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 morning, everybody. Can you hear me well in the back? Are we using the new speakers? Not for a while. Okay, so my name is Lucy, and I'm a resident here at San Francisco Zen Center, the Beginner's Mind Temple. And I'd like to welcome everyone today to be here today. to study the Dharma with me.

[01:00]

And I welcome everyone who is sitting in front of your computer watching this online now or later. It's a wonderful occasion that we come together. and to learn together, and to practice together. So I grew up in China, and I often find it very interesting that now I practice at an American Zen temple. that was founded by a Japanese teacher. And every day I'm chanting the sutras and the chants in English and in Japanese.

[02:09]

I see there are a few Chinese-speaking friends here. So it may be a little strange at first to hear some unfamiliar language, to hear the Dharma that's spoken in unfamiliar language. But whatever language we speak, They are all pointing to the same teaching. The chant we just did before the lecture started, in Chinese it's called Kai Jin Ji, Sutra Opening Verse.

[03:23]

And people chant it when they are going to study a text or a sutra or teaching. And in the chant it says, the unsurpassed profound and wondrous dharma is rarely met even in a hundred thousand million kopas. Now as we see and hear it, Receive and maintain it. May we understand the true meaning of the Tathagata's teaching. It's a slight different translation from the translation we just used. But what it points to is that when we study the teaching,

[04:26]

of the Buddha, we not only hear it and listen to it, we also receive it with our heart and let it register, let it be absorbed so that we can understand, so we can have insight into the meaning of the teaching, of the Tathagada's teaching, of teaching of the Buddha and teaching of what is, the teaching of thus coming, of the true reality. So today, I'm very grateful

[05:28]

to be here to study the teaching of the Buddhas and the ancestors together with you. You're sitting there and I'm sitting here. You're listening and I'm speaking. And together we're trying to receive and absorb the teaching of the Buddha. And not only that, in order for the teaching to register, we also practice. And we also try to retain the understanding through practice and through doing. So as I mentioned earlier, I grew up in China and recent years I find myself going back quite frequently.

[06:43]

Not only because my parents are still there but also because there are teachers and friends and teaching that I feel nurtured by when I go visit. So I'm from Guangzhou, used to be called Canton in English. It's a city in southern China, very near Hong Kong, if you know where it is. When I go home, I love to visit the oldest temple in Guangzhou, which is called Guangxiao Si now. And the last time I was there was in May this year.

[07:53]

And so I went to visit the temple again. This temple is associated with the sixth ancestor Hui Nang, the sixth Zen ancestor in China who was a very prominent figure in the history of Zen and from whom the five schools descended in Tang Dynasty. However, this temple existed long before Tang Dynasty, a few hundred years before Tang Dynasty, which was in the 600s in China.

[08:55]

And so... Even today, the temple is still there. And it went through many times of ups and downs and many times of rebuilding. And so last time I was there, they were renovating the mountain gate. And the temple ground is beautiful, right in the middle of Guangzhou, a very busy city. And it's right in the middle of the old city. And as you enter the temple gate, which is under construction now, or reconstruction,

[09:57]

you enter and you see an open space. And right in front is the Buddha Hall, and it's actually a big building. So each hall is a big building in the temple. And the Buddha Hall is maybe like three-story high. And in front of the Buddha Hall, there is a... huge incenser because so many people visit or at the same time oftentimes there will be you know tens or hundreds of people there so the incenser is probably like eight feet long outside in the open and the flower arrangements on both sides also very big And so you see people offering incense kind of side by side, you know.

[11:03]

It's very sweet. And in recent years, I see more and more young people going there and in skinny jeans and skirts. And it's very lovely. And... On the side of the temple, there are a couple of tea stations where the volunteers are serving tea to visitors that's made of a fruit called lohan guo, the Arahats fruit. It's a little bittersweet, and it's perfect to drink in the middle of the day when you visit the temple. So as you walk inside the Buddha hall, you see a huge Shakyamuni Buddha statue right in the center.

[12:12]

The statue itself may be at least two-story high and accompanied by Manjushri Bodhisattva on one side and Samantabhadra Bodhisattva on the other. And against the eastern wall of the hall is a statue of Madison Buddha, the Buddha from the east. And the western wall, you see an Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of the western pure land. In the back of the... Buddha Hall, there is a very tall statue of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, Guan Yin, Guan Shi Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

[13:13]

And you walk through the Buddha Hall, out the back door, there's a little courtyard In that courtyard, there are two Bodhi trees that were, legendally, the seedling was brought from India by a early monk from India who translated many important sutras in the 400s or 500s. Under the Bodhi trees, there is a stupa, and it's called the hair cutting of hair stupa, yifata, cutting of hair stupa. And under the stupa is kept the six ancestors' hair when he became a monk.

[14:32]

He was ordained there. He got shaved. His head got shaved there. And behind, on the other side of the courtyard, there's the Six Ancestors Hall. It's like the ancestor, Kaisando is like Ancestors Hall where... a statue of six ancestors is placed. And he's a very beloved figure in southern China. I can still see that You know, people of all ages circumambulating the stupa and bowing in front of the Ancestors Hall.

[15:40]

As I was there watching people and bowing and standing in the courtyard, I was reminded of this famous koan or story, the not wind, not flag story. Have any of you heard of it? The wind flag koan. of the six ancestors. I'll talk about it more for those of you who haven't heard of it. So, the story goes, now according to the Platform Sutra, the teachings of six ancestors, and the transmission of

[16:59]

light or transmission of land records. According to these historical records, the story goes, the sixth ancestor was given Dharma transmission by the fifth ancestor, Hongren, in Hubei, a little town called Huangmei. And because of his practice was quite in contrast with the traditional practice, which was represented by Shen Xiu, the head monk, you know, in that temple. There was some kind of fear that the... Shenxiu's people will come after Huinen, the sixth ancestor, for the robes and the bow that he received from the fifth ancestor.

[18:13]

So he was instructed by his teacher to go to the south where he came from, which is in Canton province. near Guangzhou. And so he kind of ran away from the fifth ancestor's temple with the bow and the rope he got from the fifth ancestor. And he had to go into hiding for 15 years because the other group of people were looking for him. kept tracing after him. So he went hiding for 15 years, and one day he came to this temple I just mentioned in Guangzhou. At that time it's called Fa Xin Si, the Dharma nature, the temple of Dharma nature.

[19:14]

So as he came to that temple, at that time he... was still in hiding. He was still a lay person called Lehmann Lu. His family name is Lu. So as he came to the temple, there was going to be a lecture that day. So in those days, there was no internet. The announcement was made through raising a flag. a temple flag. So a flag was raised to announce the lecture. The lecture was going to be given by the abbot, Yinzong, Venerable Yinzong. So he came to this temple and he saw that two monks were arguing back and forth in the courtyard.

[20:16]

And one monk said, the flag is moving, and the other monk said, the wind is moving. And they just kept going back and forth and didn't agree with each other. And, you know, you can probably imagine that they were kind of getting heated, you know? And so the six ancestors came to them and said, It's not the wind that's moving. It's not the flag that's moving. It's your mind that's moving. And they were astonished. And so, the abbot heard this layman, you know, said this kind of like very insightful words, and so he invited...

[21:19]

Huynan to sit down and talk to him and asked him some Dharma questions and discussed some matters of the teaching. And so after he talked to Huynan, Venerable Yinzong said, wow, you are indeed a very extraordinary practitioner. I have long heard... that the fifth ancestor's robe and bow have come down to the south. Are you, by any chance? So Huynang at that time, maybe he thought it was time, so he admitted that he indeed got the robe and the bow from the fifth ancestor. So the abbot... invited him to teach at the temple.

[22:25]

And, well, a few days later he shaved his head, the abbot shaved Huynang's head, and the following month they held a full ordination ceremony for him. And so they kept his hair, And sometime after that, they bury his hair in the ground, and on that spot, they build a stupa. And that stupa still exists, and that's one of the few oldest kind of structure on the temple ground that's still around from those days. So what does it mean? What does it mean the wind doesn't move and the flag doesn't move?

[23:28]

It's your mind that moves. This story appeared in the Gateless Gate, Wumen Guan, a koan collection compiled by Master Wumen. The monk's name was called Wumen, a gateless. And so this koan has been talked about and studied over centuries. And it's case 29 in Wumen Guan, in case you want to look it up. So the wind moves. It's not the wind that moves. And it's not the flag that moves, it's your mind that moves. In Chinese it says, It's the mind, it's your 心 that moves.

[24:36]

And so this word 心, you might have heard about the character 心. in Chinese it has very complex meaning. So it translated into English, into mind, but in Chinese it includes many layers of meanings. So it can mean mind, you know, the cognitive side of the mind. It could also mean the emotional side of the mind. you know, human experience, or, you know, in fact, emotional experience of, you know, all sentient beings. So it's more like heart-mind, as you have heard. And that's kind of common kind of understanding, like even in the language, the word xin is explained as heart-mind.

[25:45]

And in Buddha's context, it has even more layers, and it's more close to the Sanskrit or Pali word, chitta. So it could also mean, like the human experience, the self, that's... made up of five skandhas, the five aspects of experience. You might have heard of it. Feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. And the form, which is the body, the form. And the four experiences, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, can all be kind of grouped into this mind or shin.

[26:50]

This meaning can include all of them. And the shin can also mean, like in Yogacara teachings, it can also mean the store consciousness. It can also mean shin as the nature of mind, which is formless. which is where everything comes from. At the same time, Shin can also mean what arises from this nature. Sometimes it's called mental factors, mental formations. So it can mean both the nature and also the manifestations, the functions. So you can see the mind, xin, the word xin can mean many layers of things. And so here in the koan, when the ancestors said, it's your mind that moves, what does it mean?

[27:59]

So in one way, it can mean that, well, let's step back a little bit. So when the two monks were arguing back and forth, it's the flag, it's the wind, they were not aware of where that comes from. So the first layer is like we are only grasping the external phenomena. We only see the flag, we only see the wind. When something happens to us, we only attribute that to external conditions. And we are happy, we think, this person makes me happy. We're unhappy, we blame that person. That person makes me very unhappy, makes me angry, irritable.

[29:05]

So that's where the six ancestors steps in and point out, pay attention to what's happening inside you. It's not, you know, it's not that there is no wind, no flag, but you'd completely ignore the fact that your reaction, your response, comes from your own mind, your own conditions. So in this case, When your mind moves, it's your conditioned mind that responds or reacts to the external world or your internal world. You know, something happens, you are in contact with it through seeing or hearing, then you have a response.

[30:13]

And your mind moves, and where does it move from? It moves from your conditioning, your conditional habits, your conditional way of seeing things, thinking about things. And so, your mind moves from that place, And where does it move toward? And oftentimes we hear things that kind of goes with our own liking. And sometimes we see things that goes against our own liking. So our mind moves either toward the direction of liking or away from the direction of not liking. And sometimes it can be a strong emotion, can be a strong opinion.

[31:19]

And so to see that so that we're not always caught up in it is part of our practice. It's actually a as a as a in the process of our mindfulness practice, our zazen practice, we start to pay attention to our minds working. And that's what the sixth ancestor said. It's your mind that's moving. And Master Woman, in the koan commentary in the Wumenguan, Gaelic Gate, Master Woman make this commentary.

[32:28]

After he introduced the original story, he said, it's not the wind that's moving, it's not the flag that's moving. And it's also not the mind that's moving. So he presented like a very different way of seeing the mind in the context of this story. So is the mind not moving? What does it mean? You can say the mind is not moving maybe because what used to trigger you or what used to really annoy you or please you is losing the grip.

[33:41]

And so your mind is not reactive as before. That's one way to understand that. Or you can say, the mind is so settled and so absorbed in what is, that it's not moving. Is that it? How about the mind moves and the mind does not move? How is that?

[34:45]

How about seeing the mind moving? in the midst of not moving. Or seeing the not moving in the midst of moving. How about seeing the particular? Our own personal and conditional experience. in the universal, and also seeing the universal in the particular. What is your understanding? my earlier story of the temple the six ancestors taught at that temple for a year and then he moved

[36:28]

to another temple a few hundred miles north of Guangzhou called Baolin Si. And in present day, it's called Nanhuasi. And before he died, he said to his disciples, well, he said quite a few things, But what stuck in me, you know, from the Platform Sutra, is that he said to his disciple, if you want to see the Buddha, you have to see the sentient beings. You have to recognize the sentient beings in you.

[37:30]

You have to recognize all these different little persons in you, all the conditions in you. You have to be aware of that and recognize that and have insight into that to see the Buddha. to see what is, what truly is. So, to see the mind that doesn't move, perhaps it helps to see the mind that moves. the stupa and the six ancestors hall I walked toward the outside or the other side of the temple attending or intending to leave because I was going to hang out with a friend

[39:10]

that day and all of sudden it started to rain and it was pouring and I happened to be right outside the door of this other Buddha hall it's a smaller Buddha hall where there is a Buddha statue inside that Buddha statue was a gift from Thailand and And people used that Buddha hall for daily practice. And many lay people, they were doing chanting and walking meditation inside, circumambulating the statue. And so I was standing outside the door, and a greeter at the door said, Would you like to come in? And I was a little kind of split. Oh, sure, I want to come in, but I also have my other plans.

[40:15]

And I saw that they were chanting and doing the snake-style circumambulation in that hall. So I said, can I come in and do one round of that? She said, oh, you have to do three. I said, okay, that's a bargain. So it's very kind of relaxed there. You can join in any time, and then you can leave through the door. So I joined in, and people were chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha. It's a very common practice in China, influenced by pure land practice. So Amitabha Buddha is the Buddha of the pure land and infinite light and infinite awareness.

[41:20]

So people were chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha and kind of walking in a snake pattern and holding their hands in front of them like walking meditation. And we follow each other and formed a kind of like... Yeah, I think we kind of like completed the whole circle. And so all kinds of people were doing it there. And I saw, you know, some lay practitioners, some visitors, and I saw like a grandma behind me with... I think that's her grandchild, about four or five years old. And the grandma made the child, follow me, follow me. And so we were chanting and walking. So I was kind of keeping track of where the beginning and the end is and counting how many rounds I've done so I can get out.

[42:31]

So after a while, I kind of lost track. There was this sound of chanting, the sound of movement of the footsteps, and people following each other, some looking down, some looking around. In the meantime, there is a huge thunderstorm happening outside. I lost track of how many times I have circumambulated the Buddha.

[43:49]

And just stay with the group. Chanting Namu Amitofo. And walking. accompanied by all these people I don't know. Accompanied by the pouring rain and thunderstorm outside, and at one point the space in the room just extends to include the rain and the... thunder and all the people just became one body and one voice in this timeless spring morning.

[44:58]

So was it moving or not moving? right here right now what's your heart mind what's shin is it moving is it not moving Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[46:06]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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