later on in, well, Tang Dynasty is like from the 600 to 800, 900. And later on in Song Dynasty, from 900 or 1,000, from there on, people started to study these stories and make commentaries. And so a master named She-Do, Se-Cho in Japanese, collected or selected a hundred stories, koan stories, and make verses, you know, make teachings and verses for these stories. And his favorite stories are a lot of Master Yunmen, Master Unmen, and some Master Ma, Ma Zhu, and a bunch of other stories.

[06:46]

But then, about 100 years later, or several decades later, another master named Yuan Wu took Master Xuedou's 100th and verses and taught them with additional introductions and commentaries. And because he resided in Jia Shan, Mount Jia, which also named Blue Cliff, and the abbot's quarter, the abbot's house, had a flag. called Blue Cliff Abode. So after he gave these teachings, he and I think mostly his disciples collected them and made them into a collection of koans with commentaries and verses and everything that you would read now.

[07:58]

And so... So the master in this koan story is Master Ma Zhu. Ma Zhu was the grand dharma heir of the famous sixth ancestor, Huineng. And so you probably have heard of some other stories and koans about Ma Zhu, Master Ma. Anyway, so that's the brief background about this koan. And so in each koan, in Blue Cliff Record, you will see a introduction, or sometimes it's called a pointer, and then the koan itself, the story itself, and then commentaries by...

[09:03]

and then verse by the verse by xuedou, etc. And so because each koan is actually, this one is pretty long, and I will just pick a few sentences and phrases that I thought express the essence of this koan and share with you tonight, and let's explore it together. So the introduction says, or the pointer, I will say this translation by Thomas Clary, and then I will do my own interpretation. the pointer of case number three.

[10:08]

One device, one object, one word, one phrase. The intent is that you have a place to enter. He translated it as device. So you hear this word often in Zen stories, ji or ki in Japanese. It means device, machine. It also means the mechanism, the crucial part in the working of a machine or thing, like a door, like the hinge, or like the power center of something.

[11:14]

And in Zen, it refers to a critical part, the secret key to help the practitioner to open, to wake up. And so in a lot of these things, Koan stories, they talk about some experiences, you know, of these students and teachers had together that helped them, helped the student to see the truth, to get to the bottom of it. And so one device, one object, the object, jing, that means the situation, a situation that arises from causes and conditions.

[12:20]

And so each of this workings of The situation also contains the potential and the opportunity for one to wake up. One word, one sentence or phrase. The purpose or the intention is only for the student to have a place to enter. To enter. To enter to what? So enter from Lacuna Street.

[13:26]

Enter from here. enter right where you are. To enter the Dharma gate, to enter the path of awakening from exactly where you are, from exactly this very moment. We enter the Laguna door, to come sit, to listen to a talk. And these are just some ways to, for us to attempt to you help us to enter, to have a place to enter.

[14:43]

And where is not a place to enter. sitting zazen, putting on clothes, speaking with someone, feeling sad about some news. Where is not a place to enter this moment? This moment that makes up our life. The case. Great Master Ma was unwell.

[15:56]

The temple director asked him, Master, How has your health been in recent days? The master said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. So, this is supposed to be the last koan story, or a koan story that happened before Master Ma passed away when he was unwell. And you know Master Ma, you have heard of some of his other stories, like when he was young, he was sitting, sitting, and then his master picked up a brick and grinded the brick against the stone, that one.

[17:04]

And he asked his teacher, what are you doing? And his teacher said, I'm trying to make a mirror out of this stone, this brick. And he said, how can you make a mirror out of a brick? By grinding it. And his teacher said, how can you become Buddha by just sitting? And that's one of his stories. It's not, I don't think, it was, it's not about sitting or not sitting. It's about whether you can enter, whether. Whether you are entering, whether you enter the path through sitting. Back to the case.

[18:09]

Master Ma was unwell. The director asked, Master, how have you been? How has your health been recently? And he answered, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. And in Buddhism, sun-faced Buddha referred to a Buddha that... had a lifespan of 1800 years or something, like long, who lived a long time. And Moon-faced Buddha only lived for a day and a night. So Buddha who lives long, a Buddha who lives short, a short time. There are many interpretations of this koan.

[19:17]

And when we study a story like this, we each make something out of it based on our experience, based on our understanding. So some people, some some interpretation takes it as that the master remains unwavering in the midst of life's conditions, like a good day or a bad day. It's just what it is. And that's one interpretation. And another interpretation, which is what I'm going to elaborate a little, is that this could be a metaphor.

[20:24]

Sun Face Buddha could be a metaphor for something that's long-lasting, that doesn't increase and decrease. doesn't come and doesn't go. Whereas Moon-faced Buddha is momentary. It comes and goes. It goes through birth and death. Basically Sun-faced Buddha could mean our awakened nature or Dharma nature or Buddha nature. Whereas the moon-faced Buddha could mean the phenomena of life.

[21:36]

Or sometimes people might say it might refer to the absolute and the relative. No matter what notions you have or we have, I think the essence of the teaching here is that Life goes through its moments. Its moments of qi and qing. Its moments of different situations.

[22:51]

different ups and downs, different happiness, sadness. That witch knows what happens is always there. It never leaves us. Many years ago, when I visited China, where my family lives, I would usually first go visit my teachers, my medicine teacher and my Zen teacher, before I went to see my parents.

[24:25]

So one of those visits, I was... I was with my Buddhist mentor, Master Hongjie. He was living in a hermitage near Shanghai at the time. And it was very interesting to see how his students would pass through his... come through his house, and he would make tea for them. And all day long, because I was there visiting him, I would be drinking tea with the different batches of students.

[25:22]

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