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, everyone. Sound is not happening, right? Or is it? Okay? Now it is. Okay. Wow, what an impressive group of bodhisattvas. Fabulous. I'm very happy to be here, as I always am, at Tassajara, because you're here when I'm here, and I love to see everyone here. And when I come here, as I have so many times, time stops and I become a young person and a middle-aged person and an old person and our sons who are now themselves middle-aged men with growing children are still very small babies.

[01:23]

And all those times are perfectly alive when I am here. And so it's a joy to be here. This reminds me of Dogen saying that every moment has its own past, present, and future. I think that's really true. This week we're here with some friends studying the sayings of Laman Pong, which is a Tang Dynasty Zen text that consists of 58 brief encounters that Laman Pong and his family, which includes mainly his wife and his daughter Ling Zhao and their son too, but mostly wife and daughter, the encounters that they had with some famous Zen masters of the period. And these little stories are teaching stories meant to convey the deepest meanings of our tradition, some of them seem at first to be a little hard to understand in ordinary ways of understanding, but really not very hard to understand when you sit with them and are willing to completely forget yourself and just pay close attention to your life.

[02:44]

This is to me the marvel of our Zen practice, which is not complicated. In fact, it is the most radically simple thing possible, which is why sometimes it seems bewildering. We're not used to that kind of simplicity. To practice that is not to make your life more complicated. Just the opposite. It's to discover the simplest possible way that a human being could live without so many requirements and so many bright ideas. Just to be alive. Just to be alive. And to appreciate that you are alive with everyone, with everything. That's pretty much it.

[03:49]

There's not a lot more to it than that. in Tang Dynasty Zen. In China, people practiced this way. And they eventually developed their own unique way, a lively way, a very funny way, really, of talking about this that you can't really talk about. But since they were people, Of course, they couldn't stop talking because that's what people do. They talk. We're the talking animals. So here's an example of what I mean. If I said, tell me what water tastes like, probably you would say, well,

[04:54]

It tastes like water. Who doesn't know what water tastes like? It tastes like water. What if a person didn't know what water tastes like? Not a big help to say it tastes like water. So then maybe you'd say, well, it's cool. It's refreshing. It's pure. It's plain. Maybe you'd fumble for a bunch of words like that. But that wouldn't do it either. That still wouldn't tell you what water tastes like. You'd hear me say those words if I were going to say those words, and you'd say, what is he talking about? That is so strange and baffling. What in the world is he talking about? And no matter how hard I tried to explain to you what water tasted like, you wouldn't be able to understand from anything that I said. The only way you could understand is if you had a sip of water, and then you would understand.

[06:01]

The stories are like that. You have to taste them for yourself. You have to take them into your body and your heart. The meaning of them has to be visceral and personal to you, and that's why the atmosphere of silence and zazen is so essential to being able to really appreciate these stories and their depth for our human life. And then, eventually, even if you didn't know it, you would understand what water tastes like. And if someone asked you, what does water taste like, maybe you wouldn't be able to explain. But you would know. You would know. what water tastes like. Two things about this layman pong text that are, I think, pretty much unique in Zen.

[07:08]

One is that he was a layman. Most of the Zen stories are not about laymen, they're about monastics. So it's remarkable that this is a whole text, a collection of stories about a layman and his family. I think we all kind of somehow believe that if someone is a professional, you know, they devote themselves to this full time, and that's what they do, they must be better at it than we are. And that's true in religion too. In Zen, in any religion, We all think that the monastics or the clerics are more serious and therefore must be more holy than laypeople, who are after all so busy with their jobs and their families, they think they don't have time to practice. And for sure, it's probably a lot easier to live a life of full-on religious practice if you are a priest or a monastic.

[08:20]

full-time in a monastery. But this layman Pong text tells us that laypeople can be just as serious and just as deep, maybe even more, because they have no institutions to protect and no roles to occupy. And if they pay attention, every Activity can be practiced, even chopping wood and carrying water. And this is, Laman Pong is the originator of that famous Zen saying. It's the second story in his text. To be sure, Laman Pong was not your average lay person. He had a house and he gave it away. He didn't live anywhere, maybe a hut once in a while, wandering a lot in and out of monasteries visiting.

[09:27]

And he had a lot of possessions, but he put him in a boat and sank the boat. So he wasn't your average layperson, I guess. Probably laypeople now who study Zen aren't going to do that. I don't say they won't, but it seems unlikely that most people would do that. Outwardly, but inwardly, inwardly, I think it's possible for a layperson to do all that. That's the first unique thing about this text. It's about a layperson. In American Zen, it's very unusual actually. Western Zen, not just in America, but all through the West. It is a lay tradition. Pretty much entirely a lay tradition. Even those of us who are priests are actually lay people.

[10:34]

That is, there are very few of us who have lived in monastic communities for many, many years and decades. And even among those of us who have... Many of us have spouses and children and that means that we are involved to some extent in householder lives. In Tang China, priests were full monastics. They took vows of celibacy and poverty and lived mostly in monasteries their whole lives. And typically in Asia, over the generations, it was the role of lay people to give alms and to be practitioners of devotion to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha, and to practice ethical precepts. But it was the monastics who practiced deep meditation and contemplation of the teachings.

[11:40]

And although it was never taught, even from the very beginning, that you had to be a monastic to fully enter Buddhist teaching, one of the early awakened members of the Buddha Sangha, I think the seventh disciple of Buddha, was a layperson. So it was always the case that a layperson could attain the way. The truth of the matter is it was quite rare for non-monastics to become really established in the depth of the teachings. That was the past in Asia. But now... here in the West being as stupidly audacious as we are, we are trying this wonderful experiment begun by layman Pong to see whether we laypeople can fully and completely live the Zen life of freedom and ease even while we are engaged

[12:50]

in the complicated world that is so full of suffering and difficulty. Who knows? Maybe we can even make that world a little better because we practice. The second unique thing about Lehman Pong's text is that mostly in this text he's not teaching and studying. He and his friends are just expressing the teachings together with great affection and enjoyment. In most other Zen stories, there is usually some teaching going on. The teacher is maybe trying to help the students to understand. But in these stories, almost all of them, there's a great ease and sense of enjoyment, sense of play. For a person steeped in the Zen tradition.

[13:51]

There really is no greater pleasure than to share the practice with friends, just like we're doing this week. This means to sit together in silence, to bow, to chant, to pass one another on the path, to eat meals, take a bath, and contemplate together the deep and impossible to understand mysteries of being human. And this is what Lehmann Pong and his various companions, including his family, are doing in these stories. So I'll tell you a few. These are the first and third stories. They're the stories of Laman Pang's initial encounters with two of his teachers who were among the great Zen masters of the age.

[14:59]

This is the first story in the collection. In the first year of the Chen Yuan period, the Laman went to see Zen master Shudo and asked him, what about someone who has no connection with the 10,000 dharmas. Shudo clapped his hand over the layman's mouth. That was his answer. And the layman had a sudden realization. That's the first story. Someone who has no connection to the 10,000 dharmas means someone who is perfectly free, not entangled in anything. So the layman is asking the teacher, how can I be free?

[16:01]

How can I be truly, truly free? And Shurdo covers the layman's mouth with his hand. Imagine how startled the layman must have been at first. But he understood perfectly well. Don't get caught up in your own explanations. Don't get stuck in ideas and positions and desires and points of view that you will end up having to defend and shore up and identify with and live and die by. Don't do that. Just let yourself slip into your actual life as it really is right now. Your life in this phantom and temporary physical body.

[17:03]

Your life in this fleeting kaleidoscope of a mind. Your life in this gorgeous, intricate, physical world that includes everything and everyone. Just feel that life now and accept everything just the way it is with joy. You could say that this clapping of the hand over the mouth is the negative side of the coin. He's saying, you know, just let go. The truth is, we are all holding on a lot more than we think we are. And letting go is being free of ourself.

[18:08]

So after this, the layman went to visit his second great teacher, Matsu. And he asked Matsu exactly the same question. So this is story number three. Afterward, the layman went to Changsi to study with Matsu and asked him, what about someone who has no connection with the 10,000 dharmas? Matsu said, I will tell you after you have drunk down the waters of the West River Dharmas, in one gulp. I will tell you, after you have drunk down the waters of the West River in one gulp." And the layman understood what Matsu was getting at, and naturally, as they did in those days, or supposed to be that they did in those days, he composed a verse. Anybody would do that, right? And this, I'm reading James Green's translation.

[19:19]

He gives two lines of the verse. With an empty mind, I pass the exam. And he stayed with Matsu for two more years and wrote another verse. The world over, men without wives, women without husbands, face to face, speaking of what is unborn. Men without wives, women without husbands, face-to-face speaking of what is unborn. Real experience as we practice experiencing our life in Zen is not something that we accumulate And we could get more of it. Actually, we need all the time more of it.

[20:21]

Lots of stuff. More wisdom. A bigger life. More influence. More influential friends. We become a worthwhile and impressive person. We can do so much. We can learn so many things. We can travel here. We can travel there. We can go all over the place. We can read it. giant pile of books, meet lots of interesting people, accomplish a lot of amazing things. Our LinkedIn profile is pages and [...] pages. It takes a while to build up all those pages. Matsu says, Swallow the river, the whole river in one gulp. This means that in every moment, all the time, every moment, any moment, everything is always right here.

[21:30]

You don't need to feel like you're missing out on something because it's right here all the time if we just look. Matsui says, swallow the whole river in one gulp. It means that every moment, all the time, literally, truly, everything is right here. Really the truth. Nothing more is ever needed because everything is always constantly given. Absolutely everything. All of space, all human and non-human experience is here in this moment, including the Big Bang.

[22:31]

It's here. And the end of the entire universe, if there is an end. So letting go of everything is the same as freely receiving everything. Our whole lives long, much as we don't feel this way, we have had everything we have ever needed. All the time, everything we could ever need is here. In our practice path, vow is central. We vow to save all beings, end all delusions, practice all practices, and disappear utterly into Buddha's way.

[23:41]

And we're going to chant those vows right after I'm done talking in a minute or two. lay people, priests, people who just showed up for the first time to the Zendo, everybody takes those vows whether they know it or not. We chant them and they're deep and they go in. They are impossible vows. And our devotion to them is the compass of our lives. Many of you have received or have attended the wonderful ceremonies in our tradition where people commit themselves to the bodhisattva path and to the precepts that define it. And I must say, I have been deeply impressed over the decades in how powerful these ceremonies are and how much they mean in people's lives.

[24:49]

But there's also a deep power in a vow that is taken privately and inwardly and that doesn't require official ecclesiastical sanction. And sometimes it may be the case that such a vow is more powerful than the ecclesiastically sanctioned vow. And I'm thinking, of Simone Weil, one of my heroes. Maybe you know about her. She was a Jewish Catholic mystic who would not convert to Catholicism, although she was totally devout because she thought that it would diminish her faith and commitment to convert. But more than Simone Weil, I am thinking these days a lot about my friend Alice Notley.

[25:58]

Maybe some of you know about her. Nobody knows anything about poetry anymore. But Alice Notley is the great poet of my generation. I think that's probably true. She is the greatest poet, maybe one of the five great poets in all of American history, certainly in my generation. And she died last week in Paris, so I'm thinking a lot about her and I've been reading her work a lot. And although we didn't see each other that much, Alice and I were close because we were both poetic children of Philip Whalen, who was a priest here at Tassajara in Zen Center. Maybe some of you knew him or know of him. And when I was thinking about Vau, I remembered one time in Paris talking to Alice about Philip.

[27:08]

And she told me that once, after having experienced yet another one of the many great tragedies of her life. In a state of utter despair, she went to Philip and she said, Alice didn't practice Buddhism at all, quite the opposite. She was an outlaw poet. She said to Philip, give me a vow that will enable me to keep on living. There must be a Buddhist vow, Philip, like that, that I can cling to. And Philip told her about the Bodhisattva vow, to be reborn again and again until all beings are saved, all delusions are overcome, all practices are practiced, and you finally disappear into Buddha.

[28:27]

And she told me, that at the moment Phil told her this, she took that vow in that moment into her heart. But here's the thing, she forgot about it. She forgot about it completely. And only remembered it in that moment in Paris when she told me the story. And she wept. It was really beautiful. She started crying because in that moment of remembering the vow, she realized that she had been kept alive all the years since by the vow that she had so deeply taken and had forgotten she took. Because her poetry is nothing but a poetry of grief and despair, but it's very upbeat.

[29:30]

and full of defiance and vigor. No one told us when we were young because they wanted to protect us. The sad and beautiful truth that it is very, very difficult to be a human being. They didn't warn us. Being a human being is not something you can do without help. Vows help us. Zazen helps us. Our ancestors help us.

[30:33]

The teachings help us. The community helps us. Helps us find a way to go on, no matter how dark things can sometimes look. So I'm going to close my little Dharma talk before we chant those vows. Aren't you kind of excited now? Chant those vows. Maybe when you're chanting this time, you could really mean them. I'll close with a short poem of mine that is actually in the form of two short prose paragraphs. It's called As I Rise. And these simplest of elements occur to me as I rise.

[31:36]

That the heft of the soul prevents anything untoward from occurring upward is simply as clear as any visual effect. Listen to it, this rush of wind. It waves the tree tips, brushes through the grasses. If there's a woman, let her be as she is. If a man, let him wave his arms about. See things yield to time's disturbance. The shade is drawn all day. No sun shines into the room. At night, the light bursts forth. I am determined. to complete the journey once begun, determined to begin finally.

[32:43]

If the sky were higher than it is, there would be no moon, no star. I seek what I shall never find, for how find what is nothing in itself? Nothing. These longer books that no one can read unless there's a plot to follow. But the eye sees the spaces between. I'm not sure of anything more than of this. The current thought, even as it dissolves. Upon this foundation, The world as I know it exists. And then the animals creep forth looking for food. Thank you for your practice.

[33:55]

Thank you. Those of you who are here taking care of Tassajara, thank you for doing that. This is a precious treasure, we can't ever lose it. And thanks to all of you for listening to my Dharma talk. I really appreciate it. You're such good listeners. It's all that zazen, right? Nobody's scratching, moving around, thinking about something else. Thank you. Take care. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving.

[34:51]

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