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, everyone. I feel very... Blessed to be able to give a Dharma talk today. Can you hear me okay? Yes? Yes. Okay. And welcome to those who are tuning in on the website. It's been very cold, chilly. At Green Gulch in the last... which is just the usual summer at Green Gulch.

[01:03]

And as this is happening here, there's been a heat wave around the world in different parts, records being broken all over. And what does that mean? does that mean about the reality of our life right now? What we're facing? What we're encountering daily? And how do we practice in this everyday life that we find ourselves in? Today I want to bring up a Zen story.

[02:08]

And this is a beloved story. One I think I've spoken about at some point. I know Tenshin Roshi has spoken about it. Abbas Fu in 2020 gave a talk about it. And many other teachers. And this koan is in the book. of Serenity, which is a collection of Zen koans or Zen stories that have some overlap with other collections, but many of these stories are just in this collection and are part of Soto, our school, our lineage through Suzuki Roshi and Dogen Zenji. and have a particular family feeling, you might say. So this particular Zen Koan is called, usually we call it, what is the price of rice in Lu Ling, but the name of it is Ching Yiran and the price of rice.

[03:27]

Ching Yiran. is one of our ancestors in our lineage. And he was Chinese and one of the five main disciples of the sixth ancestor. And his student was Sekito Kisen Daayosho. So both of these in Japanese, Seigen Gyoshi. Daiojo is Xingyuran. Shinsu is Seigen Gyoshi, and his student is Shirtou in Chinese, and Sekito Kisen. Sekito Kisen wrote Harmony of Difference and Equality that we chant every day. So these are part of our ancestors' family way, family feeling. So, Shingi Ran, or Seigen Gyoshi, lived in the 600s, and he practiced with the sixth ancestor, and out of, you know, flowing from him, came one of the five schools of Zen, and through Sekito Kisen.

[05:00]

Koan, I've related to it in a particular way for years. And just recently, meaning Friday, at the senior seminar that Tenshin Roshi has with a number of his senior students, there was a new, in a particular text, there was some new information about this koan and how to practice with it and how to understand what is being tried to convey through this story and to help us. So I wanted to turn that with you and I've been looking at this additional understanding to this koan that's been very helpful for me.

[06:04]

I just want to mention as a kind of something to be aware of, a kind of warning maybe, I don't know, warning maybe too strong, but I'm going to be bringing up in relation to this teaching, talking about part of the history, painful history of this world, enslavement of beings. And I just wanted you to know that with great respect and humbleness, but I feel for me it was important. I wanted to weave this in to this koan. So please, if that is something that you find too upsetting, please take care of yourself and I welcome you to turn off your computers or leave.

[07:18]

So just a little bit more about He lived in a place that was very near a town called Lu Ling. And Lu Ling was very famous for its rice. And he lived on the Qing Yiran Mountain. His kind of name is after the mountain, Qing Yiran. And his temple was called Quiet Abode Temple. And his name means, let's say again, gyoshi or chingiran shinsu, means green source, walking or practice intention. That's an English translation. Green source.

[08:28]

practice intention, or walking intention. So this is the koan. And I think I'll read the koan or recite the koan because it's very short, the story, and then go back to the introductory words. Each of these koans often has a pointer. or introductory words to help us open to what the story is, what the koan is. But I'm going to start with the koan. A monk asked Ching Yiran, what is the great meaning of Buddha Dharma? Ching Yiran said, What is the price of rice in Lu Ling?

[09:29]

I'll say it again. A monk asks, Ching Niran, what is the great meaning of Buddha Dharma? This is a big question, right? What is the great meaning of the truth of the Buddha, the awakened truth, the Buddha Dharma? And Ching Yiran said, what is the price of rice in Luling? So before I enter the koan with you, I wanted to read the introductory note, which is this new way of understanding, helped me with this new understanding. So these introductory notes I find very difficult to understand, and the poems, the verses, but they're difficult upon first reading.

[10:43]

All of these stories benefit from learning by heart what the story is and what jumps out at you, the question or the answer. reflecting and turning them, it's not like immediately we say, oh yeah. So this pointer says, Siddhartha, which was the name of the Buddha before his enlightenment, Shakyamuni Buddha, it says, Siddhartha cut off his flesh to give to his parents, yet is not listed in the legends of filial children. Devadatta, those of you who know who Devadatta is, it was the Buddha's cousin who was very jealous of the Buddha and tried to hurt him, tried to split the Sangha, did hurt him.

[11:47]

At one point, through blood, tried to send a kind of raging elephant to attack where the Buddha was walking, etc. This is Devadatta. Devadatta pushed over a mountain to crush the Buddha, but did he hear the sound of sudden thunder? Having passed through the forest of thorns and cut down the sandalwood tree, just wait till the year ends. As of old, Early spring is still cold. Where is the Buddha's body of reality? I think in the past, I have kind of skipped over the pointer, like, I don't know what he's talking about, or what he's trying to say.

[12:58]

I'm going to just look at the koan. Maybe I can... But this time, partially because in this seminar on Friday, this pointer, this intro was, in the text we're studying, a light was shown on it, which had to do with that this paragraph that I just read to you, and the koan itself, because the two are completely different. has to do with, or part of what it has to do with, is confession and repentance. Now, confession and repentance, often right away saying those words, one might have a reaction like that it has to do with punishment and

[14:01]

you know, shaming and embarrassment and all sorts of things. But confession and repentance is an integral part, is part of our practice life. And part of, and I think this koan will, and what I hope to do today is see how confession and repentance is our practice life. So when I'm talking about confession and repentance, I'm not talking about I'm talking about what arises in our body-mind when we realize that we're not in alignment with the reality of our life. And now, as those of you who live in residence, we have this practice daily of confessing and repenting.

[15:02]

Our ancient, twisted karma, our voluntary actions, and karma, both good and bad, are turning on a sense of self, a self-centeredness, whether it's good karma or bad karma. If we acknowledge and avow, admit, that we're human beings with actions that are flowing from greed, hate, and delusion. And it comes in three kinds, body, speech, and mind. So just going back to this pointer, this intro, it starts out with this Shakyamuni Buddha, probably in a past life, because we don't have the story of him doing this to himself, but there's many stories of bodhisattvas who give even their bodies if needed.

[16:11]

So it says, Siddhartha cut off his flesh to give to his parents, yet he's not listed in the legends of filial children. So he did this, I'm understanding this, as an apparent good deed, maybe to... I don't know the reasons, but in the Jataka tales, there's reasons that are about generosity and selflessness for these very, very thoroughly developed bodhisattvas who are able to do such things. That's not for baby bodhisattvas. Let me say that. So, he did this act, but he wasn't... written up in the books of filial piety, like filial piety means, you know, this respect for our parents and elders, and he's not on that list.

[17:15]

The consequences of his actions have not been noted, and like, oh, he was a good boy. He's not in that list of filial piety. And then you've got Devadatta, the jealous Devadatta, who tried to crush the Buddha, but he's not afraid of being struck by lightning because he did that terrible act. So it's kind of looking at both good and bad karma or wholesome and unwholesome actions. You know, the consequences of those, you can't hold on to your good actions. And also, there may not be particular consequences to unskillful actions, actually. So this confessing and repenting that we have...

[18:27]

both skillful and unskillful actions. Even when we're trying to do skillful things, things may happen that we didn't want to happen. People were hurt. People misunderstood. We can't see all the full range of the reality of our life. We live in, as Dogen says in Genjo Kwan, in a circle of water. We see only as far as our eye of practice can see. And the same is true of everyone. The next part of this pointer was having walked through the sharp bramble thickets. This is the forest of thorns. And then a forest of fragrant flowers, the sandalwood. You still have to wait to the end of the year.

[19:29]

And the commentary on that was, you know, your awakening will come one way or the other. You still have to wait. There isn't like a consequence. If I do good then, if I do unwholesomeness, then it won't. It's deeper and wider and less able to be conceived of even. our reality. As of old, spring begins with cold. This is a different translation than what I read. As of old, early spring is still cold. Where is the Buddha's body of reality? So, the koan, back to the koan itself, what is the meaning of the Buddha Dharma?

[20:39]

What is the price of rice in Lu Ling? Now, as I said, Lu Ling, the rice in Lu Ling was known for its delicious rice. The Dharma teacher Dario Girolami, who lives in Italy, in Rome, when teaching this koan, says, what is the price of pizza in Rome? So what is the price of rice and lulang for pizza in Rome? Well, if you've ever been to Rome, it depends, you know. Are you at a... scale via Veneto place or a little trattoria or where are you? What kind of toppings are there? So this the price of rice in Luling depends on how was the crop that year?

[21:46]

Was there a drought? Was there too much rain? Was there sun? Enough sun? Were the farmers well? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Was there an overabundance of rice from the year before in storage? Did somebody hoard it and put it on a black market because there wasn't enough, et cetera? What is the price of Lu Ling? Includes sun, moon, starlight, all the beings. and into the past, and into the future. What is the price of rights in Luling? It is interfused, interpenetrated with every single thing. Now, I wanted to...

[22:49]

say something more about how to understand what is the price of rice in Lu Ling by bringing up another delicious rice called Carolina Gold Rice. And this is something I never knew about until this year when I watched on Netflix the documentary called High on the Hog African American Cuisine How African American Cuisine Transformed America and the wonderful narrator and kind of host of it a man named Stephen Satterfield in several have some of you seen High on the Hog a Netflix documentary I recommend it It uncovered and showed me a history I have not been aware of and yet have benefited by and have appreciated, but not known enough about it.

[24:14]

So Carolina Gold, Rice, In Charleston, South Carolina, this is what I've learned from this documentary, had many kinds of rice. But when enslaved people were brought from Africa, they had been rice farmers, many people, and were excellent rice, knew how to grow rice. And in Charleston, South Carolina, this crop of rice, this particular kind of rice, became the crop that brought the wealth to these plantation owners.

[25:21]

And the labor, this is a highly labor-intensive crop, California gold. And the expertise and the labor, the back-breaking labor of, you know, hundreds of years, hundreds and hundreds of years to produce Carolina gold and the cuisine of Charleston and South Carolina. And not only that, but this rice was so delicious. It was sent. Overseas, we're talking about, you know, 17, 17, 1800s to Indonesia and to Japan. Also, it was so highly sought after, the Carolina gold. So Charleston's wealth was built on this and built on this horror of slavery. So this is something I'm reflecting on and doing my best to learn about and understand and include.

[26:44]

What is the price of Carolina gold? What is the price of the rice of Luling? The price of the rice, of Carolina gold rice, is untold misery, unspeakable horror, and the wisdom and expertise of beings, and the deliciousness of the rice. So after the Civil War, after the ending of slavery, the production of this rice that created the wealth diminished, you know, by 80% or so. And it basically, there was the labor that it took to create this Carolina gold was no longer there.

[27:52]

So going from 100 million pounds of rice a year down to, I don't know what. So also in the documentary, there's a person named, there's a man named Glenn Roberts, who's white, who has a company called Anson Mills. And he has done his best to revive this crop. And to pay back, he knows very well the heritage that he's holding. And his gift is that the seeds for this crop, he gives away freely. He does not monetize these seeds. And whoever can use them all over the world, he gives them away. So, I bring this up, and the painfulness of it, because I feel this teaching, what is the price of rice in Lu Ling?

[29:20]

What is the meaning of Buddha Dharma? What is the price of rice in Lu Ling? points to, expresses the meaning of our Buddha Dharma is the inextricable, interfusion and interpenetrated reality that we all are part of. There's no one who's apart from this. There's no one who's apart from Carolina Gold. Rice. And how it came to be. And there's no one apart from each one of our actions, which brings us to confessing and repenting, which this pointer at the beginning brings up. What do we need to confess and repent? So confessing and repenting, there's several ways of confessing and repenting.

[30:27]

There's kind of a formal confession and repentance, which is kind of what we do in the morning for service, a vow together as part of our morning ritual. There's also speaking to a teacher or a friend about actions of body, speech, and mind that you're concerned about or... feel out of alignment with, or that you're troubled by, you have remorse. So there's talking with someone about that. That's another kind of confession and repentance. There's also, so these are in the form, formal ways. There's also confessing to the Buddha, to a Bodhisattva. different ways that you formally say about my actions, and avow that, admit that.

[31:35]

And one is often, in a kind of natural way, drawn to do that, because it weighs heavy on our hearts. This is called ji-yi, ji-yi sangi. Ji is... the conventional, the relative, the everyday, the conventional world that we live in, there are ways to confess and repent that arise for us. And then there's the re-sange, or the formless confession and repentance, which is basically sitting zaza, just sitting, letting go of actions of body, speech, and mind, and our views, and our grasping onto fixed ideas, just sitting in the middle of our life.

[32:46]

This is called the formless repentance. where we become, we open to being one with all beings and everything in this reality. There's a third kind of confession and repentance called Jisou Sanghe. which is when we realize Jisou is like the reality of our life, and when we realize that we don't see the true reality of our lives, this interconnected, interfused way that we exist actually and act in ways

[33:53]

that are based on I, me, and mine, as if unconnected, this confession and repentance that comes up is because we realize we don't see the full reality of our life. And I feel like, you know, more and more, what we eat, what we wear, what we drive, the resources that we use, the way we treat our fellow human beings is often not based on that we are completely interconnected. There's a saying, both the real and unreal have no self-nature.

[34:59]

Both the real, sort of the conventional manifestations of our life, and the unreal, the delusions of our life, both have no separate existence. No self, permanent self. both the real and the unreal. We live in delusion. And knowing that, knowing that our delusions, delusion within delusion for our life, because we can't see more than we can see with our eye of practice, realizing that, that we are in the midst of delusion, Confession and repentance arises. And in this koan, the verse talks about the way of great peace.

[36:20]

has no signs. I have the verse here. This verse is by Tien Tong Hongjir, who wrote all the different verses for the different koans in Book of Serenity. The accomplishing work of great peace has no signs. We can't grasp it like I'm doing the work of great peace. That already is delusion. We do our best. Is it the work of great peace? We shall see. The family way of the peasants is most pristine. Only concerned with village songs.

[37:21]

and festival drinking, how would they know of the virtues of Shun or the benevolence of Yao? Just a note on that, Shun and Yao. These poems and comments in these koan collections also include and harken back to the literary treasure of China and folk tales and poetry, and it's a very layered literature, really, these koan collections. So, you know, references are made to stories that might be, had been, to the audience who was reading them at the time or when they were written, were very familiar, just like In the United States, we can say something about the Wizard of Oz or something, and pretty much everybody gets the reference.

[38:28]

I don't think we're in Kansas, Toto, or whatever. We get it. It's a kind of shared cultural thing. So Yao and Shun were these legendary emperors of China. And when I say legendary, I'm talking about B.C. And they were virtuous and benevolent and really took care of the country to the best of their ability, chose the best person for the job rather than their own son. So this poem brings this up. The peasants are only concerned with village songs and festival drinking, how would they know of the virtues of these ancient, they're not concerned with that. So these poems, you know, in Kenchen Roshi's commentary, he says, the Buddha Dharma is so important, we shouldn't, maybe this is a Suzuki Roshi quote, we shouldn't take it too seriously.

[39:47]

So this songs and dancing, coming together with camaraderie and practicing and appreciating and enjoying one another, this isn't to throw that away and have a kind of grim, you know, working to, I don't know what, understand Our life can be the warm-hearted and kind walking together with one another in this life. With walking on the ground in a grounded way, meaning humble, knowing that our actions and our words and how we think, how we think that was, created by all of our experiences and karmic formations, how we were educated, what we heard and saw at home, in the media, at school, on the street.

[41:02]

This is how we were acculturated and taught and socialized and racialized in ways that we have no idea. This is why we need to confess and repent. This is why I feel I need to confess and repent because my actions are flowing from, not from Buddha Dharma understanding, even with my effort. So with great humility and humbleness, not shame, Not shaming or punishing, but there are consequences that I take seriously. So, what is the great meaning of the Buddha Dharma?

[42:13]

What is the price of rice in Luling? Knowing that everything, everything partakes of the Buddha body, the myriad things partake of the Buddha body, every single And upon seeing it, we may, just like the teacher whose name escapes right now, who saw the peach blossoms and understood, He turned towards where his teacher was and bowed.

[43:21]

Thank you very much. We're going to dedicate the positive energy of the talk and then there'll be a little time for questions and questions online as well if there's any. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. 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.

[44:23]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:26]

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