This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This is my cheat sheet. As it turns out, I have been reading an unusually large amount of poetry, so I figured I'd better bring along a cheat sheet. So I want to apologize. I always essentially give the same talk. With slight variations. And it almost always starts like this. So Buddhism is an effort, one of countless efforts mounted

[01:04]

in the last 10,000 years to alleviate human suffering and folly. There's an explanation that goes along with it, but we won't get into that. The proposal of how to do it is... Essentially, well, starting with adherence to the precepts, right? So the early Buddhists developed a vast array of precepts, and later they were, in some sects, shaved down to, you know, 10-ish, 13-ish. But in any case, adherence to the precepts. It's worth noting that almost all of the schemes that we're talking about for alleviating human suffering and folly have a set of precepts.

[02:09]

And then the other thing is not all Buddhist schools are equally dedicated to this, largely because Buddhism, I think, originally arose as a kind of sramonic... renunciate tradition in which you weren't even supposed to hang out with other Buddhists that much. But in any case, for the most part, most of its history, it's emphasized community involvement, Sangha, right? And the last part, and its kind of unique, radical proposition, is that You can alleviate human folly and suffering by engaging with and attending to the actual experience of being human.

[03:13]

A lot of the other schemes don't do that. They're like, well, we got the community involvement, we got the moral precepts, and now we posit this omniscient or mechanically omniscient observer that's going to judge your behavior and do things. I think the core of Buddhism is not about that. It's about something more, like I said, radical and mysterious. How is it that simply... staying close to an experience, directly experiencing the activity and literally experience, to paraphrase Paul Heller, my teacher, can somehow transform that experience such that

[04:26]

the practitioner and their and those they meet and those they work with and so on um suffer less amazing who knew that that was possible um and the buddha is held up as an example of someone who i mean this this is the you know he's he's the guy who had everything he was supposedly a prince supposedly happily married, supposedly getting ready to, you know, take over the kingdom. And he bolted and went around and, you know, like went to every yoga class and, you know, He went and had an argument with every famous philosopher, of which there were a lot, right?

[05:31]

And every time he excelled at it because he was an excellent person, right? And then in the end, they said, well, you know, why don't you take my teacher training class or something like that? And he's like, no, I'm not going to do that. But he had essentially done everything, right? And what finally did it for him, what finally saved him from a course of mendicant renunciate practice that was likely to kill him because he was eating almost nothing, eating almost nothing, et cetera, was just sitting down and attending to the arising of his life for some period of time. And also it's said that in the process, he not only experienced his present life, but all of his previous lives, so he really got a good dose of it, right?

[06:34]

And so he's held up as this example, right? And that's where the problem starts. You know, Buddhist practice in general, and Zen practice in particular, is arguably fundamentally a devotional practice. And the central act of Zen practice, Zazen, is just about... looking like that, basically. And that's good, right? It has a kind of yogic power and authority and the other forms around

[07:48]

Zen practice and other Buddhist practice all have this yogic power and authority. They are, if you can make them the focus of your life and activity, they're transformative. But they can also become, they can also lead to struggle. The act of sitting like the Buddha can become both mentally and physically tremendously uncomfortable and a source of struggle. And a lot of the struggle comes from having expectations and we can find ourselves making the activity performative. We can find ourselves doing goal-seeking, I'm going to be enlightened now, and after that, everything's going to be great, or, you know, whatever.

[08:56]

We can, you know, sit with gaining idea, to quote Suzuki Roshi. And my sense is that that this is one of the establishing principles of the Zen school. In fact, in some ways, Zen was invented or cooked up, I think probably in the late Tang Dynasty or something, but to deal exactly with this problem with Buddhist practice. And if you read some of the founding documents, the Xin Xin Ming, right, that has this great quote. It says, failing to recognize the essence, you exhaust yourself chasing calm. Yeah, exactly. Right, and then Dogen famously said in the Fukunza Zengi, have no designs on becoming a Buddha.

[10:09]

Yeah, precisely. And... And of course, Suzuki Roshi devoted a substantial portion of Zen Mind Beginner's Bind to exactly this, right? The starting in the preface and going throughout the book, he describes all the ways that we can get it wrong and then adds in ways that we can get it right. And the con that I was going to talk about today is kind of exactly about this. So it's about what in the context of a real

[11:12]

the real life of a practitioner constitutes authentic Buddha activity, right? And so this is case 96 of the Blue Cliff Record, and it's the shortest case in the book, right? I usually, you know, I have to think about memorizing, particularly the longer stories, right? But this one is really It just says, Zhao Zhao always offered three turning phrases. That's what it says. And most of the translators and editors of English language versions of the Blue Cliff Record can't stand that, right? So what they do is they either parenthetically or just... folded into the text, they put in the three turning phrases of interest.

[12:19]

But when Shweta was compiling the Blue Cliff record, he did something else. He said, okay, I'm going to put this in, and it's really short, and I'm going to fold the three phrases in as the... is the first lines of three poems that I'm going to attach to this case. In this case alone, for all the rest of the cases in the Blue Cliff record, he decided that he was just going to do one poem. But for this one, he did three. And I wonder about that. This is... He was right near the end, right? And he'd been, for all the previous 96 cases, he'd been writing a poem for each one and so on and so forth. And he thought, I want to do something different now.

[13:20]

And so he kind of whips us out. And I can totally relate because I'm also right now in the process of writing a verse and commentary on case 96 of the Blue Cliff record. And... had the same feeling so after doing the whole book up up till now um so here are the three poems a clay buddha doesn't pass through water divine light shining over heaven and earth standing in the snow as if it's not over yet who hasn't carved a forgery This is my translation, so you can argue with me about it if you like. But, you know, the thing about standing... Each of these poems points at a story, at a kind of... This one, really famous.

[14:30]

Some of the other ones, pretty obscure. The other two are pretty obscure. But this one is obviously pointing at the story of Harika, right? The... who was Bodhidharma's successor, but in order to become Bodhidharma's successor, he went to Shaolin Monastery in Mount Song, and he went there in the middle of winter, and he stood outside his cave, kind of imploring Bodhidharma to take him on as a student, right? And Bodhidharma just, you know, as Bodhidharma had spent some number of years doing, and probably spent some more years after that doing, just sat there and ignored him. And finally, in the morning, he's standing waist-deep in snow, and Bodhidharma comes out of the cave and says, why would I take you out as a student?

[15:32]

You're arrogant, you're kind of a jerk. You don't really have any idea what you're talking about or what you're asking. For me to teach you would be a waste of time. And he's about to turn around and go back in the cave, and Huika pulls out a knife. I don't know how he happened to have a knife, just, you know, like in his belt or something like that. I wouldn't think you'd take a knife in your belt to go visit Bodhidharma. But in any case, he pulls out a knife, and he whacks off his left arm, and he hands it to Bodhidharma. as a token of his sincerity and devotion. And Bodhidharma's like, okay, fine. And takes him on as a student. And he becomes Bodhidharma's right-hand man, basically. Yes, it was. Yes.

[16:34]

And so, I mean, clearly one of the things that this poem is holding up is the depth and sincerity of Hoyke's devotion, right? Really remarkable. But the last line is not some kind of, you know, I mean, it does say divine light shining over heaven and earth, but the last line is not like that. He says, who hasn't carved a forgery, right? Um... There's a thing about, this is the essence of what we're talking about. There's this thing about devotional practice, right? In a lot of contexts and in a lot of sort of South Asian religious traditions and, you know, some Western religious traditions as well,

[17:40]

devotional practice is is considered as inherently transactional right you um you do this this thing right because something will happen because so you're expecting something from it um and and so on right and that almost invariably, maybe invariably, builds a trap. And until you can free yourself from that trap, you're gonna be stuck in it, basically. The kind of devotional practice, the kind of sincere practice that he's pointing to, Zhao Zhao, remember, and also Shweta are pointing to, is this thing where it doesn't have to be arm cutting off.

[19:07]

All the essence of... devotional practice and let's be clear of zazen since that's the one we do most right is is simply to do what's required by the energy and information that are rising and alive in the current present moment and do it without hesitation and without You know, dilling, dallying, fiddling, et cetera, right? That's all there is to it. You know, I mean, if you... Everyone knows how to, you know, carve a forgery of extreme effort.

[20:11]

And sometimes the effort that's required is extreme. It's absolutely true. But to... But to address it wholeheartedly, whether it's small or large, extreme or everyday, and just bring yourself completely to it is the request. That's all. So the next poem. A gold Buddha doesn't pass through a furnace. People pay Zihu a visit. A few words on the placard. The pure wind reaches everywhere. People pay Zihu a visit. A few words on the placard. The pure wind reaches everywhere.

[21:11]

So probably nobody knows the story of Zihu. unless you've read the commentaries in the Blue Cliff record. Basically, he was the abbot of a temple, I forget where, and he had a sign outside, not just on the door of the abbot's quarters or something like that, it was outside on the main gate, the mountain gate of the monastery, and it said, Zihu has a dog. From above, he'll bite your head off. From the middle, he'll eat your guts. And from below, he'll bite your feet off. If you hesitate or dally, you're lost. And then whenever anybody would show up, any newcomer would show up, he'd walk out of the abbot's cabin and he'd say, beware the dog. And if the person who was coming... looked around like this, he'd go back inside and he wouldn't come out, basically.

[22:17]

So this is something about fear, second guessing, dithering, et cetera, right? In the Heart Sutra, it says, a Bodhisattva relies on Prajnaparamita and the mind is no hindrance. Without hindrance, there's no fear. Something like that. That's what this is talking about. So how do you meet Zihu? How do you actually get in the door? The answer is, You rely on Prajnaparamita. Just to let go so completely of the body and mind so that the dog has no place to bite and there's no hesitation, that's all.

[23:29]

To move through the world that way is to rely on Prajniparamita, on this spacious, unloaded mind that is available to all of us if we allow it to arise, basically. That's it. Hmm. Suzuki Roshi talks about it as beginner's mind. If you... If every time you approach Zihu's cabin, it's a fresh experience without connotations or...

[24:42]

automatic responses the the you can meet the dog you can meet so the last one goes like this this strain this one is even weirder just you know a wooden Buddha doesn't pass through fire I always think of Paul Zaldwal suddenly struck by the staff only then does one know They've failed. So the story, so Apolos al-Dual, that means the oven buster. And this guy is only known as the oven buster. Nobody knows any of his other names. But he was a monk also on Mount Song at a temple called Song Nye, which is, Mount Song is also where Bodhidharma was sitting in his cave but elsewhere in the mountain range there was a small village with a group of people living in it who had this I would say somewhat questionable religious practice of sacrificing live animals in a oven inside the temple on their

[26:18]

grounds basically um and one day the oven buster takes a bunch of people from song and they they go down and they walk into the temple and and he wraps on top of the oven he says something like this thing is just a pile of bricks and mud right where does his sacredness come from and where does its spirit arise, right? He says, how can it get away with murdering all these animals, basically? And he looks at it and he bangs on it again and it completely falls apart, right? And out pops this guy, right? And wearing a long black robe and a pointy hat, right? And the oven buster says, who are you? And he says, I'm the spirit of the oven.

[27:20]

I'm the kitchen god. And I spent all my entire existence holding up the flame in this oven. And I've been tormented by my evil karma. from all this shenanigans of the last however many centuries. And now I'm free, so thank you. And the oven buster says, that's your original nature. I had nothing to do with it, basically. And then the guy disappears. That's the end of it, right? Hmm. the bodhisattva vow says delusions are inexhaustible. And they are, right?

[28:23]

Nobody, not even a god, and not even a monk that's diligently for 50 years gets a pass and is able to make the assumption that they're never going to get it wrong. That's all. We need each other and we need the world to startle us out of our delusions and free our Buddha nature, right? And the literature is full of stuff like that. There's the famous sweep in the ground, kicks up a, you know, and this was a guy that had been, had been, you know, kind of deluded for a pretty long time, right?

[29:26]

Kicks up a pebble, it hits a piece of bamboo and he hears this noise and all of a sudden he wakes up. And what he does was, after that, he goes and gets on his robes, bows in the direction of his teacher's temple, which is probably a thousand miles away, and says, you're so compassionate. If he'd ever tried to explain it to me, I never would have gotten it. And that's the end. And... So being whacked by a stick, there's a lot of cases in the Blue Cliff Record of people being surprised out of their diluted frame of reference by being whacked with a stick or whacked with a fist or just to hear some surprising thing.

[30:32]

that's why the language of the Koan literature is so full of sort of poetic surprise and so on, exactly because of that. It's really true that we need each other to help us stay awake, right? And that in itself is authentic activity, right? And we need each other and we also need the sentient and non-sentient beings of the world to help us stay awake, right? So... The... Bodhisattva vow also says Dharma gates are boundless.

[31:35]

Well, it's in the English translation we use. It would be more accurate to say that Dharma gates are immeasurable. In other words, they exist at all scales of length and time from the minuscule to the cosmic, right? And they're both inside us and outside us, right? The notion that we can go through all of them is what makes that particular portion of the bodhisattva vow, all the portions of the bodhisattva vow are impossible, but that's what makes that one impossible. but you vow to do it and that vow is the key and the practice and the effort that come as a result of that vow are if you if you make an unstinting and sincere effort that's sufficient.

[32:53]

That brings the relief that Buddha Exemplifies. So I wrote a poem about this too. Here, I'll read it. I'll read mine now. I pass through. Zipping up my orange sweatshirt, I pass through. At long last, I pass through. Trailing a long chain of missteps clamped around my left ankle, I pass through. Eating a spoonful of carrot ginger soup, I pass through. Intentionally lost, hectored by crows. Fallen, fallen, I pass through for the nth time. Also, unzipping my orange sweatshirt, I pass through. Bending double like the knee of a grasshopper, I pass through. An old house with peeling paint wet itself out by a side door.

[33:55]

Rising like a flock of a thousand paper birds, I pass through. Someone is standing to one side, fainting indifference and taking copious notes. Just this once I pass through, in spite of the fact that the gate was just painted on the sky. Arriving here in this pool of orange light, feeling the unexpected roughness of the toll taker's fingers against my palm. So... Does anybody have any questions about any of that? This line is where we have a little time, I think, right? We have time for one question. Thank you so much. I loved your poem.

[34:55]

Oh, thank you. Yeah, treasure. I'm just curious, what's a non-sentient being? Yeah, a pebble. That's the example from the Kohan, yeah. I mean, I think the, you know, there's been a big fight about this, not a big fight, a constant argument in the history of Buddhism about this whole thing. I think... On the Zen side of the argument, most people have settled on this, including Dogen, have settled on this idea, which basically means non-sentient beings speak the Dharma, basically.

[35:58]

Because the Dharma is everywhere and in all things, right? And they present the Dharma in their own voice and we either hear it or not, basically. Does that make sense? Or does that just spark more questions? Yeah. Okay. That was a good question. Isaac. Hey. Thank you. Of course. So every once in a while I get caught about, or not, I wouldn't say maybe not caught, but I spend time pondering, like, is this suffering and lack of suffering an on-off switch?

[36:59]

Is it sort of like all suffering or the complete lack of, or are we engaged in something more like harm reduction? Is this a shades of gray situation where it's very, very fluid? I would say not shades of gray, but I don't think the way our conventional cognitive faculty operates has to change at all in order to be free from suffering so in other words you're you're going to be sitting there cranking through your everyday you know your everyday dose of suffering and it's mostly a matter of the the broader dynamic of being human and including whatever you want to call it big mind or

[38:00]

or something, and exploring, relating to, and fundamentally understanding the relationship between the faculty that, you know, builds iPhones and everything else, but also causes a lot of suffering, and the container, basically. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's more like that, I would say. But the main thing is once the container swims into focus in this way and you start exploring its relationship with everything else, my experience is your life is very different, basically. Anyway, something like that. Well, thank you so much for listening, and I'm hoping you enjoyed it.

[39:07]

All right. 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.

[39:34]

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