Good evening, everyone. Very warm welcome to all of you in the Buddha Hall and to all of our friends, my friends online. Very good to be here this evening. Before I get started, of course, I want to express deep gratitude to both Abbot David and Abbot Ed for inviting me to this great practice opportunity. A couple of weeks ago, I had gave my Wayseeking Mind talk, which was my first talk here on this particular seat. And in getting very busy trying to prepare for it, I did not look ahead at future occasions. So after the talk two weeks ago, I went and looked at the schedule and saw that I had a talk two weeks later and then two weeks after that. and then about two weeks after that, if you add in the holiday break.

[17:04]

So I had a little bit of a freak-out moment, and the next morning I hurried over to Abbott David before work circle and let him know there must be some mistake. This was not what I had saw some time ago. I thought I would be here on the 16th, and he looked at me with his warm, loving eyes and said, it'll be okay. Abbott, Ed, and I support you fully. And after a while, I think that he knew that that didn't quite meet my heart. So he approached me again and said, just to speak about what I'm practicing with. So as I walked back to my office, I was thinking about that. And a couple of things came to mind. Obviously, parenting, which I don't think I'll get too much into tonight. Of course, Maya will show up. But then besides that, it's been... koan practice and trying to figure out what it means to be shuso. So tonight I wanted to express some words in the ways that are the ways I'm practicing with koans, particularly being that we live in the modern age and particularly around the koan of life.

[18:19]

And yeah, at least my adventure with that is that there's many, many dimensions to reveal that revealing the absolute to the relative and the relative to the absolute. For a quick refresher, as there may be some people who have not been in the practice period or could use a refresher on what koans are, or at least how we're using them, the, you know, I guess original word or whatnot came from correspondence, official correspondence, government docs. And I was thinking, I'm like, perhaps really What's going on at Mar-a-Lago is that someone's studying koans. Okay, maybe poor timing for a joke. But in modern days, I think most people are familiar with koans as paradoxical words or phrases, typically from stories or antidotes between two monks. And traditionally, koans are used in the Renzi tradition to go deep, and it's kind of central to their practice.

[19:27]

I feel that in the Soto school, koans may not be as central, but primarily they're used to disrupt the conditioned mind, or as we might say, point towards the moon. What I mean by pointing towards the moon is it's quite impossible to describe such a thing to someone who has not seen it. So the best you can do is point up in the sky and let them look. And, of course, this pointing takes place between a Buddha and a Buddha. So maybe tonight what I'll be talking about is a koan or maybe just practice phrases, but more so ways of pointing to the moon. And what I really want to encourage is with koans or all practice in general, that we engage with them in an experiential way and not just conceptually. As David mentioned in the class yesterday, how can we really bring these koans into our practice, bring them into our body and out of our head?

[20:36]

So I was thinking that in the past, koans, not to say that these monks had an advantage, but I envision them having these conversations in a remote place, at least what we would consider remote, kind of like Tassajara. And when I think about my... at Tassajara, I do think these older monks may have had it better because for myself, myself, some students, Abbot Ed would be sitting out in this beautiful meadow with the backdrop of some really just gorgeous mountains. And you always say wise things, Abbot Ed, but really it didn't take much during those occasions. And the levels and the depth of which I received your words and others went quite deep. So, you know, being that we are in this modern day age, you know, I think it's hard to go in as deep in imagination, metaphor, but more so to really experience these koans with our body.

[21:42]

Today, I do think that we make it very difficult to enter these Dharma gates, which really do surround us. It's hard for us to slow down enough or perhaps zoom out far enough to go beyond our relative exchanges and see the absolute in them and vice versa. So I think we really have to work harder to meet these moment-by-moment paradoxes that life is full of. So how can we become more intimate with koans? How can we become more curious? become more expansive when meeting any koan, particularly the one of our life. So now, while koans, to a degree, have kind of this academic field, I choose to study what aren't quite considered koans, but these great exchanges that happen between Suzuki Roshi and students. You can get them in our bookstore or online.

[22:48]

And... I really enjoy the audio version. The audio version particularly because between each exchange, they play like a really kind of cool Zen sound. So koan or, you know, exchange, cool Zen sound, exchange, cool Zen sound, so on and so forth. The way that I understand these sounds or at least practice with them is to let them kind of wash... your mind, you know, to kind of drop whatever you're thinking and go into the next koan. So I thought that we would try that tonight. So as I go through the talk, I will invite you to just drop whatever I have just said or not said and engage with one of these little exchanges. Bong, let everything drop again and we'll continue. So let's give it a try. We all know what this is, right? A student remembers a lecture where Suzuki Roshi said, if it's not paradoxical, it's not true.

[24:14]

So I wanted to quickly just refresh us on some of the ways that we can study koans that Abbott David went over in the Tuesday class. And then I'll elaborate on the kind of ways that I've picked some of these up. So the first one is to learn the koan by heart. So to really just take your time with it. The next, chanting. Another is copying the koan. You could just read it for contemplative reading. or dharma contemplation, so depending on how you want to engage with it. You could breathe a phrase, you could journal about it, you could play with art. One of my good friends now in my small group class, Dylan, hello Dylan if you're out there, has actually started to make art with these koans, and if you can imagine what like crystal palaces and all these unique imagery that is used, I can't wait to see what what he brings forth. You can also bring him into reading, writing, and poetry, movement, reenacting, which we'll do a little bit of tonight.

[25:36]

Of course, take these to your favorite Dharma discussion buddy or teacher. Perhaps consider how you would go around presenting or teaching the koan. And also you could break down the components of a koan. If you don't know what an appropriate response is, just start by feeling what responses in your body, whether that's exhaling or raising a finger. Or as I'm doing right now, I think I'm sun-faced Buddha, melting up here with all this sweat. Or you could, you know, just go and if you don't quite get moon-face, sun-face, you could go in the outside and let the sun hit Buddha's face and see what that's like. Thank you dear Benji. I do not know what I would do without you. I think it's time for a... Now and then, Suzuki Roshi would make this point.

[27:02]

In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner, not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are. Something that I kind of was riffing off of after engaging with those was that I may want to treat these koans and engage with them like I do Zen forms. So I don't want to go into a whole another talk about what Zen forms are, but really they're kind of actions and thoughts that we engage with regularly throughout the day to support our awakening and to support those around us. Some forms are old, some are new. And as students, we're asked to try on these forms, to try them out, see how they inform our practice. The other part of that trying it on is to try things on with sincerity.

[28:05]

That's kind of the other half of the pie. And that's obviously a core teaching that the Buddha offered. Don't just take his words for things and to actually try them on for yourself. So I invite us to actually try on these koan practices in that same way. practice with them regularly, and express them with sincerity. So in the case of Gouthier's One Finger of Zen, I thought that we could collectively do the same as he did. He tried to evoke the ultimate truth by giving the expression of a finger. And while he meant it as the, you know, just this moment, it wasn't the finger, we're going to try it on and try to express thusness with a finger. I'm very curious to see what happens here. So one, two, three. Go ahead. It's beautiful. Maybe turn to a partner if you can reach and give them a Buddha and a Buddha dad.

[29:09]

Hojo son, I don't want you to be alone. Maybe we should start holding these up on the Dharma stand to show how ridiculous it is that we're trying to speak to such matters. It's the new kotsu. Well, I don't have one, so that's probably good. So, yes, what is really interesting to me is how differently that was expressed. It reminds me of Maya. Yeah, didn't make it too long until she came in the conversation. Her and her classmates have a very interesting way that they're encouraged to raise their hand or express if they need something. And they call it shining their light, and they do it like this. Obviously, as I engage with this koan, it very much strikes me when I watch them, how many different ways there is to actually hold up your little light. You can do it very eagerly or very soft, very curiously, but they all do it very differently.

[30:12]

And that reminded me of how... Let's do a koan first. You thought it was going to come out of here. Okay. And you also did not expect that for a Zen sound, so perhaps deal with that preference. One day, during a tea break, a student standing next to Suzuki Roshi asked, so what do you think of all us crazy Zen students? Roshi said, I think you're all enlightened until you open your mouth. That's kind of why I do the hunk off. Oh wait, I'm forgetting to close these koans. Okay. So this was true with Suzuki Roshi. He said that when all of these hippies were standing in front of him with their wild hair and their very individualistic expressions, he couldn't really see their unique qualities.

[31:14]

However, when they were at the monastery, all in their robes, he could actually see their true uniqueness, particularly in how we bow. So again, it's about how we are doing these forms and with what kind of sincerity. And it's really cool if you're ever Doan here down in the Zendo, you get to watch this take place. You get to watch, I've watched all of you walk into the Buddha Hall and in such remarkable ways greet the space. So I think it's very special. the class that Abbott, Ed, and Shindo were leading that was rediscovering a lot of Suzuki Roshi's old talks, everyone was very just struck by the sense that they walked away with, and it wasn't necessarily the content, and we were trying to just figure out why his expression just hits so deep.

[32:17]

And it's also what came up was that, to my understanding, his talks in Japanese are not as maybe revered in Japan as his English talks even are, definitely not his talks in English here. And when I think about that, for me, it has to come down to engaging with forms sincerely, coming to a different place, a different country, a different society. what else could he do but express Zen? Primarily through embodiment and less with words. So I always use that as an encouragement. Now I've got to figure out where I'm at. I do not want to... Oh, it says we need another... What Zazen really is has been explained in many different ways.

[33:25]

One day Suzuki Roshi put it very simply. It's just to be ourselves. So some additional that came up for me is what I'll call a koan match. And that's if you don't really maybe vibe with one of these traditional koans, try to find a new expression of it. So you could write an adaptation of your own. But for me, at least, that would just concretize some kind of mental conception. But if you can do that, I have two examples of kind of these replaced koans. And one is from my good book. buddy that I got ordained with, Miles, if you're out there, wishing you well. I know that him and Nancy are dealing with some ailing parents, so sending my love to them. But if any of you know Miles, when I first met him, maybe eight, nine, whatever years ago, and he sent me an email, at the bottom he has a little tagline.

[34:36]

I'm sure some of you have seen it. It says, never, period, been, period, better, period. And I remember seeing that. Never been better. What are you talking about? And if you know Miles and his very warm personality, I always kind of was like, hmm, like, really? Really? Never been better? And as the years go on, I get to know how he practices, how he shows up. And I really think it's an expression of the koan, every day is a good day. So... yeah, perhaps you reconstruct one of these koans into your signature line. Another, well, it kind of happened to me backwards. I wasn't trying to place this next experience against another koan, but when I was in my Tangariyo practice period at Tassajara, and for those of you who may not know... Tongario is basically we sit in the zendo for five days, only leaving to sleep, go to the bathroom, we eat, do everything else in there.

[35:45]

And I don't know what day it was, doesn't really matter, but a song that I used to listen to a lot in college came in my head. And the hook of the song, it has a really kind of cyclical... piano, almost melody. But the chorus says, everything I'm not makes me everything that I am. Everything that I'm not makes me everything I am. And so anyways, this was just going on repeat. And it was interesting. I was taking a walk with Shosan, Victoria Austin, the other day and explaining that experience to her. And she said, that's what the Abhidama is pointing out. However, I don't know because I haven't studied it that much. But for me, really, this was just a trip on so many levels that the individual eye that's, you know, that I feel is based off of, excuse me, the eye that I feel, the small eye, is really based off of all of these things that the eye thinks is something else.

[36:53]

Furthermore, I mean, this could be used... to look at political parties. You know, are you this party because you're not that party? Anyway, I'm not here to unpack koans. I'm here to take you through them. All right. During one session at Tassahara, It was very cold in the unheated zendo. After a lecture, a student said, Roshi, I thought you said that when it got cold, we'd figure out how to stay warm within our zazen. Suzuki Roshi answered, it's just not cold enough yet. Another way I feel that we all receive koans sometimes is from uncomfortable feedback.

[38:03]

And I want to word this carefully. So, you know, even if we were young children and we were expressed that we were insignificant in some kind of way or various other types of... hard parts of our conditioning can actually act as koans for us. These are things to work with, to practice with. They're gateways to liberation. I receive not, it wasn't too harsh, but I received some feedback in my mid-20s from Kat, which would be an ongoing koan that I'd work with. So it came out of a fortune cookie, okay? So actually, you know, it probably did come from some, anyways. The fortune said, be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Be comfortable with the uncomfortable. So now I know to us Zen folks, that sounds like, yeah, that's kind of straightforward. But she actually didn't mean it in a very supportive way.

[39:05]

At the time, she was in corporate banking. We would have to go to a lot of events and entertain guests and whatnot. And I had a lot of social anxiety. I did not like... engaging in that way, felt performative, not authentic. And yeah, a lot of anxiousness would come up. So she was really actually giving this to me to kind of say, get it together. And, you know, when I received her, I was like, you know, I wanted to kind of throw it down. But there was some kind of... truth to it so I put it on my little dashboard like next to my little clock I remember and I would look at it and over time I think it did start to kind of turn on me and ultimately I think became a core motivation to practice so it did really start to inform how um Yeah, how I engaged with suffering.

[40:09]

And it was, you know, later truly the Four Noble Truths, right? In a nutshell, or in a cookie. Suffering exists, and therefore it's valuable to learn how to cultivate a sense of belonging and comfort in any moment. And of course, my understanding of being comfortable has changed drastically from place to everything being fun and happy and exciting. You know, a seven Enneagram, if that means anything to anyone. to a place of just finding my breath, meeting the moment, just as it is, or like the Buddha did, just touching the earth. This is already out. We'll go with that. Sorry, Suzuki Roshi. We have to turn to Maya for this koan. So to set the context for this, and Abbott Ed was around, so he can definitely verify this as truth. I was walking out to take Maya, my daughter, to school the other day.

[41:15]

And as we were walking out to the parking garage here in front of our apartment, there was an unhoused gentleman lying right across the driveway. And I greeted Abbott Ed because he had to park on the street, was just not going to So I went up to the gentleman and I'm like, you know, buddy, how are you doing this morning? I got to take my daughter to school, something, something, something. He was just not receiving any of it. And so I'm like, okay, so I want to get Maya there. I want to treat this person in an appropriate manner. I want to set a good... model for Maya, and I'm looking at the time, I'm trying to figure it out. A couple minutes passed, and then I'm just like, I really don't want to run this person over, Maya, but I got to get you to school. And she goes, well, Papa, let's just take the Zenmobile.

[42:16]

Now, the Zenmobile is a car that's parked in the back lot here, but what we have to understand was there is this monk and this other little monk The big monk said, I don't want to run people over. The little monk said, use the Bodhisattva vehicle. This is how I have to find my enlightenment, though. I'm serious. So while traditionally communicated between two monks, a Buddha and a Buddha, or a parent and a child, they can also be communicated with other expressions of Buddha. such as nature, animals, non-sentient things, and in sound and complete silence. Examples can be found in observing or doing something, or it could be in a gesture or a smile or a facial expression. It could be an observation of an animal, nature, or both, like watching Koi swim, or as Suzuki Roshi liked, a sitting frog.

[43:24]

Speaking of frogs, I brought Maya's little toy. One afternoon, Roshi compared Zazen to a frog sitting on a lily pad, waiting for a fly to come. He did a frog imitation. We all laughed. And he said, the frog doesn't know what will come. He just sits and sees what will happen next. Then whatever happens, he is ready. We should sit like this. It could also be a koan could be a pitcher. And so this pitcher, some of you know, Definitely recognize if you've lived in the 340 building.

[44:28]

And there's one that's right inside the lobby door and one that's kind of on this side of the hallway. Regardless of how I come into the building, I cannot not see this wonderful being. And it's amazing to me that no matter what mood I'm in, I look at this picture and something resonates me. Sometimes it's a look of approval. Sometimes it's like, I don't know about that, Eli. Sometimes it's reminding me to have joy in my practice. But it's very interesting that, you know, really it's expressing back to me something that's in here that I'm not quite in touch with. Right. You know, and so I don't know. You could find a picture that that kind of you use as a check in or reflection of your practice. Obviously, in light of our great ancestor Dogen, it could be an observation of a mountain or rivers.

[45:36]

So I just wanted to bring in some Dogen. Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in a water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although the light is wide and great, the moon is reflected in a puddle even an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dew drops on the grass or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the dew drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dew drop. and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky. So that's how I want to engage with all dewdrops. Thank you, Dogen. And like I said, koan can also be silence and self, like the national treasure responded.

[46:39]

So perhaps that's the best way to leave things for now. Do you hear that? Thank you. Not up to me.

[47:59]

If anyone has any questions or comments, I probably should have paused for that first or we can venture to dreamland. Or if anybody wants to share how they're practicing with Koan, that's where most of this talk came from is our residence meeting, the other and also talking about this in our small groups. I'm very curious to hear others' teachings as well. We have Terry on Zoom. Hello, Terry. Okay. Hi, Eli. Hello, Terry. I want to thank you so much for your kind of unusual, eccentric journey into koans.

[49:16]

And I found it very comforting and liberating and inspiring. So thank you so much for being so playful. with it and to connect all the wonderful things that Suzuki Roshi has said as co-ons. It just was very helpful to me. Thanks for the feedback, Terry. And, you know, part of it is my only kind of engagement experience beyond this really is primarily with first, second, and third graders. So that does come out in my expression. And also, Very much informed by a teacher that I still work with, Mark Lancaster, who sat up here with clown noses. So I felt that this was an okay expression. Yeah. Definitely worked for me. Okay.

[50:22]

We have Shirley on the Zoom. Could you say the name? Shirley. Shirley. Hi, Shirley. Hi, Eli. Thank you very much for the talk. I especially loved what you just said about enlightenment. I totally got it, so I'll be looking for that. My question goes to your talk from a couple weeks ago where you were talking about the rock tumbler, and I wanted to see if you could explain a little bit more about that because I guess the rock tumbler, like I would be the rock, and then the tumbling would be the experience of life? I just want to get more clarity on that. Yeah, to a degree. And I think you can pick what component you are and perhaps the component switches. But the metaphor is kind of explained in the Dharma talks that I've heard.

[51:29]

Really... Comparing a rock tumbler, and if folks weren't around for the last talk, a rock tumbler is more or less, it's a small plastic, usually a metal capsule, that's attached to a motor where you put rocks in their raw form, minerals, grit, and water, and you close it shut and then you let it run for a very long time. It's not a quick process. When you take the rocks out of a real rock tumbler, they're, you know, how you might see them in stores where they're really smooth and kind of shiny and whatnot. And depending on the type of minerals and components you put in there, it will do certain things to the rock. So I was, the way that it's been explained is that's what we are doing here in residential practice, or perhaps in a practice period, or even a sashim, we're all... getting in this tumbler, introducing maybe in this component forms and dharma talks and eating together and what have you.

[52:40]

And at the other end, as people, we usually come out a little bit less sharp and maybe less harmful to the touch. And how I was using it in my talk was saying that really we're always in a rock tumbler. in any situation in life. So it, um, yeah, it could be you tumble through a week or you tumble in your job workplace, uh, um, you tumble in your bed and dream, whatever it is. Um, just to acknowledge that, uh, kind of like this, everything I'm not makes me everything I am, um, uh, engagement with the fact that we're interconnected. And I, anyways, I think I might have been rambling now. Does, does that, uh, Was that what you were looking for? You can ask more questions. Thank you so much. Yeah, it gives me more clarity and it has me realize that maybe if I am the rock, like I would, I would react differently and then maybe I would come out differently.

[53:47]

Like your explanation has me think of a lot of things and realize that, you know, with the tumbling's not bad in itself. like the uncomfortableness, like just focus on the after the tumbling, like focus on what I'm being tumbled for and that will have me suffer less. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Shai. Good night, everyone.

[54:30]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.38