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. Wow, I'm just trying to adjust to the fact that it was 26 months ago when we closed the city center because of the pandemic. And I've given lectures since then. from quote-unquote city center in Green Gulch, from my Zoom location, but here to be back in this beautiful room again with you in person, sitting next to that magnificent statue of the Buddha. It's wonderful. So I'm happy that we're able to do this. Happy to be back here.

[01:01]

As I'm sitting here thinking about that, I'm realizing, you know, what a strain it's been on the world and Zen Center, this pandemic. You know, our practice is based so much on face-to-face, heart-to-heart, warm hand-to-warm hand, living together, practicing together. after the first practice period at Tashara. Group practice is the shortcut to awakening. It's that bumping into each other, living with each other, dealing with each other, that brings our practice to fulfillment. And we've not had so much of that, or certainly that, in a modified way. So I want to thank all of you in the temple. leadership and the rest of you that have maintained the practice here for the last over two years. And I thank all of the non-residents who have waited patiently.

[02:07]

And I've talked to them on Zoom many times. They want to come back and practice with us and supported us through all of this. After I came back from Tassara, and we made the decision to close Tassar for the guest season for the summer, I began turning a koan around in my mind called the Renoceros Fan Koan. Today we'll share some of my thoughts. Jung Wan's Renoceros Fan is case 25 in the Book of Serenity and case 91 in the Blue Cliff Record. I will kind of mix them up a little bit, because I like the preface from the Book of Serenity and the verse, but I kind of like some of the commentary that Suedo did in the Blue Cliff Record. So I'm going to stir it all together a little bit, but you'll be OK.

[03:10]

So Yongguan was a disciple of Matsu, and he was an eminent Zen teacher who studied with Matsu for 30 years. As you would call, Matzah was one of the most prolific Zen teachers during the Tang period and produced, quote-unquote, 100 great teachers. Yangguan was one of the 10 that are sort of noted as the most influential. So after his 30 years with Matzah, he traveled for 30 years testing his knowledge, and then he spent the last 20 years of his life until he was 92 teaching. And this koan is actually the only koan that's listed in the Book of Serenity and the Blue Cliff Records by him, but it's a very well-known one. So here's the case. One day, Yan Guan called to his attendant, bring me the renoceros fan. The attendant said, the fan is broken.

[04:15]

Yan Guan said, the fan is broken. bring me back the rhinoceros. The attendant had no reply. So to some extent, that's the extent of the case. In the Book of Serenity, there's an added sentence from Zifu, which is, Zifu drew a circle and wrote the word rhino inside of it. So this is a story about brokenness and what one does when things are broken. And certainly this is a time when everything seems to be breaking.

[05:19]

Wars, mass murders, injustice, hate crimes, political division, climate change, climate destruction. list a few of the highlights our hearts are broken by all the suffering that flows from these events i turned to zen in the late 60s a similar time when most of what i believed in seemed to be broken or falling apart and i turned to zen partly because there was so much violence and aggression even in the movements that I was interested in, the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the various changes that were happening. And I reflect back on a talk I later read where here in San Francisco, it might have been even 67, they were doing a one-day sitting.

[06:23]

And there was also a peace march happening that same day. And some students said, why are we not marching in the peace march? Why are we sitting here? turned out to have a very complicated exchange, which I won't go into now, but at one point he said something like, as best I can remember, you talk of war and peace and you don't even know how to tie your shoes. And there was some sense that we were young and kind of didn't really know how to respond to all of this. And for me, the answer was to spend some time I did at Tasar for four years to try to find my own peace, my own sense of composure, and a way to address the problems of the world. And I feel now the insights from Zen training of compassion and wisdom are needed as much, if not more, than ever.

[07:32]

So what does this koan have to say to help us? When asked for the fan, the attendant said, the fan is broken. And Yongguan said, the fan is broken. Bring me back the rhinoceros. So a rhinoceros fan was probably a very ornate fan, special fan given to him by some important official. Maybe had a picture of a rhinoceros looking at the moon on the fan, or maybe it was made out of a rhinoceros horn, the handle. It's probably quite beautiful and important. And in China, like the ox, the rhinoceros is a special being and typically symbolizes emptiness or Buddha nature, true reality. We know all these words that we have no idea what they mean. But anyway, that, whatever is going on here in all its complexity. So since the rhino fan is broken, Jung Wan said, bring me the rhinoceros.

[08:40]

Bring me the true reality of the moment. Bring me your Buddha nature. Present yourself. And the attendant was not able to reply, as most often we're not. When first confronted by a famous Zen teacher, he says, show me your stuff. Show me your awakened mind. Show me your Zen mind. Too much for me. So bring me all of reality in this moment. So we get frozen. We don't know what to do. So before exploring, you know, the commentary's comments on that approach, I'll just go in a slightly different direction, which is there's an alternative interpretation of the attendance response. Those of you who are familiar with... the koan about Vimalakirti's great silence when he was asked by Manjur Sri, what is the Bodhisattva's entry into the Dharma gate of non-duality?

[09:42]

Vimalakirti was silent. It's called Vimalakirti's great roar of silence because that was the only appropriate response to the question of what's the Dharma gate of non-duality. This is after Manjur Sri and about a hundred other Bodhisattvas had expressed in great eloquence, their views on the situation. So maybe that's what the attendant was doing. He was saying, you know, I don't need to say anything or do anything here. I'm expressing my sense of things. There's a commentary on the koan about Bhimala Kirti's great silence, in which Suedo said he was completely exposed. So maybe... Maybe that's what Vimalakirti, in saying nothing, was completely exposed, as was Buddha when he ascended the seat and stepped down without saying anything, completely exposed.

[10:45]

So maybe the attendant was completely exposed in his non-response, kind of thinking like maybe they were playing a game. Maybe Yang Guan was holding the rhinoceros fan in his hand and was going, you know, bring me the rhinoceros fan as some kind of, you know, Zen person. interchange thing. And the attendant was, I'm wise to you. I'm not going to play this game. We were doing just fine until you started questioning about true reality. So I'll just say nothing. So I'm just throwing that out, I think. So let's go back to our intimidated attendant. But maybe there's nothing intimidating about this.

[11:46]

The rhino can't be conceived of, can't be defined, can't be measured, can't be contained. And at the same time, it's right here in each moment and in each thing. The attendant could have offered him a glass of water. Maybe he said, oh, If it's warm, let's move to that shade of that tree over there. But he was too stunned to actually respond. So Zifu drew a circle and wrote the word rhino inside it. So when I first used to think about this koan, I imagined Zifu was another attendant in the area and drew a circle in the dirt and then wrote rhino in it as kind of... Here's my demonstration of emptiness. Here's my present response to your request. The circle in Zen, as you know, we have many of them around here, is sort of a symbol of enlightenment, oneness.

[12:50]

The interconnected reality, the circle of togetherness, the inconceivable unity of being and non-being. This is kind of when you get tired of trying to explain. the Zen mind is about or what reality is about, you give up and draw a circle. And this is used on a lot of formal documents in Akechiniyaka, which is our lineage paper. It starts with a circle at the top. The circle, it includes everything. So Zifu drew that circle as an excellent response. I did some research and found out that Zifu lived a hundred years later than Yang Guan, which is sort of typical of these Zen commentaries is somebody does a koan, and then 100 years later, somebody else makes a comment, and someone else makes another comment two decades later. So we have four comments on this particular koan that were generated over time.

[13:56]

We're going to go through them one time at a time, and they're kind of fun, sort of exploring the these references and digging into the many different books on all this stuff. This is in spite of the fact that, as Bodhidharma said, Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures, not founded upon words and letters. By pointing directly at one's mind, it lets one see into one's own true nature and thus obtain Buddha. This is Bodhidharma's. instruction to us on Zen practice in four stanzas. Forget the books. Forget the scriptures. Look at your own mind. Whatever that means, what your own mind is. And yet, we have so much fun going down to the library and leafing through all these reference books, because that's also part of what we do here, as

[15:02]

a Zen person, and having fun trying to figure out if there's anything we can say that's interesting about our practice, or whether we should just get up in the morning, sit zazen, do service, soji, eat some breakfast, do the dishes, do our work, mostly in silence, sit some more zazen, go to bed. Actually, mostly what you do at Tassara. If you go to an hour at work in the afternoon, I hope all of you get a chance to go to Tassara sometime and experience what that amount of zazen is like. So, Zipho is reminding us that mired in our broken world, there is also a much larger reality, one of connection and love. Can we remember this when we are mired in our difficulties?

[16:05]

lost in our broken hearts. Suki Roshi used the term big mind for that mind that has access to this inconceivable reality of connection and love. How do we bring that back into our life when we're consumed by the problems that seem so consuming? How do we solve these problems? How do we address them? John Tarrant, And his commentary on this coin suggests a way to think about this. He uses the example of consciousness as a lamp making a cone of light on the surface of a desk. That's sometimes how we think of our consciousness. We're focused on just one thing. But what we're focusing on is in solving our problem. So let's, you know, aim our light around and see if we can find something out in that darkness. that might help us.

[17:06]

Remember, maybe we reach out and drag something into the light and see if that'll help us. But what John Tarrant was suggesting is, meditating as Cohen takes things the other way. Here you depend on what is unknown and inconceivable to sustain you. The inconceivable is the source of all that that comes into being. This meditation, is not about making what is unknown known. It is instead an exercise in relying on and making friends with the inconceivable. I've been around long enough, and I think all of you have been around long enough to have had events in life that have been so shattering that you wondered how you were going to work your way out of it. or whether there was any way to work your way out of it. And that's a place where you have to rely on something you can't conceive of.

[18:12]

And sometimes I use the phrase, things are much more workable than you imagine. What your mind imagines usually is not the root out of your suffering, but there is always a root. There is always a way because our life is much bigger than we can imagine. This basically is a story of impermanence. As we know, impermanence is a fundamental teaching of Buddhism. Everything changes. Everything is already broken. When we think something is not broken, it'll stay the same. We hold on to it, and then it breaks, and we get upset. We feel the world is not a safe place in that situation. the very nature of our existence.

[19:16]

And I came across a kind of discussion of this or a presentation of this from Suzuki Roshi, who I loved and studied my whole life. So it's a little bit of a long paragraph. It's seven sentences. But I liked all of it enough, so I didn't edit it down. So I'm going to read it slowly, even though reading things in a lecture is not so great. Try to stay with me. So he says, to live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment. When we lose our balance, we die. But at the same time, we also develop ourselves, we grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony.

[20:20]

So that's his version of things are breaking, they're falling out of balance, but the background, the circle of emptiness and connection and love is always there. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against the background of perfect balance. So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live and how we extend our life. So in Zen, sometimes we emphasize the imbalance or disorder of life. I thought it was a beautiful commentary, in a sense, on this koan. I remember in the early days, we took up Zen because we were suffering and we...

[21:35]

We're going to get rid of our suffering. Didn't realize along the way that suffering is essentially an essential part of the human condition. Agony and ecstasy. Joy and love and sorrow. If you're going to love this life, this world, and the people in it, you will suffer because you will have great grief. when they die or leave you. So this is not something we run away from. Our life in this world is to embrace everything, including the suffering. So, another comment. So now I'm going to go on to some of the other commentary here. So Tozu said, I wouldn't mind bringing the rhino, but the horn on its head. would not be complete. I wouldn't mind bringing the rhino that you've requested, but the horn on its head would not be complete.

[22:40]

And then Suedo said, I need to see that incomplete horn. This is kind of making fun in some way of ourselves. I love the fact that these Zen Chinese guys sort of had a lot of irreverence as part of their commentary. You know, I would answer your question, but I'm afraid that my answer wouldn't be so good. I don't feel like, you know, it would be incomplete. Wouldn't be quite. I could present myself, my Zen mind, but not quite good enough. And Suedo says, I want to see that incomplete you. I want to see you just as you are. That's good enough for me. And that is good enough for us. That is our Soto Zen way. We're not some perfect beings. We do our best. We step forward. We make an effort and accept that. So I like that particular commentary.

[23:42]

Good practice to expose ourselves. As Kiroshi said, and I think express yourself fully in the chapter, not always so, the way to extend our practice is to expose yourself without trying to be someone else. Just be yourself, at least for your teacher. Of course, we cannot be vulnerable with everyone or even with people we're close to all the time. But we can do more. We can do better. And this is how the Sangha will grow together. And I think this is even more important in our current environment. We're learning how to communicate with each other is so important. learn how to do it with less harm and more courage. So, another Zen master weighed in. Shishuang said, if I brought it back to you, nothing would remain for me.

[24:49]

If I gave you the rhinoceros, then I wouldn't have any for myself. And Suedo said, The rhinoceros is still there. So that's also kind of one of our things. I would give you this, but then I wouldn't have it anymore. This is sort of why generosity is such a great practice for us in giving things away. We are not giving anything away. We're giver, receiver, and gift, a continuous circle. And certainly when we're talking about enlightenment, you can't give enlightenment away and not have it. Enlightenment is created in the connection to another person. It's that connection that is the awakened event. So this is kind of our silliness that we have to hold on to things.

[25:50]

Give it away. And moving on to our last comment, Bafo said, Master, you are so advanced in yours. Please ask someone else. And Suedo said, Regrettable, all efforts have proved fruitless. So in other words, Bafo is saying, you've asked your attendant for the rhino fan, then you've asked him for the true rhino, and you didn't get either one. You're old. reboot.

[26:52]

We live in the land of rebooting. My computer does that sometimes too. I'm right in the middle of a very important thing and my computer decides to take control of my life and tell me I'm busy over here doing this. You can forget what you're doing. So we're used to that. So Bafo is jokingly saying, you know, go get another attendant. You know, you're too old to waste your time on this one. Get one that will, you know, step up and be awakened by you as if, you know, it's a teacher's responsibility to awaken somebody or awakening somebody can be measured. Can the attendant be enlightened? And is it up to the old master to enlighten them? Is there success and failure in practice? Can you work hard and accomplish something? No. the answer to all these questions, working hard and accomplishing nothing, that is the Zen spirit.

[27:57]

This doesn't mean accomplishing nothing as if you could accomplish something and you don't do it. This is the real nothing, the total and complete nothing. Beyond any question of doing something or not doing something, this is a kind of freedom from measuring the world in that way, a letting go, and resting in just what's going on. So, now I'm going to go on to Tan Tang's verse on this comment in this case, which the last two sentences I loved. Who knows the thousand years' darkness of the new moon? It subtly turns into autumn's harvest. Who knows the thousand years darkness of the new moon? It subtly turns into autumn's harvest moon. A thousand years of darkness, who knows that?

[29:02]

That's really a dark place. Have you been in that dark night of the soul, that really dark place that you think you're never going to get out of? But in this koan, he says, suddenly that dark place turns into the autumn's harvest moon. You know, that's the full moon of autumn. Suddenly that dark place turns into the autumn's full moon. So maybe we're in dark times. Maybe the full moon is about to suddenly come out. Maybe it's dark and full moon going on all at the same time. I have a great faith in the Dharma. I have faith in Suzuki Hiroshi's way, and I have faith in Zen Center to convey the essential practice of Soto Zen. In one of the last lectures, Suzuki Hiroshi gave at Tassara, before he came to the city and died, he brought forth the koan, one particle of dust, which is...

[30:16]

Fuketsu said to the assembled monks, if one particle of dust is raised, the state will come into being. If no particle of dust is raised, the state will perish. To pick up a speck of dust is to start something, like Suzuki Rishi started Zen Mountain Center, Tassara. But it's just a speck of dust in the realm of all the world's activities. It's not a big thing. On the other hand, if you don't do something, nothing will happen. And he kind of mused in this lecture, you know, many Zen students come to Zen Center. Is that something meaningful or not? If something good happens, at the same time, something bad will happen. Most likely, if one good thing happens, 10 or 12 or more than 20 bad things will happen. I've always loved that phrase. So we should think when we pick up a speck of dust, whether it's a good or bad thing to do. But if you don't, nothing will happen.

[31:18]

And then he goes on to quote Dogen. If you pick up one thing, there is birth and death, enlightenment and delusion, Buddha and sentient beings, and something good and something bad. So we call it the Genjo Koan. This is our Koan to solve the actual. This is our Koan to solve the actual Koan we have. We all know the Genjo Koan. Sukiroshi gave many lectures on the Genjo Koan. It's probably the most discussed classical of Dogen. The Koan of the present moment. This present moment presents us with a question, and our Zen practice is to answer that question, how we respond to this present moment. Zen emphasizes the present moment so much.

[32:22]

It sounds so good. The past is gone. The future is not yet here. I don't have to worry about the past. I don't have to deal with my past karma. I don't have to fret or worry about the future. I'll just be present. What is the present? This present moment. As soon as I think I'm present, I'm already in the past. The past has ascended on me and the future has come down on me. Present is already past and the future is already here. And if it exists, it's really, really short. So that leads me into the preface to the Koan, which I love this two sentence. Lands and seas are boundless. Yet they are not apart from right here. Things and previous kalpas, numerous as the dust, all exist right now.

[33:25]

This was the introduction to this poem. Lands and seas are boundless. Certainly true. We have grasped the scale of the galaxies now. They're boundless. And yet they are not apart from right here. Everything is apart, is right here with us. Physically. Things and previous kalpas, the great history of time, numerous as the dust, all is here in this present moment. The present moment includes the whole of the past. The sad but profound truth is to be alive in the present moment, is to be in grief and wonder about the whole of the past. and to feel responsible for this entire human disaster. And to be alive in the present is to embrace the whole of the future with radical hopefulness.

[34:30]

Not hoping something good will happen because for sure, as Zizekiroshi said, something good will happen and something bad will happen. but to be hopeful beyond good and bad. So this present moment isn't what we think it is, and to be alive is far more than we expected it to be. message of this Cohen and Suzuki Rishi's lecture was to put our focus on our practice and not to forget big mind. I feel so appreciative that we have a practice to help us address the complexity of being a human being. So as I'm coming to the end of my talk, I wanted to say just a couple of words about a ceremony.

[35:41]

that we're i'm that we're doing this afternoon it's a ceremony that honors and entrusts the lay person to be a zen teacher most of you know nancy she's been the tonto here for the last two years and has practiced at zen center for over 20 years she's been a shuso and the tonto at city center I don't even know what to say about Nancy. She's such a wonderful person who has a great understanding of Zen, compassionate heart, and a real intention and willingness to help other people. And I think it's important in our tradition, if we want to honor the lay path as we do, that we do that from time to time. And so Nancy has been a lay person her whole life.

[36:43]

And she's now ready to assume a leadership role and a teaching role in Zen. And I'm happy that we'll have the opportunity to do a ceremony that entrusts her to step forward in that way. I'd hoped to do this ceremony with Nancy a while ago, but the pandemic came and we've had to... wait until now. Maybe that's all I'll say about it. There's much to be said about this particular aspect of our tradition. Thank you very much for your attention. 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.

[37:48]

For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[37:59]

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