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. Thank you for coming to the talk this morning. How many are completely new to Green Gulch? Never been here before. Welcome. So this morning, I wanted to reflect with you on how it is that we pass on what we feel is important, pass on to our coworkers, to our colleagues,

[01:00]

our children, our family and friends. How do we pass on? What is it that we pass on? How do we do that? And even the question, do we know what is the most important thing? Do we know what we want to pass on? Is there anything to pass on, really? This is the 40th year of Green Gulch being a Zen practice place. We came here in June of 1972. So for 40 years, we've been pretty much every Sunday, except for the first couple of weeks when we didn't use this spot as a Zendo. But for 40 years, we've been... have been coming out of people's mouths that they feel they want to pass on.

[02:09]

They want people to hear. So there's an old Zen story that was commented on by a Zen master who's very important to this school, a Japanese Zen master named Dogen, and he commented and retold a particular story in different places in his work about this question of passing on or transmitting or instructing. So I wanted to look at these stories with you, or this one story, but these different kind of circling the story to look at different angles of the story to reflect on it. So I wanted to do that with you. And the Zen masters in this story, the person who commented on the stories is from the 1200s.

[03:10]

And these Zen masters are from the 9th century in China. And the two Zen masters are, you don't have to remember these names, Bai Zhang Huihai. And his name translates as... thousand-foot demolishing the ocean. That's his name. And his student, Wang Bo. And Wang Bo's name in English translated is Yellow Cork Tree, Praying for Progress. Yellow Cork Tree. I just found that out this morning. So these are very well-known... Zen teachers. And Huangbo was then the teacher of another teacher named Linji, who in Japanese it's Rinzai. And for those of you who are familiar with different schools of Zen, Rinzai, there's a whole lineage that comes from Rinzai.

[04:13]

So his teacher was Huangbo. Huangbo's teacher was Baijong, yellow cork tree. His teacher was 100 foot tall. 1,000 foot, 110 feet or 1,000 foot. So this was at a time when Wang Bo was studying with Bai Zhang, and Wang Bo once asked Bai Zhang, how shall I instruct people in the essential vehicle passed down from the ancients? How shall I instruct people about the essential vehicle from the ancients that came from the teachers of the past? And Bai Zhang just sat still. Didn't say a word. And Wang Bo then asked further,

[05:20]

What will our descendants in later generations transmit? And Bai Zhang said, I thought you were that person. And then he got up and went to his quarters, to the abbot's quarters. So this is the story. And there's slightly different variations, which I'll look at with you. But if you can imagine these two people who are living together closely, studying together, and one asks the other, Wang Bo asked Bai Zhang, how shall I instruct people in the essential vehicle from the ancients? And... Bajang just sat there. He didn't say a word. Now, one might think, one might be, or think about what you might have felt.

[06:25]

Why doesn't he say something? I asked him a good question. I really want to know how to instruct people. This is important. And Bajang was completely silent. And then, well, then what will few... what will the future, our descendants in the future, what will they transmit if you're not going to say anything? And at that point, his teacher said, I thought you were that person. So, you know, in this short story, there's so much to look at first of all, this question about instructing, about the ancient, the most essential, what's been passed on? And how do I instruct? How do I carry this forth so that it's not cut off? How do I instruct people in what's most essential?

[07:30]

And Bai Zhang just sat there. This is... you know not saying anything just sitting is expressing something that maybe it's hard to express completely in words but he's showing him he's showing him just sitting how do you instruct I sit So 40 years ago when we established this place, we established it as a sitting place. And this is Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center's 50th anniversary. And so 50 years ago, that was the time of the incorporation of Zen Center as a nonprofit.

[08:31]

But before that time, Suzuki Roshi, the Zen master from Japan who was the founder, city now there's there's uh a story that's been told many many times when people came this is in suzuki roshi arrived in 1959 and uh there's a copy of our journal at that time The first copy of the Wind Bell, which was a journal San Francisco's Land Center put out, and there was a mimeograph. For those of you who know what a mimeograph is, it was a kind of early copy machine that had really good-smelling ink, by the way, purple ink. Anyway, there's a facsimile of this first Wind Bell, and it's typewritten, and it says... It was published in 1961, December 2nd, and it says, Suzuki Roshi, Shinryu Suzuki, it says, came here from Japan on the afternoon.

[09:39]

Why it says afternoon, I don't know, but it's nice to picture what time of day. On the afternoon of June 22nd, 1959. Since then, he has been on his cushion conducting Zen at Sokoji. This was what was put in this little magazine describing this Zen master. It didn't say he was teaching the Dharma and essential teaching. It just said he's been on his cushion. He's on his cushion. If you want to find him, he's on his cushion at Sokoji, which was the temple in Japantown, where he taught before Zen Center. He moved with students who wanted to practice Sazen with him, who wanted to sit on cushions. So that's all it says. Since then, since 1959, this is 1961, he has been sitting on his cushion conducting Zen at Sokoji.

[10:51]

This is a thousand years after Bai Zhang just How are you going to instruct people in the essential teachings, the essential vehicle? The vehicle is what carries the teachings. What is the essential way to carry it forth? And Bai Zhang just sat, and Suzuki Roshi just... If you want to find him, he's on his cushion. Also, it's been... written and told that when anyone asked about studying Zen, he said, I sit at this time, at that time, he said, I sit Zazen at 5.45 in the morning. Please come join me. That was saying a little bit more than just sitting. This is how you instruct people in the essential vehicle from the ancients. You make a sitting place.

[11:53]

You clear out. You make a templar or a cleared space where you can build a place to sit. You have to make a space. And then you contemplate. A contemplate is to intensify and this paying attention very carefully within a clear space you contemplate what we contemplate what we contemplate whatever arises so go again the later Zen master commenting on this story he kind of celebrates these two teachers who have this exchange.

[12:55]

And within this poem, he brings up other stories where other teachers have worked together to instruct people and pass on the essential vehicle of the ancients. So this is his verse. this story that I told you about Bai Zhang and Wang Bo. This is Dogen's verse. Having been verified and transmitted by the previous ancestors, how could the practice of a whole lifetime be in vain? Long ago, his face broke into a smile on Vulture Peak. Warmth arrived. And he attained the marrow at Shao Shi.

[13:56]

So this is a lot, as poetry is, things packed into this verse. But having been verified and transmitted by previous ancestors, verified and transmitted means someone has said You are like this, and I am like this too. We both together are like this. We both together are awake to our life. And so how could the practice of a whole lifetime be in vain if this is the case? And then this next line refers to the transmission story from Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of this time of Buddhism, and his disciple Makakasho Makashapya.

[14:59]

And the story is that in India, the Buddha was teaching on Vulture Peak, which is a place you can actually visit, and a lot of teachings were given on Vulture Peak. And he held up a flower and... sitting on the seat, and he held up a flower, and his disciple Makashapya broke into a smile. And this has been passed on through the centuries as the transmission story between Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciple Makashapya. And at that time, the Buddha said some words. He said, You have received the true Dharma I, treasury, of the wonderful or subtle or fine mind of Nirvana. I entrust this to you.

[16:05]

So that's what this line on Vulture Peak. Long ago, his face broke into a smile on Vulture Peak. And then the last line of the commentary is, Warmth arrived, and he attained a marrow on Shaoxi. This is another transmission story between two teachers. This is Bodhidharma, who was a teacher from India who came to China, and his first disciple, Hueca. And Hueca was a very, very sincere student, just beyond, you know, really... are kind of inconceivably sincere. And he waited in the snow for his teacher to acknowledge his sincerity, really, and also expressed his sincerity in a very unusual thing that he did.

[17:11]

But in the middle of the snow, warmth arrived. Warmth arrived. Even though he was, you know, knee-deep in snow, waiting, sincerely, warmth arrived between he and his teacher. Warmth arrived, and he attained the marrow, the essential. The marrow is that part of the bone where red blood cells are, you know, generated life, and red blood is generated life. from the barrow, and it's soft in there. It's soft. Warmth arrived. So, this is how Dogen Zenji celebrated this story of how do you instruct people in the essential vehicle from the ancients? Bai Zhang sat there. Well, how will we instruct? What will our descendants transmit?

[18:16]

future generations oh i had thought you were that person now this question when he asks what that he cares enough to ask okay so you're sitting zas and i get it you're just you're sitting we sit together i too am like this i want to completely express my understanding through sitting But skillful means, what about future generations and descendants, how will they transmit if we don't say anything? Or is there anything further here to say? And this question of his care for future descendants, his care for other people, his thinking about others, His teacher said, I had thought you were that person.

[19:17]

In just your questions, you're expressing the kind of person you are, the upright person that you are, and I trust you. And then he left him and went to his room. So in this poem where it says warmth arrived, Often we hear this phrase, and Suzuki Roshi, our founder, said, warm hand to warm hand. So how do we instruct people? We instruct warm hand to warm hand, warm eyes to warm eyes, warm speech to warm speech, warmth arrives, warmth arrives. Suzuki Roshi's teacher, Gyoku Jun Sohan's name was Beneficial Gem, Ancestral Warmth. Ancestral Warmth.

[20:22]

So right in that name, the ancestral warmth, this teaching that's passed on, just like passing on anything that we care about is passed on with warmth and love and kindness and generosity. And if it's mixed, if it gets mixed up, it can go awry. It can go awry. And I want to bring up something where this went awry. I'll bring that up in a minute or so. So this was one commentary on this story. Then there's another place where Dogen brings this up again. And he, in this... Rendition of the story, he said, Wang Bo asked Bai Zhang, what dharma did previous sages present to people? It's pretty much the same question, but just reworded slightly.

[21:26]

What dharma, what teaching, what truth did previous generations present to people? And Bai Zhang remained silent. Doesn't say he sat, but he remained silent. And then Huangbo says again, what will descendants of future generations transmit? And Bai Zhang, in this story, says, I thought you were that person. And then Dogen, and this is a traditional thing to do with these stories sometimes, is to put yourself right in the story and say, if I were there and they had asked me, I would have said thus and so. So this is what Dogen says. Suppose somebody asked Ehe, his name was Ehe Dogen, eternal peace, eternal peace, truth source. So he says, suppose I was there, suppose somebody said to me, Ehe Dogen, what dharma did previous sages present to people?

[22:37]

And he said, I would simply say to them, I show people my sitting cushion. I show people my sitting cushion. And then he goes on to say, so it is said, and this is a quote from the Lotus Sutra, I came to this land fundamentally to help the looted people. So in this, what Dogen says, if he had been there, if Wang Bo had said to me, what do you do? I would show them my sitting cushion. Very similar to this wind bell thing where it said Suzuki Roshi is on his cushion at Sokoji, instructing people. Or come sit with me. This is what Dogen said too. If anybody were to ask me, I'd just show them my sitting cushion. And then he adds this quote from the Lotus Sutra. which is I came here or I sailed here.

[23:44]

I came here fundamentally to help beings who are deluded, who are suffering, who are in need of help. So this is two things. I sit and I show people my sitting cushion. I don't just show them the sitting cushion. I sit. I sit with them. And I... I appear out of this vow, fundamental vow to help beings. Just those two things. You might say it's just enough. That's how Buddhas appear in the world, with a vow to help beings, a fundamental vow to help beings. Really, that's the only reason awakened ones appear in this world, to help others. beings, to help beings who are suffering, confused, anxious, unhappy beings.

[24:46]

And out of this vow, Buddhas appear in the world and whatever they can do to help beings with warmth, with warm speech and warm face-to-face and warm actions. And I show people my sitting cushion. So sitting and vowing to help all beings. It's about as basic as you can get in answering these questions. How do we instruct people in the essentials? And how will future generations transmit? Sitting and sitting with vow. And this is available to everyone. This isn't for special Zen teachers of ancient times.

[25:48]

This is right now. So, I wanted to tell you about this movie that I recently saw, which... maybe some of you have seen it too, which to me, I feel rather immersed in this, turning this question of how to transmit, how to instruct people, what will future generations and our descendants transmit, and right in the midst of coursing along in this I watched a video movie called More Than a Game. More Than a Game. Have any of you seen it? Hardly anybody. It's a documentary. And it's a documentary about the now rather famous basketball star LeBron James and Willie McGee, Cian Cotton, and Drew

[27:07]

Joyce and Romeo Travis, these young men. It starts when they're in junior high, pretty young, like 10 years old, maybe grade school. And it's a group of youngsters in Akron, Ohio, inner city Akron, Ohio. There was no place for them to practice, and they wanted to play basketball. One of the fathers drew... Joyce, who was not a basketball coach, actually had played sports and wanted to be a football coach, but his son really wanted to play basketball, so he worked it out with the Salvation Army to use the gym there for these young boys, 10 years old. And there's video of them, really little, like 10 years old. They were all kind of friends, got to be friends, playing basketball. it showed how their playing together and hanging out together, spending time together, first four of them formed a very close friendship.

[28:20]

They loved each other. There was definitely warm hand to warm hand, warm basketball to warm hoop for years, and they began playing regularly and getting better and better and had a kind of traveling team. And it shows the coach and how he worked with them. There's documentary footage of him, the way he spoke with these kids and helped them. And he wasn't the kind of coach that you sometimes see that may be helpful at times, but that's, you know, screaming at the top of lungs and kind of berating the youngsters. Maybe some of you have met those kind of coaches on soccer fields and basketball courts. This fellow, Drew Joyce, was pretty soft-spoken and just was there, present with them, and really cared about them.

[29:21]

And they related to him. And, you know... When you have that much trust, you go the extra mile. You do your practice and you go further than you could just by yourself. You need someone who believes in you and will be there for you and tells it honestly to you what you need to work on. He was pretty strict with his own son who was on the team. Anyway, as they grow older, they begin, I won't go through it, completely the whole show, but they get on a high school team. They all decide to go to the same high school together so they won't be split up, and they're really good, and they're really good because they know each other so well they can anticipate. I don't even know if the word is anticipate. They know each other well and can intuit the next movements on the court, and they're unbeatable.

[30:25]

They're unstoppable. And they get to be, they're just a high school team from Akron, Ohio. They become a traveling team and they go all over the country and begin, you know, trouncing all these other teams that are well endowed and pretty soon they get to be very famous. And people are coming, they have to change venues so that they can, accommodate thousands of people. Picture a basketball game in high school where you're filling huge arenas with 50,000 people because LeBron James was amazing to watch, and they were all amazing to watch. And there were interviews and TV, and they had young ladies who were very interested in being with them. Anyway, pretty soon, they... What's the word? Hubris. You know, it began to go to their heads.

[31:27]

They were unstoppable, unbeatable, and there was nothing like them, and they were basking in this fame. And they got, as was the coach, this soft-spoken, how did he get there in the limelight? He was being interviewed. He was being on TV, too. It kind of, as this does, with fame and gain, they lost, and this is all in the documentary, they began to lose what had really kept them together, the game, that it was the game that they loved. They loved playing the game and what happened when they were just practicing. just playing the game together. That was enough before, and they happened to be winning. But there was a turn there where they got caught up in invincibility, and we are the number one.

[32:30]

We are tops. And at this final game, the national championship, they weren't seniors. I think they were juniors. And they came in there pretty sure that they were going to win. beat this other team. And they began, they kind of lost their mojo. You know, they lost their spirit, really. They lost their heart. And they were playing in, you know, suffused with fame and gain, basically. And they began to lose. And at a certain point, they were losing. And they couldn't believe it. So then they got angry. Right? And there was a foul or something, and after the buzzer rang, one of the team members threw the ball at the basket knowingly and willingly, and they got a penalty thing for that where the other team got three free shots and made all three, and there was not much time left, and that was it, and they lost.

[33:39]

And it was like going from the heavenly realms, the highest... kind of realm for a high school athlete, you know, this internationally known, I think, definitely nationally, and sought after to really have lost it. And they got it. This is the kind of beauty of the documentary is they understood what happened, and the coach understood what happened for him because he had gotten caught up too, and he had lost... the purity of just let's play, let's do our best, let's love each other and love the game and see what happens. And so you get to see the next year what happens as they go back to the basics. They go back to their cushion. They go back to playing for not fame and gain, but for each other and the love of the game.

[34:44]

And they... humble, you know, they got back down to the ground, down to being humble, grateful, listening to their coach, and the coach apologized for his being caught up in it too. Our ability to be caught by these wins, the eight wins, they're called fame and gain and reputation, and we get We lose sight of what's important. We lose our center. And the coach got it, what had happened. And you get to see the beauty of what happens after that. And there's more. I recommend the film because there's more things that happen, more supposed obstacles that I think really are not obstacles there. challenges to their sincerity, really.

[35:48]

So, this warmth, warm hand to warm hand, warm speech, warmth and sincerity, this is I think the only way that we pass on the essential teachings, the essential vehicle to That's all that's worth passing on. This is the only way it's worth passing on is with warmth. So... The last commentary that Dogen makes on this is he tells the whole story over again.

[36:52]

And then in his commentary, he mentions, again, if somebody, if I had been there, you know, if someone asked me, what dharma did the ancient one long ago use to instruct people? I would answer, others put a rope through their own nostrils. This is kind of an odd image maybe, but if you picture oxen that were used to plow, there'd be a hole right in the nose. And how do you instruct people? You put a rope through your nostril. And then later he says, how will your descendants and later generations transmit? And Dogen says, if you had asked me, I'd say, I pull myself by my own nostrils.

[37:56]

And this is an image of training, practice, putting a rope through your nostril is, I want to be trained. I want to practice. And I want those who can train me to help me. I think this image for us nowadays may seem subservient or something like that, but the image is I put the rope through my nostrils and I pull. I willingly and knowingly want to be trained, want to be cared for in that way. to realize fully that which must be realized in this life. To repay all the teachers and all the ancestors for their warmth and their instructions.

[39:02]

I want to be trained, so I put a rope through my own nostrils and others pull. and I pull my own and what this means for each person I don't know what it is that's instructed and received One explanation of that is there is nothing to transmit. There's nothing to transmit. Once you understand this, then please instruct others. So we sit here at different times of the day.

[40:19]

You can get a schedule. We have plenty of cushions. And we show people our cushions. And they're different sizes. And we have also chairs. We show people our chairs. And the gate is wide open. The gate is wide open. And... Not only that, there's nothing to get, so you don't have to worry about that, trying to get anything, because... Because... Just because. There's nothing to get because already all beings without exception are... This is what the Buddha said upon awakening.

[41:41]

All beings are without exception completely and thoroughly awakened beings except for our confusion and delusion. We don't understand this. So then this vow, I come in order to sail from far away. I come here fundamentally for one reason, to help beings, to show them the way, to show that the gate is open and they can enter and realize their true nature, our true nature. So there's nothing really to transmit or to get. This is our shared life. Thank you very much.

[42:55]

by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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