surpassed penetrate and perfect dharma. Good morning.

[01:40]

How's the sound? So this is, in case any of you aren't aware of it, we're sitting at Sashin, and we're somewhere in it, someplace in the middle of the Sashin together. Somehow, last night when, I think all of us, or at least Most of us passed our COVID test, so I was imagining I would come down and actually see your faces today. But I guess that's not happening yet. Maybe passing in the hallways or someplace like that, we'll see each other's faces eventually. Anyway, it's nice to be here with you on this sunny, crisp morning. It's crisp this morning in the Zendo, I thought. Maybe it's because I sit next to that. hurly-durly fan thing is.

[02:42]

Anyway. So how many of you have never been in a full moon ceremony like we had this morning? One? Never been. Oh, I see. You've never been. Good, good. Excellent. of you have never been in a full ceremony similar to the one that we had this morning i see one person over there two three yeah pretty formal ceremony a lot of bowing it's uh this is one of the oldest ceremonies in in uh buddhism goes back to the original buddha where people would wander around you know uh on their own, sitting in the forest. And then once a month, the Saga would gather at full moon and they would do what we did today, which is repent and recommit to their vows and take the precepts, which we all did this morning together.

[03:54]

And actually, this ceremony is so similar to the basic structure is the same in a lay initiation ceremony. You do the same thing. You repent and you take your vows and you take the precepts. And it's also pretty much the same in a priest initiation. You prepend, take the vows and take the precepts. It's a kind of the basic structure of all of our ceremonies. I mean, in the lay initiation ceremony, you lay bodhisattva initiation ceremony, you have to have sewn a raksu and spent a fair amount of time studying what the precepts are and you get a new Buddhist name. So you get that given to you in the ceremony. And in the priest ceremony, you get more things given to you, but basically pretty similar ceremony to what we did this morning. Kind of an important thing to do monthly. I think it's one of the good things we do all the time. So that was that. And I wanted to know, is the food tasting better or is it just me?

[05:03]

You know, am I just paying more attention to the food so it's tasting better or is it actually tasting better? I guess this is a question. But I notice, you know, as Sashin goes on, for instance, that black rice porridge this morning seemed particularly tasty. And sesame soybeans, I mean, I was going to say who doesn't love sesame soybeans, but I know this is a controversial area in the Sangha. A lot of people don't like sesame soybeans. I think... It's an acquired taste if you ever did a practice period at Tassajara in the winter and it was cold and those sesame soybeans came out and you could feel that energy. It was a love affair born of a Tassajara winter, I think, is what sesame soybeans are. Anyway, this was making me think about food a little bit and how food is such an important part of the practice we have during a sashin. We start to pay more attention to it. I'm sorry that we can't do oryoki.

[06:05]

We used to do oryoki in seven-day sashins, but given COVID and all the complexities of everything, we're not doing that. But that was a way of extending your practice through the meals with that same kind of attention to eating. So it takes a little bit more work to do it the way we're doing it now, but still it's there. There's a ceremonial start to the meal. a quiet period where you actually pay attention to eating the food and tasting it and being with it in a way that's more careful. And, of course, because we're moving around versus in Orioki where you're mostly sitting and only have to deal with the server, we have to be more aware of each other so that we're being kind to each other in the midst of getting our food and we get to notice all those other things that go on, you know, our greed, hate, and delusion that comes up in every... social interaction practically so that was um food you know food is we have to talk about food right food is you know most people say we're a zen community but other people say we're a food community that's out you know out of which came you know our summer guest seasons and our greens restaurant and all the other things so

[07:25]

Moving on to another topic, how's your kinhin? So how many people, I wonder if the same people that are new to full moon ceremonies are new to our form of walking meditation, or are you all pretty familiar with that? So it doesn't hurt to review kinhin. You know, it's easy to all of us think, oh, maybe kin kin's a break from zazen. I'm going to take a little time off here. It's nice. It's good. You get the blood flowing in your body and you get to move your joints a little bit. That's a good part of it. I relabeled it breath walking in some way because it's such an important way to coordinate your breathing with the movement of your feet, you know, to synchronize the movement with your breathing. And that keeps you in touch with your breathing, which you're very much in touch with when you're doing zazen. And Apparently, which I can't remember where I learned this, that a kinyin was actually transmitted to Dogen from Ru Jing, his teacher in Japan.

[08:36]

So this style of slow walking we do. A transmitted teaching like Zazen. And also... kind of like the idea Suzuki Roshi always used to say, you know, I keep my feet on the ground, my seat on my cushion, you know. Standing with your feet on the ground, a very good way to be in your body. So... I don't think I'm going to say any more about Kenyan. Most of you had the basic instruction, but sometimes sort of think of it as erect zazen, where you're moving through space with the same basic feeling for your posture that you have when you're sitting zazen.

[09:40]

So on Sunday, I introduced the metaphor of walking in the mountains is the same as doing a sashin. And I did it using Wang Wei's beautiful poem, which I'm going to say again, in case you've forgotten it. In my middle years, I became fond of the way. I make my home on the foothills of South Mountain. When the spirit moves me, I go off by myself to see things that I alone must see. I follow the stream to the source. I sit there and watch for the moment when the clouds crop up, or I may meet a woodsman and we laugh and talk and forget about going home. So I mentioned at that time, you know, we could follow the stream of our thinking, the source of it, and then we can watch when thoughts come up, clouds crop up.

[10:49]

So I hope some of you had a chance to spend a little of that time watching just before thoughts come up in your sitting, noticing a little bit of space that occurs from time to time between the continuous activity of the mind. But in any event, I wanted to continue our climbing adventure today with another mountain story. This mountain story is a beautiful koan Koan number 25 from the Blue Cliff Record is called, The Hermit of Lotus Flower Peak holds up his staff. So here's the koan. Once the Hermit of Lotus Flower Peak held up his staff and showed it to the assembly. I don't have my staff here. I have just my miniature staff, but anyway. And he said, when the ancients got here, why didn't they stay here?

[11:53]

When the ancients got here, why didn't they stay here? There was no answer from the assembly, so he answered himself, because it is not of any help for the way. And then again, since there was no other response from the assembly, he said, what about it? And he answered himself, with my staff across my shoulder, I pay no heed to people. I go straight off into the myriad peaks. So the subject of this koan is a hermit whose name we don't know, but he retired to a peak in these mountains called Lotus Peak. It was a mountain in the Tendai Range in the province of Fukien. This hermit may have been a grandson of... Yunmin, which would then date him and this incident approximately at the end of the 10th century.

[12:55]

And as you know, Yunmin started one of the five schools of Zen, and his koan was an appropriate response, which was what this practice period is named after, and I think we did several other of his koans. So this guy was obviously a worthy Zen master. And This area that he's encamped in, according to Matthew Sullivan in the Garden of Flowers and Weeds book, this is a holy mountain with crags thrusting into the clouds and tapered paths along the cliffs. It was famous for its Taoist shrines, and one of these shrines crouched below a huge outcropping that looks like a blossom, hence the name Lotus Flower Peak. So... On Sunday, I kind of felt like we took a walk, you know, from the foothills up a nice valley to the headwaters, maybe a lake at the base of a mountain and sat in the flowers and, you know, watched our thinking mind come up as the clouds moved by.

[13:58]

But here, no, here now we're in a really craggy mountain with very thin... kind of reminded me of the Dolomites in Italy or someplace where you're on these paths and then all of a sudden you notice this is very scary. This is a very scary place. But anyway, this hermit had... There's a big hermitage, hermit tradition in Zen. Even though the great monastic tradition started in China, I learned a little bit about this. I went on a... two-week trip with some other Zen Center board members with Andy Ferguson, who wrote a wonderful book on ancestors. And anyway, we were wandering around the monasteries, and one of the board members was very excited to go visit the fifth ancestor site. I think it was the fifth ancestor site, where there were still a lot of hermits that lived outside of the monastery.

[14:59]

So it was quite common that... Somebody would train in a monastery for a number of years, 10 or 12 or maybe 20 years, until they kind of got their rough edges worn off and maybe got a little bit of insight into the practice. And then they would go off by themselves and live in a hut in the mountains behind the monastery. And, you know, some of the people in the monastery from time to time would go up and visit them. So maybe that was the case here, that over a long period of time, People would go up and visit this hermit, and he would hold up his staff and say, when the ancients came here, why didn't they stay here? So I want to talk a little bit about the beginning.

[16:14]

So first he holds up his staff and shows it to the community. So in one version I heard, you know, all these monks would come up from the monastery below and ask him things and he would, you know, do this thing and he never got a good answer. So he went back to the assembly, the community, it says that, and showed it to the assembly and see if he could get some response. So what is a staff used for? So a staff is a very traditional... Just before I came down here, I went and looked at the staff I was given when I did the mountain seat ceremony, which is, according to my jisha, which I believe is accurate, was seven feet tall. So you're also given a staff when you have transmission. It's an object you have. You know, it's part of it. Every monk has a staff, right? You know, if you're a monk, the staff is an indication that you're living the life of a monk. You're homeless. You're wandering from place to place to study the way.

[17:15]

You need your staff for that. And I got this slightly larger staff for the mountain seat ceremony because you need the staff to climb up on the mountain. We're going to have a mountain seat ceremony here in March, and Mako and Chiryu are going to climb up on the mountain. The mountain here is about four feet high, so you need at least a seven-foot staff, don't you think, to make sure that you're... stable and climbing up that mountain actually it's kind of scary because you could almost fall off because it's not very so it's not as solid as a real mountain it's a wooden made mountain so so it is nice to have a staff but anyway you have you love this i've only used my staff which i got many years ago twice so it's it's not like the staff that the pilgrims use when they're traveling around i'm you know Nowadays, if you're a hiker, you get these hiking sticks. I mean, I don't know how many of you are familiar with these hiking sticks. They're perfectly gripped handles, and you can adjust the length of them.

[18:16]

But can you imagine in the old days, if you were on pilgrimage for 10 or 20 years, that was how long Xiao Zhou was on pilgrimage, moving from monastery to monastery. You'd have to have a good staff to carry with you to cross the streams and climb through the passes and the mountains and not fall over. They didn't have those titanium adjustable hiking sticks that we have now. So, but basically the staff is, it kind of represents your support. It's the support you have. So other ways of thinking about the staff, it's a metaphor for all the ways you're supported yourself. So... So since it symbolizes the life of a monk and a wandering monk going from way to way, studying the way, in other words, the staff actually stands for awakening itself.

[19:19]

So the hermit means when the ancients attained awakening, why didn't they dwell in awakening? That's the transition we're making on that first statement. When the ancients, when the old... ancestors and sages attained awakening, why didn't they dwell in awakening? So for 20 years, no one could answer this question. So one day he went to the monastery to see if the monks could answer, and when no one could, he answered himself because it's no help for the way. It's no help for the way to stay attached to your awakening, to stay in your awakening. So Suzuki Roshi says in his commentary on this koan, it was not right for the ancients to be attached to their staff, and he did practice. So not only not attached to your awakening, but your practice, or the top of a mountain, the result of practice enlightenment.

[20:22]

For more than 20 years, this hermit's instruction was about non-attachment to this staff, or non-attachment to enlightenment, or non-attachment to practice. So the question is, what is this life of non-attachment? I remember when I first came to Tashara, I think they had just come out with one of their very first brochures, their fundraising brochure for Tashara, and it had beautiful pictures of Tashara. And somewhere it had this quote, You know, Zen is to be not attached to anything or anywhere. I think I remembered that correctly. And I have, you know, I've been around Zen Center for a long time. And recently I looked for that brochure. I've never been able to find it because I want to read that quote for sure because it's stuck in my mind. That one idea that if you were not attached to anything or anywhere, you would have the freedom.

[21:33]

in your life. What does that mean? What would that mean to be not attached to anything or anywhere? So that's what we're going to study here. What does it mean to be? But before we go there, Suzuki Roshi gave an example of attachment. which he picked up from the Vimalakirti Sutra. And I'm going to read the paragraph. There's about three paragraphs, and since they're not that long, it's okay to read. So this is from his commentary on this koan, and he picked this example of attachment. Once upon a time, celestial nymphs poured down many kinds of beautiful flowers on bodhisattvas and great disciples who were listening to Vimalakirti's lecture. flowers which fell on the great bodhisattvas fell off their robes.

[22:35]

However, some of the flowers remained on the robes of the other disciples, no matter how hard they tried to remove them. Sticky flowers. One of the heavenly maidens asked one of these disciples, why were they annoyed with the gift of flowers? Shariputra said to her that beautiful flowers should not be on the robes of disciples who live in simplicity. It is... It is beautiful to put ordinary fragrant flowers on Japanese kimonos, but it is not so good to have pink flowers on a priest's robes. It wasn't Japanese. I don't know. Japanese doesn't make sense because this is way back in Bhima Lakirti's day. I don't know. Maybe Suzuki Roshi was mixing things together. At this, the heavenly maiden became angry, saying, whatever your liking may be, a flower is a flower and it is beautiful. If the flower is good or bad, it is because of your discrimination and not because of the flower. The statement made all the disciples, except the great bodhisattvas, of course, the flowers had fallen off them, feel very ashamed of their narrow view.

[23:39]

So the first thing I always love... reading Suzuki Rishi's way of putting things, but he used the term celestial nymphs. And I looked up what celestial nymphs are. They're supposed to be, apparently they, when gods come to visit the temple, they entertain them and take care of them. But if you look at this book, I brought it, not because the type is too small for me to read, but I brought it because this is the holy teaching of Imala Kerti, a beautiful... Mahayana Sutra, and this is translated by Robert Thurman, 1976. So five years after Suzuki Rishi died. And in this book, it isn't a celestial nymph that pours flowers on the disciples. It's a goddess. And chapter seven is entitled Goddess. And just kind of a different way of framing it. And so after this little interchange where the goddesses made all these disciples feel bad because they couldn't get their flowers off their their robes. She entered into a long conversation with Shariputra.

[24:45]

Shariputra is sort of the number one disciple of Buddha. It's all the same after a while. They just keep reappearing in our life. Thank God for 2,500 years. She got into a very complex emptiness discussion with Shariputra and bested him in every possible way that he could be bested. And finally, he said, Well, you're so fantastic and brilliant and evolved. Why don't you turn yourself in a man so you can get enlightened? Because back then, only men theoretically could get enlightened. So then followed a little bit more emptiness discussion, and she decided to sort of prove her point. She turned him into herself, and she turned herself into him. And that wandered around for a while, and then when he finally got the point, she switched him back again. And this is one of those places where the Buddha jumped in and said, in all things, there is neither female or male.

[25:48]

Now, we know there's a difference between female and male, but in the emptiness realm and in the realm of who can be enlightened, there is no difference. And so this is, you know, what, fourth century China or something, Mahayana Buddhism. That's what's so beautiful about the Vimalakirti. It's just got all these crazy things happening, people turning into different things and flowers falling out of the sky on the, I don't know, was it 10,000 or 20,000 disciples in Vimalakirti's room, which was 10 feet by 10 feet, all sitting in large chairs. Yeah, so that's chapter seven, definitely worth reading. And that's also chapter seven is where you learn the great love of a Bodhisattva, where you learn how it is. that compassion flows from the idea of having no self. So, wonderful chapter. Anyway, I do have to get to this hermit and non-attachment, don't I? So, returning to Suzuki Roshi and the hermit, when one keeps one's pure mind on some object or movement, leaving its true nature to the object itself, the oneness of subject and object occurs.

[27:01]

Here exists one sole independent activity. Flowers should be left to their own color and their own graceful movement. That's beautifully put. So he goes on to say, the hermit should use and care for his staff, yet he should neither depend on it nor ignore it. He should treat the staff the same way he treats his breath and zazen. And our zaza and our mind must always be kept on our breathing. The breathing should not be too long, short, heavy, or light. It should be natural. So you care for your staff just like you care for your breathing. And our staff is our practice. Our staff is all the things we depend on. So we care for them like we care for our breathing. We pay attention to them. We don't ignore them, but we don't depend too heavily on them.

[28:05]

And we just let our breathing enter into some natural way. Suki Roshi goes on to say, this way when we sit, we become one with the whole world. Here the great activity takes place. become one with the whole world, here the great activity takes place. The absolute independence comes true. That is why the hermit said that the early sages didn't have to depend on their staffs. When you can sit attention to your breathing and not attached to anything.

[29:11]

Even that really great experience you just had about 20 minutes ago. And why did it go away? And why am I in such a bad place right now? Or don't get attached to that. Why is that person moving so much over there and distracting me? Or what the zillions of, oh, all those stories that go on and on and on. Can we just let them go? Let them go and settle into the great activity that's taking place in you. In you all the time. What's nice about this idea about non-attachment, it's not like we have to go somewhere to find our freedom in our life. We just have to let go. We just have to. Loosen the hand of thought. So I'm going to carry on a little bit about non-attachment and the idea that non-attachment is sort of connected to impermanence.

[30:26]

So during the question and answer after lecture, and I've told this many stories before, before, but I love it so much. Suzuki Roshi was giving a lecture, and David Chadwick asked Suzuki Roshi, I've been listening to your lectures for years, but I just don't understand. Could you just please put it in a nutshell? Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase? Which would be handy, wouldn't it? That would be handy. Everybody laughed, Suzuki Roshi laughed, and he said, Everything changes. And then he asked for another question. It's not a bad one phrase. Everything changes. Impermanence. Fundamental Buddhist concept. Everything is changing. That's why you can't hold on to anything. Suzuki Roshi goes on and says that things change is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged.

[31:33]

Everything's changing all the time. So I suffer because what I had when I lost. Everything's changing. It's discouraging. But he says, when you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your life in each new moment. The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life. When you practice in this way, your life becomes stable and meaningful. The evanescence of things is the reason why you can enjoy your life. Life is the aliveness. It's the changing. It's the changing part of life. If life stayed the same all the time, that would be a nightmare, wouldn't it? Absolutely. So this impermanence is the joy of our life. This is the but. The way we can enjoy it is to let go.

[32:37]

I'm just going to continue with impermanence a little. Impermanence is the cornerstone of Buddhist teaching and practice. All that exists is impermanent. Nothing lasts. Therefore, nothing can be grasped or held on to. When we don't fully appreciate this simple but profound truth, we suffer. I'm just repeating what Suzuki Roshi said in a different way. This is one of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that the source of human suffering and discontent is that we crave and cling to the things of this world under the mistaken view that they will last forever. But nothing does. The way to be happy, according to the Buddha, is simple. Just let go. If you let go a lot, you have a lot of happiness.

[33:41]

If you let go a little, you have a little happiness. And if you can't let go at all, you have a lot of misery. So this practice of letting go is recommended not because it's a good idea, or a morally superior, but somehow because it is practical and really it is the only way. Because whether we let go or not, things will slide away and we won't be able to prevent it. Better to let go and cooperate with the way things are than to try fruitlessly to resist the irresistible shape of reality. I'm using letting go instead of non-attachment. Kind of like easier. But letting go is hard because our human mind persistently wants to hold on.

[34:49]

I hope you've noticed that while you've been sitting. It has an enormous ancient habit. Holding on. Maybe holding on is all we know. Maybe holding on is all we are. Because maybe letting go feels like death. So, you know, people always ask then people, what do you think about reincarnation? Maybe that's because Tibetan Buddhism has become so popular in America. But we think about reincarnation as every moment is a rebirth. You die to the last moment and are born into the new moment. So there is a death. Moment by moment, death is happening. We don't like that. We want to hold on to that last moment, especially if it was a good last moment.

[35:50]

And sometimes if it was a bad last moment, we still want to hold on to it because we were angry at it. We want to express our anger and our aversion to it some more. Sometimes we hold on to those aversions more than we hold on to the good things. But in any event, it doesn't work because the new moment has come and we need to be open to getting into it. So to practice letting go is to participate with this actual moment by moment dying, which is life. Let go is to join life. I don't know.

[36:55]

Maybe I've said enough. I mean, there's a lot more here to say, but I can't get into it. in the time I have left. Getting back to our koan, there was an appreciative word on the subject, which Secho said, which was this, in the beautiful garden or by the flowing stream, the hermit does not stay. He is already beyond your sight. Hermit living the life of non-attachment moves along in the beautiful garden by the flowing stream. You can't see him because he's already let go into the next moment of his life. So thank you for letting me spend some time taking you on a little journey into the mountains with the Hermit of Lotus Flower Peak and his life of non-attachment.

[37:58]

And I hope that you can Let go a little bit more. Relax into your life a little bit more in the next day or so. Just appreciate having this time with yourself and your friends together to be with yourself and find the joy and freedom that is your natural birthright as a human being. Thank you very much. our intention equally extend to every...

[38:44]

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