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 evening. My name is Greg Fang, and I'm the tanto, or head of practice, here at... Zen Shinji, Zen Heart Temple, Tassahara. I'd like to begin by acknowledging and thanking my teacher, Sojin Mel Weizmann Roshi, abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, the old Buddha, and just say that my talk as always, is just to encourage you in your practice.

[01:04]

It's my only intention in being here tonight. First thing I'd like to do tonight is express my gratitude for this summer practice period. to express my gratitude for the monks and students who have been upholding the practice during this summer practice period, and all of our guests, and all of our many visiting teachers and luminaries. Welcome Kaz Tanahashi Sensei. And yeah, this is my, this is, it's kind of poignant, you know.

[02:06]

This is my last Dharma talk of this summer guest season. And today we just finished the last series of half-day sittings. Today was the last half-day sitting of summer practice period. gone out to the city numerous occasions this summer. And whenever I go out or go elsewhere, people always ask me, how is it in Tazahara? How's it going? What's the practice like in Tazahara? And all summer long, I've been telling people, wow, it's great. It is great. The students really want to practice. It seems like there's this kind of... What's the word I want?

[03:10]

Tipping point? Critical mass? You know, where we're just like... Linda Galleon said, well, it's all the cool kids are studying the polycanon. You know, it's like... It's kind of like that. Speaking of the Pali Canon, here's some words that sort of express how I feel from Shakyamuni Buddha. This is from the beginning of the Anapanasati Sutta, the Sutta on the practice of mindfulness of breathing. Shakyamuni says, Monks, this assembly is free from idle chatter, devoid of idle chatter, and is established on pure heartwood. Such is this community of monks.

[04:11]

Such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that is worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, an incomparable feel of merit for the world. Such is this community of monks. Such is this assembly. The sort of assembly to which a small gift when given becomes great, and a great gift greater. Such is this community of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that it is rare to see in the world. Such is this community of monks, such is this assembly. The sort of assembly that it would be worth traveling for leagues, taking along provisions in order to see. Such is this assembly. Okay, maybe some idle chatter. Maybe a little idle chatter here and there, but the heart would. Yes. Yes, definitely the heart would. That's how I feel.

[05:12]

I think there's probably some idle chatter in Shock Committee's Assembly, too. I think that was just his way of encouraging them. It's my theory. Okay. One thing I think I've really noticed about the summer, and maybe it goes for every summer, is the strength of our practice period comes from the diversity of people here, the diversity of humans, of Many ranges of age and ability and background. Ranges of knowledge and experience. People who've been here for years and people who got here last week.

[06:20]

I put it all together and it makes this wonderful brew. This wonderful, wonderful. There's a lot of strength there. I've always noticed that. And, you know, we will have one more community meeting. We're going to cram it in there somewhere. We're going to get it in the schedule there somewhere. Mako gets back, where we can maybe talk about this a little more. But what I want to talk about tonight is kind of along these lines, there's something that I call Tassajara magic. What do I mean by Tassajara magic? Well, because it's magic, it's going to be hard for me to talk about. And I hope you will bear with me. I hope you will bear with me because I haven't quite got this entirely figured out.

[07:22]

I'm going to maybe try to come at it from a couple of different angles. But... You know, in these half-day sittings that we've been doing, part of the schedule for the half-day sitting is we have a little brief Dharma discussion. And I usually, generally, generally, I introduce a koan, a Zen story for the Dharma discussion in our half-day sittings. And this is not one of them. This is something completely different. This is a koan. This koan comes from the Book of Serenity. And it's case 31. It's called Yunmen's Pillars. And what I'm going to attempt to do tonight is try to say a few words about this rather strange koan.

[08:28]

And how I think that relates to what I call Tassajara magic. So wish me luck. I hope you'll hang in there with me. So let me read you the case. Yunmin said, the ancient Buddhas are merged with the open pillars. What level of activity is this? The assembly was speechless. Yunmen himself said for them, On south mountain, rising clouds. On north mountain, falling rain. Want to hear it again? Will it help? Yunmen said, The ancient Buddhas, are merged with the open pillars.

[09:30]

What level of activity is this? The assembly was speechless. Me too. Yun-men himself said for them, on south mountain, rising clouds. On north mountain, falling rain. South mountain, rising clouds. North mountain. falling rain. Hmm. So, this koan to me, it's about communion and communication. Communion and communication. Maybe Yunmen... Yuman was a trippy guy. Let me just say that. Any koan, mostly, they're just like kind of, wow.

[10:33]

A little trippy. I'll just say that. To me. To me. Maybe he was sitting in the Buddha hall, you know, and there's pillars, right? Typically, very often, pillars in the hall. You know, they're kind of solitary and upright and... And then, you know, maybe there's an altar with some ancient Buddhas on it. And maybe he saw the ancient Buddhas and the pillars of the temple merging. Maybe he saw that. Maybe he'd been practicing sitting in that Buddha hall for a long time. And then he just saw that the ancient Buddhas and the pillars were merging. Or maybe it's got something to do with ancient Buddhas, you know, the lineage, the teaching, the ancestry of our teaching that's come down through the centuries. And it's a merging of time, a merging of this heritage into a single moment right now with our present practice in the midst of the open pillars.

[11:45]

They're merging. And maybe it's got to do with time and space. What did Yun-men have in mind? I'd really like to know. I would really like to share Yun-men's mind. I'd like to merge with that. I'd like to know that level of activity myself. The level of activity in this... go on, the word activity is ki, which can mean like function, change, working, dynamism, machine, energy, etc., etc. So there's this functioning going on. There's this functioning going on. Somehow the ancient Buddhas are merged with the open pillars. And then he goes on to say, on South Mountain, rising clouds,

[12:49]

on North Mountain falling rain. So over here, over here on South Mountain, the clouds are going up, but the rain's falling over here on North Mountain. What's up with that? This koan is also in the Blue Cliff Record. It's case number 83 in the Blue Cliff Record. Exact same koan, exact same story. In the Blue Cliff Record, Yuan Wu comments about on South Mountain rising clouds, on North Mountain falling rain. He says, when someone in the Eastern house dies, someone from the Western house assists in the morning. So there's this sympathetic resonance we're talking about here. There's a sympathetic resonance that's mysterious, you know. Someone way over there in the Eastern House dies, but somehow the people in the Western House are assisting in the morning.

[13:56]

And in the Book of Serenity, Wansong, commenting on that line, he has this to say. Wansong says, Old man Chong drinks wine. Old man Lee gets drunk. Old man Chong drinks wine. Old man Li gets drunk. There's this sympathetic resonance that's mysterious and subtle. And it's about communication. It's about communication that's kind of, yeah, kind of mysterious. Kind of, to me, it speaks to me about this thing that I call Tazahara magic. There's an expression in Japanese called kanodoko, kanodoko, which means literally a mutual exchange of feeling. So it's not something explicit.

[15:00]

It's not something you can put your finger on. It's not something you can explain, but it's something we all know. It's something we can all relate to. You know it. You know it when it's happening. You feel it. So one time, before we had the retreat hall, we had the old tent yurt out there, similar location. Sometimes we do these first aid CPR trainings. Stuart, Lars, and Sharon come out and they teach us first aid and they teach us CPR. So I can't even tell you what year this was, but a bunch of staff were out in the tent yurt.

[16:02]

You know, it's this circular tent yurt, big circle. And we're all sitting around the perimeter of it. And we're listening to this training. It's a CPR training. And Sharon was teaching us to take our pulses. You know, how do you take a pulse? So we all took our own pulse. And everybody in the yurt, okay, like one or two exceptions, but basically everybody in the yurt had a pulse of 60. One heartbeat per second. And the trainers were aghast. They were like, what? You've all got the same pulse. And Leslie James said, we've been synchronizing in the Zendo. Why not?

[17:07]

Why not? Yuan Wu, in the Blue Cliff Record, commenting on the same koan, Yuan Wu says, he gives us this practice instruction. Just make the mind and objects a single thusness. Okay? Will you do that for me? Can you do that? Just make the mind and objects a single thusness. how does that happen? Well, I could give you maybe a two-pat answer. Yes, I mean of right sitting, like the old man on the altar, merging with the open pillars.

[18:20]

And this unity this communion of the ancient Buddhas and the pillars doesn't mean that they're the same thing, right? You have the ancient Buddhas and you have the pillars. They're not the same thing, but they're in communion. Like, oh, I don't know, another thing that came up for me was... The crickets I enjoy very much. Nice crickets tonight. One night, 12 years ago, I was walking from the lower barn to the zendo to come to zazen. And I was coming up the path and around the pool,

[19:29]

The crickets were so loud. And we had these two ears, right? I've noticed. I had two good working ears. And crickets coming in the left ear were so loud. And the crickets coming in the right ear, the sound, cricket sound coming in the right ear was so loud. And then it was just crickets. It's like the cricket sound was coming in the left ear and going out the right ear. And coming in the right ear and going out the left ear. It was just crickets. It was just crickets, you know. Merging. Merging of crickets. Crickets all the way down. That's all right. But you know, it couldn't go on like that. It would be a problem if it stayed crickets. That would be a problem. I don't know, I might be a happier person.

[20:31]

Might be kind of dull, too. Just going around all the time, crickets, crickets, crickets, crickets. No, you know, so they're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. To study interdependence is to study having good boundaries. And I say that a lot. That's on a practical level and it's on a more metaphysical level. Yeah. So there's communion, but they're not the same thing. Okay. Now my favorite. Hangzhou's verse. My main man. This is his verse on the koan. One path of spiritual light has never been concealed from the first.

[21:39]

Transcending perception and objects, it's so, yet nothing's so. Going beyond emotional assessment, it's meat, yet nothing's meat. The scattered flowers on the crag. In the bees' houses they make honey. The richness of the wild grasses. In the musk deer they make perfume. According to kind, three feet or ten and six. Clearly, wherever you contact it is abundantly evident. So one path of spiritual light has never been concealed from the first. Can you see it?

[22:41]

Can you be present with the ancient Buddhas as they merge with the open pillars? It's never been concealed from the first. Transcending perception and objects, it's so, yet nothing's so. Going beyond emotional assessment, it's meat, yet nothing's meat. That's meat, it's like old-fashioned English word, M-E-E-T, in the sense of fitting or appropriate. I think Shakespeare, you know, it's meat, yet nothing's meat. It's fitting or appropriate, yet nothing is fitting or appropriate. This is, well, I'm going to sit here and tell you what it is. No. What this says to me, what I get out of this, is an expression of appreciation about what I'd call the interplay of the absolute and the relative.

[23:52]

There's a wonderful poem, Zen poem, written about this called the Sandokai, the harmony of difference and equality, which we chant in our liturgy morning service here at Tassajara. The Sandokai says things like, all the objects of the senses interact and yet do not. Interacting brings involvement, otherwise each keeps its place. So it's like that. It's kind of what I got out of this Tian Tong expressing this appreciation for this dance. And then my favorite part. The scattered flowers on the crag. In the bees' houses they make honey. The richness of the wild grasses. In the musk deer they make perfume.

[24:56]

This is the magic I'm talking about. I mean, you know, this is the feeling. I get from this, this strong feeling of what I'm trying to talk about. It's a sort of feeling of this hidden function that you can't name, you can't really point to. Poetry can sort of get close to it. But, you know, what's really going on? There's all the flowers on the crags, you know. And the bees, you know, bees do. And then they go back to their hives, you know. And they're like inside the bowl of a tree or inside a hive where you can't see, you know. Somewhere where you can't see what's going on in there in the hive. Bees are making honey, you know. So interesting. And the civet deer, you know. She eats the wild grasses, the richness of those wild grasses.

[26:02]

She takes that in and she's somehow in that pouch, in that musk pouch where you don't see. We can't know. It's in there something's going on. It's making this mysterious, powerful, very attractive essence. That's what we're doing every day at Tassahara. Every day. You know, when I think about it, I get this feeling like... Right? Like ran on a secret, like... But mostly I don't think about it. Mostly we don't think about it. We don't. You know, we're just doing what we do.

[27:04]

When Suzuki Roshi was at Eheji, Eheji Temple, the Mother Monastery in Japan, he said, we were just doing what we were doing. You know, and some outsiders would come and we'd say, oh, look, some unusual people have come. We didn't think we were doing anything special. And then he left and when he came back... He said after leaving Heiji and then he came back again, and then the tears just came down, pouring out of his eyes. He was totally overwhelmed. according to kind, three feet or ten and six. This is this diversity I was talking about earlier.

[28:14]

That's what that speaks to, to me. What does it say? Each of the myriad things has its merit expressed according to function and place. Each of the myriad people have their merit expressed according to function and place. You know, three feet, ten feet, six feet. There's a place for everybody. There's an opportunity for everybody. This communion, this communication is something that anyone is invited. to partake in. All are welcome. All are invited to the table. Clearly, wherever you contact it is abundantly evident.

[29:17]

So yeah, where do you contact it? Where do you contact it? in the upper shack, in the mail room. That's another much more famous koan of Yunmen, a story about Yunmen, a very famous koan. He says, each of us have our own light, but when we look for it, it's dark and dim. Where is everybody's light? And then Yun-men answered for everybody, which he did all the time. That was his thing. Yun-men answered for everybody. The kitchen pantry, the main gate. So, you know, wherever you contact it, it is abundantly evident.

[30:26]

Where you contact it is your life. your life. For me, this circles back to a talk I gave earlier this summer about why the precepts matter. This is why the precepts matter to me, because we affect each other, because we are in this subtle communion whether we know it or not, whether we see it or not, it's going on all the time. I have a lot of appreciation for Yun-men's sort of meteorological perspective. You know, on South Mountain, the rising clouds, on North Mountain, the falling rain. Do you know there are still...

[31:30]

Oh, no, wait a minute. How shall I say this? I have to take the charge out of my voice. Some people would still have it that the idea that the fact that the polar ice caps are melting, being linked to human activity and increase of carbon in the atmosphere, is a mere theory. So, it seems to me that this level of activity, this level of mental activity, you could say, is perhaps necessary for the survival of the species, perhaps necessary for the survival of all species. So, And it's about relationships.

[32:33]

The survival of the tribe, the survival of the nation depends on relationships. It depends on communion and communication. The times when I use the words Tassajara magic the most are when I see, like, borderline miraculous, two people having a really hard time with each other. who somehow find a way to circle around and meet, come back together. I've seen this over and over and over again. And it gives me hope for the human race. I've seen this happen. I want to testify. So, At the beginning of this year, we had an All Zen Center staff meeting at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

[33:43]

And people from the three temples in this very, very large room were sitting in a big circle. And we were expressing appreciations kind of council style towards the end of the meeting. And I said something. about this ENSO of beating hearts. And I was thinking about that time back in the tent yurt when it was a smaller circle. But I was thinking about that when I said that. A lot of people expressed appreciation for when I said this ENSO of beating hearts. This circle of heartbeats. But you know, that That circle of heartbeats really has to girdle the globe. That's the practice request for all of us.

[34:48]

So I've said a lot and I think it's really time I wanted to say, just maybe in closing, coming on to the end of guest season. I was saying, for example, it was the last half-day sitting of guest season. There's a lot of poignancy. There's a lot of feelings about partings and endings and new beginnings. It can be painful. It can be painful. And it can be kind of hard to hold. So I hope that we can all do that for each other. And I just want to finish by reading a poem. A poem that I first read 10 years ago or so. Something like that.

[35:55]

And I thought when I read this poem, this person who wrote this poem was in Tassajara. They wrote this poem about Tassahara. I'm sure of it. But it's not so, actually. This poem was written by an Englishman named Graham Brown, who practices in the Theravadan tradition in the UK. Nonetheless, I'm still convinced this person must have been writing about Tassahara. The poem is called The Monastery. Once I knew... Nothing in life could save me. And the monastery will wake you up in the cold mornings. It will kick you and drive you with more efficiency than any alarm clock. It will bore you with its routine, then seek forgiveness with a bowl full of food. And the monastery will always be showing you that you are nothing and restore a sense of wonder at the falling of a leaf.

[36:59]

The monastery will turn you into a giggling child and a crying child, and a wise old man whose mission is telling the world that it has to let go, and the monastery will dredge up all the horrible secrets from the corners of the mind of a long-dead boy, screaming the truth of misery to the birds and trees, and the monastery will show you acceptance in a good friend. The poetry of restraint... and the patience of sitting with restlessness. And you will hate it and hate it because your love is stronger and the monastery will get in your blood more exciting and depressing than alcohol. And you know the monastery will forget you if you leave and remember you with gratitude when you return. And the monastery will give you the open silence you will be unable to receive, they say, until years later. And you will want to run away and curl up and die.

[38:01]

They say the monastery will give you the strongest of feelings. And you will want to run away and curl up and die and be born again like the greenness of a beach. And the monastery will make you want to dance and sing and regret those times when you could. and you didn't, and the monastery will protect you like an island, and you will want to swim, and like a kind parent, the monastery will remain where it is. 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 SSCC.org and click Giving.

[38:53]

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