for a few minutes and then I'll take us back to China and what's going on there in the eighth century. Hello again.

[06:11]

So I was just thinking that, you know, for some of you maybe haven't been coming to these evening events, which have been going on now for quite a while. And I just wanted to say that it really doesn't matter. Because as the Buddha said, his teaching is good at the beginning. It's good in the middle. at the end so wherever you slice in you're going to get the same basic thing which is as the buddha said again uh my teaching amongst like the ocean has the taste of salt my teaching has the taste of liberation so the point of any of this or the the the purpose of our studies is really to find those places within these many, many words and many unique expressions of the Dharma that provide at some moment in time a little key that kind of unlocks something.

[07:22]

Maybe a little something, could be a big something. But the whole point is to find these untangle some knots or to knock out some pegs, as they say. So what I like about all of this is that each one of these teachers that we're looking at in the transmission of light has been doing just that. In their own unique style, they've been knocking out pegs or untangling knots for themselves, first of all, and then sharing that discovery with all of us, just as the Buddha did when he discovered the great relief of his own suffering and then by and by shared that with others and so on and so on down through the generations. So it's kind of like, you know, I don't know, what's that game you play where you telephone, where you whisper something that you heard to the person next to you. And it's quite wonderful how it never comes out the same. But at the same time, there's this kind of delightful exchange of human feeling, human thought, and human effort, you know, to help each other, which I think is really at the heart of all of this is the desire to benefit others.

[08:34]

So in that spirit, I wanted to keep going because I'm really having a good time going through these texts again, many of which I haven't looked at for decades now since I first came to Zen Center. And so it's really been encouraging to me to review the teachings and see that there's this kind of timeline of conversation that's been going on for centuries. A conversation among those who have come before, they leave, like someone once said, scratching on the cave walls. They've left their mark. They've left their thoughts behind. And then someone else picks those up and adds to them or takes something away. But little by little, this edifice of Dharma has been created in this rather beautiful way. And I think those of us who are drawn to it, Feel that. We see that. And, you know, so we keep looking and add our own, add our own understanding and inspiration.

[09:42]

So last week I talked about the East Mountain teachings. So now we're in China. We've passed through India. We started in India with Shakyamuni Buddha many centuries ago. And his teaching has been passed on warm hand to warm hand. along mountainous terrain from the plains of India up into the Himalayas and along the Silk Route into China. And by and by, we're going to see how it then traveled by ocean to Japan and to Korea and so on and so forth. And by airplane to California, the Suzuki Roshi. And we're not done. And now we're all transporting instantaneously via these... amazing Zoom meetings that we have. So back in the day, they were walking around and they were, you know, communicating by little brief writings or memorizing the teachings.

[10:44]

So in the East Mountain, as far as we know, and the further back we look into particularly Zen history, the more misty these mountains become. It's like... It's really hard to discern exactly the shape of the practice that was going on in the earliest years of Chan. So this would be sixth century or so. Bodhidharma arrives, the Indian, the great Indian teacher. The question being, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And one of the answers being because his teacher, Prajnatara, told him to go. He told him to go to China. There may be people with some understanding who will benefit from these teachings. And so he did. It took him three years to get there. So Bodhidharma has come, and he pretty much is a kind of a loner. He sits in a cave for nine years, according to the legend. He's met with the emperor of China. That's another interesting conversation that's taken place.

[11:46]

And that's kind of a memorable exchange that goes on there in which When Bodhidharma is asked by the emperor, who are you facing me? Bodhidharma replies, don't know. Another important pointer, don't know. So you could just contemplate that for quite a while, and that would be a really good koan for all of us. Who are you facing me? I don't know. I don't know. And it's okay. It's okay not to know. So by several generations after Bodhidharma now, we've gone through Bodhidharma's transmission to Huayka, the student who, you know, according to legend, cut off his arm to express his sincerity to have this teaching. And then to Sengon and then to Daoshin and now Hongren, the fifth generation from Bodhidharma. So Hongren is one of the first teachers who actually appears in the written record having settled down in a place.

[12:55]

So these early Zen teachers were located in a place called East Mountain. And there were a number of temples there. And the reputation of these East Mountain teachers was solely as meditation teachers. That's all they taught was meditation. There were a number of monks who lived in those monasteries. Apparently, they did no physical work in support of the temple. So this was to come later. This teaching of a day of no work is a day of no food. One of the principles of our own practice here at Zen Center, we all work and to support the temple. But that's later. These monks had probably workers who came in and so on, so they could basically spend their time meditating. So then the question is, what were they doing when they were meditating? And this isn't so clear, but it's a really interesting question. And this is one of the questions that runs through the history of Zen. When you're sitting there, you know, doing what?

[13:57]

What are you doing? There's some really good koans about that question. Are you fixing to make a Buddha? As one teacher asked a sitting monk. So... If we look back in the written record and we see what the instructions were, the earliest instructions were pretty simple. They're pretty basic. And I went over two of these in a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd just review them briefly again, because they're really important as kind of templates for what's going to follow. So the first one, the first treatise was the one that was written by Bodhidharma called the Two Entrances and the Four Practices. And it's very brief. And it's very important, quite essential to what happens next. So the two entrances, one of the entrances to practice or to realization is having a foundation in the doctrines that underlie the practice of meditation. So understanding the teaching, understanding the philosophy, the theory of practice, what the Buddha taught, how he expressed the Four Noble Truths and so on and so forth.

[15:07]

This underlying principles are quite significant in terms of what evolved into the particular style that we call the Zen school. So those primary principles, which I think you've all heard many times, the first and perhaps most significant to remember is non-duality. Non-duality. Not two. There are not two things. The other is dependent core rising. That whatever there is, is a result of a dependency on everything else. Nothing exists by itself. There's no separate thing. Everything comes up together. All together. Dependent core rising. The third principle is emptiness. Mind like the sky. The character for emptiness that the Chinese use to translate that term from shunyata, from Sanskrit, is the character for sky. The sky. And then the last term is conventional designations.

[16:07]

Conventional designations is another word, another way of designating words, language, calling things names, giving names to things. And so we studied these four basic principles during the chapter on Nagarjuna, which some of you were here for. Nagarjuna is known as the second Buddha. He's second century Indian. philosopher and Zen master. So he wrote a very famous verse in what is called verse 18 of chapter 24 of his masterwork. Masterwork is the fundamental teaching of the middle way, the middle way. So these terms are also found as underpinnings of the yogacharya or the mind-only teachings. So these are both Prajnaparamita or Mahayana schools, the mind-only teachings. one of the major schools, and the middle way, the other major school, are both basically subscribed to the emptiness teachings.

[17:13]

So if you reread the second half of the 30 verses that we looked at, Vasubhanda's 30 verses, another Indian master, you can see how the emptiness teachings are basically at the conclusion of the 30 verses. Okay, so I don't want to go, I'm not going to go through all of that again, but I did want to share with you For those of you who might remember this diagram of Nagarjuna's teaching, which I find very helpful myself, that has these four main principles. Okay. Can you see that? Not all of it, huh? There we go. That's all. Okay. So as I said, this is verse 18, chapter 24. of the fundamental teaching of the middle way. So there we have at the top, number one is the middle way. Non-duality is one of the major principles, non-duality. So basically, the very famous verse, this is the verse down here.

[18:19]

There's this very famous verse, which has been, there are vast books written about this verse, what it means. But actually, I think it means what it says. And I find it to be very helpful as a summary of of the emptiness. This is also a good way to study the Heart Sutra, is to look at this verse and then apply it to the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita. So Nagarjuna says, we state that whatever is dependently co-arisen, which is just everything, everything is dependently co-arisen. There are no things that are not dependently co-arisen. We state that whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness. That explanation being a conventional designation, being words, is itself the middle way. So this is the great trick. This is like a hat trick that Nagarjuna is pulling using all of these terms.

[19:22]

And he puts them into this one verse. And everybody's going like, oh, my God, that's amazing. So it does take a bit of study and a bit of thinking. But if all of you familiar with the Heart Sutra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. That's these two. Number two over here, form is emptiness, is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Okay. And then Nagarjuna is saying that. what i just told you i just told you using words i just told you that using words and language conventional designation that fact that you know that now this is just talk this is just thinking concepts only is the middle way is non-dual the whole thing stop talking Start talking, back.

[20:26]

So stop talking is like there isn't anything. Silence and stillness. But that's leaning too far into nihilism. Keep talking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that there is something, and I can tell you what it is, and I know what it is, is leaning too far into eternalism. That there is something or there isn't something is called duality. Is and isn't are the primary dualistic propositions. There is something or there isn't. Yes or no. So this formula is basically saying, stop talking. And now I'm going to explain to you how that stop talking is non-dual by telling you all about this. Doesn't help, does it? I know. But anyway, this is really important. And I would just say, Here it is. If you have a time or interest and you want to just, you know, work your brain, it'll start to heat up.

[21:30]

Jay Garfield's book called The Fundamental Teaching of a Middle Way is a very good, and again, you have to read it a few times, very good survey of this teaching. And every now and then you'll go like, oh, I get it. And then you stop talking. It goes away. Oh, I get it. No, you don't. So this is part of the joy of the Dharma is that every time you think you sort of got it, you know, sitting there in Zazen, somebody rings a bell and it all goes away. And then it comes back sometimes. So this is the entrance by principle. Understanding the principles that underlie the practice are... Not essentially, not really necessary. In fact, Zen school sort of said, oh, just don't get too worked up about that. Don't get too worked up about the philosophical teachings underpinning what we're going to tell you to do, which is just sit there.

[22:37]

Be quiet. And watch your mind. Watch it do its thing. Little by little, things will quiet down. And you'll be at peace. And that's what this... second part of bodhidharma's entrance is is the practices so this so first we have the principle i just showed you nagarjuna that principle the second now this is all come along with bodhidharma bodhidharma brings all these sophisticated teachings with him he's been well trained you know the indian buddhists had it all down this is all of this stuff is coming in from india into china so it's pretty it's already very high level philosophy and high-level texts and commentaries and so on. But the Chinese are just getting it for the first time. So basically what Bodhidharma gave them was nine years of sitting in a cave. He really emphasized that what you really need to do is be quiet and still for a while.

[23:43]

Pay attention to your mind. So the second major aspect of the East Mountain teachings that came from this Bodhidharma's thesis is called the entrance of practice. And the entrance of practice... I'm gonna stop sharing. The entrance of practice is basically these instructions for how to meet the challenges of our daily life through practices. So the one side of our life is the internal world of our thinking, our feelings, that only I alone know. I alone know whether water's cold or warm. I alone know the taste of salt in my own mouth. Each of these experiences I alone know. And yet I can share with you some kind of sense that perhaps you and I together might be able to share. And that's what this Buddhist transmission of light is all about i'm trying to bring my understanding of myself and of the world out through language and perhaps that somehow resonates for you and then when you have some resonance you then share that with others as well that's kind of what this transmission is all about you know trying to bring our understanding uh out to one another uh hopefully as a benefit so this

[25:12]

Bringing out the practice is the second entrance. First entrance principle, second entrance is practice in our daily lives, is this opportunity to practice these principles, to put the practice of non-duality, of an understanding of conventional designations, of language, our understanding of dependent core rising and of emptiness, to bring those understandings into our actions in the world. how we live our lives. So the four practices that Bodhidharma says, and these are pretty strict in a certain way. The first one is to accept suffering without complaint, and to understand it as the fruit of your own past transgressions. That's kind of tough. I think I gave you the example of having, you know, never wash dishes much at home when I was a kid and then ending up at Green's restaurant with mountains of dishes to wash. And hearing this teaching and thinking, oh, yeah, I owe some debt to my mom in particular for all those dishes that I failed to help with.

[26:21]

And so I'm getting a chance to pay back my debt. The second is to practice acceptance of circumstances, whether good or bad. If something good fortune comes, you know, I accept that. If not so good fortune comes, I accept that. And I work with it either way. I don't get carried away with, oh, now it's good and it's always going to be good and it's mine. And, you know, we tend to get very greedy around the good things. We want to keep them. We want to attach to them and the bad things we want to avert from. So that action of pushing away or of trying to get a hold of is basically what they're saying here is, Find the middle way between, you know, overly celebrating or grieving. Whatever it is, see if you can accept the circumstances, you know, in a wholesome way, in a healthy way. The third practice is to practice the absence of craving. Craving is the source of suffering. The Buddha was very clear about that. Wanting things to be different than they are is craving.

[27:24]

The way things are... We can't really say so well. But the way things are and accepting them is the antidote to craving. Just allowing things to be. Not messing with them so much. The fourth practice is to practice in accordance with the Dharma. Meaning to eradicate wrong views, thoughts, discriminating thoughts. To practice the six perfections, which I think maybe you all know. But if not, there's generosity, ethics. Concentration, patience, energy, and wisdom. Prajnaparamita is the sixth of the six perfections. And at the same time, to do so without having any practice whatsoever. So here's this, again, the non-dual balancing. Practice wholeheartedly without having any practice at all. Oh, here's my practice. Not really.

[28:25]

Practice thoroughly and wholeheartedly, but without any kind of ambition about it or any kind of, oh, look at me, you know, some pride about it or whatever. You're just going along doing the best you can. That's all. It's kind of simple. Just, you know, like open ocean rowing. You're just moving your way through the water with as much grace and ease as you can for your own enjoyment and for the enjoyment of those that you're not running into. You're basically taking care of your space. So in effect, these two entrances, as Bodhidharmas called them, are, as I said, seemingly two sides of our own experience as human beings. So there's one side, we could say, is inside of our minds, that private world that I call myself. And the other side is what I think of as outside of my own mind. or what I call the world, or my environment, in which this self appears at any given moment.

[29:29]

So I think it's really helpful every now and then, and I'm going to stop for a few minutes, and just let you, invite you to reflect on what you think of as inside yourself, what's going on inside, as you imagine, yourself. You might want to close your eyes for doing that. exploration and then in a little while uh i'll say okay now open your eyes and consider what you experience that's outside yourself so starting with inside yourself what's inside yourself Okay, so now if you will, open your eyes and you can, you're more than welcome to look around your own space and contemplate what is it that's outside of yourself?

[31:15]

What is it outside of yourself? What we call the world. So when we add to this simple reflection, you know, inside, outside, the varieties of perceptions and ideas and feelings that we're having about what is happening, where it's happening, and who it's happening to right now, who we are, it's really easy for us to see how complicated the question is. Like, who are you?

[32:16]

How could you possibly say, given all of that data you just experienced, like right now, who are you? And I think it helps us to see how complicated it was that the Buddha said when he had some understanding about who he really was, that it was very hard to explain. How can I bring this down to a level of explanation and to words? You know, the vastness of this experiential life that we have. How can I bring this into words so that I can help people to become free of whatever it is that's causing their pain? And mostly, he said, it's grasping. It's wanting things to be different than they are. That's your suffering. And then he talked about how to free ourselves from that suffering. What discipline or practices we would need to take up in order to become free of our habitual way. of treating the world and of thinking about ourselves as separate.

[33:17]

So complicated. And yet, you know, in a very sincere homage and regard for this effort that the Buddha made, this is the same kind of reflection that meditators have been doing now for thousands of years. They've been turning their attention to the inside, so-called inside, and then to the outside. back to the inside. We do this for an hour every morning there in the zendo, the lights are dim, doors are open, and we're sitting there, you know, silent and still, it's the instruction, sit as quietly as you can, and contemplate, you know, this pivot between what's inside, what's outside, until there are no longer any sides. until the sides don't make any sense, right? Is sound inside or outside? Are thoughts inside or outside?

[34:21]

I mean, trying to locate inside and outside eventually becomes frustrated, and you realize there aren't any sides, which is exactly what the Buddha concluded on viewing the star that morning of his awakening. And one sutra says that at that point he proclaimed, that the entire universe in the 10 directions is the true human body. The entire universe in the 10 directions is the true human body. Big outside, big inside, as Suzuki Rishi called it, big mind. So letting go of reference points, letting go of boundaries, of boundariness to the mind, the mind ku, the emptiness of the mind is like the sky, Mind like the sky. It doesn't care. Again, Suzuki Roshi's teaching. The mind doesn't care what comes in it. It doesn't mind what flies through. The mind is at peace and the mind is the context in which all of our mental elaborations, our discursive thinking, our conditioning is taking place.

[35:37]

That's the arena. And within the arena, there's this amazing circus going on. And so we turn our attention from the circus to the arena and then back to the circus again. In doing so, we begin to loosen up some of those boundaries. We begin to learn how to do this move, inside, outside move. So this is just one example of a meditation instruction that can lead to an insight of the non-dual nature of reality. And as we continue through the various teachers, the various generations of Zen teachers, each one of them uses a very unique technique or has their own twist, has their own particular way of expressing this very same thing, the non-dual nature of reality. They're all going to end up there one way or another. And the hope is that they can then guide their own students to such the same kind of realization.

[36:37]

that they can open them up, and then they can also bring them back to washing the dishes, having a cup of tea, back to the relative world where we are most comfortable, and then open up again, inside, outside. So throughout Zen history, there have been a lot of these duels. among teachers about methods and about practices. And these duels, dueling, D-U-E-L, this kind of dueling, or in some cases debate, is really about the variety of approaches to this basic teaching of bodhidharmas, of the two entrances of principle and practice. And I think many of you know, of course you know, that there are right here in California, in Northern California, there are a number of these duels going on as we speak. I know of a few. I know that there's dry and wet Vipassana. I know there's Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen, and I also know there's the majestic Vajrayana.

[37:39]

So, you know, these are just a few of the, and there are many nuances among all of these. There are nuances as many as there are teachers of each of these traditions. So, you know, for future generations, the question of whose version of the Buddha's teaching is going to gain the most following and patronage is the one that's going to survive as a school or a sect going forward into time, just as happened in China over 1,200 years ago, as we'll soon see. There was a competition. There was a duel going on. But who's got the understanding that's most likely to gain followers and patronage? So these are pretty essential if you're going to have a place where you can practice together. So before going back to China, there was one other thing I wanted to mention to you again that I'm getting kind of excited about, which is this intensive that we're going to be doing here at Zen Center starting on April 19th called the Harmony of Zen and Vipassana.

[38:49]

And I think what's delighting three of us. So Paul Haller, Gil Fransdale, myself, are working on how to put this all together. And it's really been a great deal of fun because both Gil and Paul spent a great many years practicing in Southeast Asia, Theravadan Buddhist practices, or what now in the West is called Vipassana. And they both have also studied for many years Zen traditions. So they're kind of hybrids. You know, they both have a really strong background in both of these approaches to practice. And then recently I got a paper from Gil. He sent me this paper with the delightful title of the Dhammadasa Fonsdale. Fonsdale is his last name. Dhammadasa means the Dharma location of Gil Fonsdale. And... The reason he wrote it is because a lot of times people will ask Gil, given his dual citizenship with Zen and Vipassana, well, who are you? What are you? What do you teach?

[39:50]

What is the location of your teaching? And so he made a point in this essay that he wrote, which is really quite good, that really his Dhammadasa is his own personal version of Buddhism and that there isn't Buddhism. There's not a thing called Buddhism, but there's Gill's, Dhamma Dasa of Gill, Fonsdale. There's the Dhamma Dasa of Paul Haller. There's the Dhamma Dasa of Fu Schrader. So each one of us cannot help but personalize our understanding of the teachings by what has inspired us, what we've read, who we studied with, how we came into the world, our conditioning as people here. Me, I grew up in California. I've got that to go with. Speaking English, I'm white. I mean, there are all of these different effects that have a big influence on what I think of as Buddhism, but actually it's fluism.

[40:55]

It's like, well, here's how I see it. And I think what's really important, and another point that Gil makes in his paper, is that we should let people know where we're coming from. You know, he has a pretty clear way of describing all the influences. And so I did this myself. I wrote my own little Dhamma Dasa for myself. And it was a really good exercise because I really kind of forgotten some of the influences that brought me into practice. And certain, you know, I grew up. Christianity, I was an Episcopalian, which is really different than a Presbyterian or a Methodist or a Lutheran. So I have this particular visual memory from my childhood of kind of high church, lots of smoke and magic, nice outfits and, you know, big altars and lots of brass and flowers.

[41:56]

So my childhood memories of what I was infused with in terms of religion makes me very happy when I go into a Zen temple and I see a lot of brass and a lot of flowers and lots of decorative and the beautiful vestments that the priests are able to wear. And I begin to understand, well, that's my conditioning. It doesn't make it the right thing. It doesn't make it right. So I like the idea that we're all going to, in some sense, confess the source of our inspiration and not assume that it's shared by anyone else. It's mostly like, well, here I can give you what inspires me. And then my encouragement to you is to find what inspires you and express that with this one taste of liberation at the core. I think this kind of discernment is not only helpful for each of us as individuals, but I think it's also really helpful for us to discern within the tradition itself where the principles and the practices came to be held as essential and formative, in line with this primary wish of the Buddha to liberate all beings from suffering.

[43:19]

So that's the point. If that's not what you're doing or thinking you're doing or hoping to be doing, well, then you may have slipped off track. little bit. So to review that intention, what's called the bodhisattva vow, is I am wishing to do this practice for the sake of suffering beings, for the sake of all being, including me, you know, don't leave yourself out. So this is one of the emphasis that is given in the style of teaching that the Zen school came to form, is this called the Mahayana tradition where the bodhisattva vows are emblematic of that tradition, that you're not doing this for yourself, you're doing this for others, whatever this is. And I think that vow is one of the primary distinctions that can be made between the stated objectives of the earlier teachings, which are beautiful and liberative, with an idea, because of the challenge of actually becoming a Buddha, which can take

[44:23]

multiple lifetimes understood, that in order to escape the rounds of suffering, that there is a way you can do that. There is an escape from suffering. And that would be nirvana, where you're no longer subject to these endless rounds of reincarnation. Whereas in the Mahayana teachings, there's a little bit of a twist where it says, well, actually, yes, it would be very nice to escape from the rounds of samsara. And we all want to do that. But you can't go by yourself. You have to take everybody else with you. It's just kind of like, oh, no. Yeah. So everybody has to be on the bus before you get to go. So I used to tell people when I first came and started to hear about some of these things, I thought, oh, no, that's going to be really a lot of work. He said, yeah. So I would tell people that I had an Aloha shirt in my closet, and I did. It was quite a nice shirt I got in Hawaii. And I said, so I'm saving that shirt. So when all of you are ready to go, we're all going to go to Hawaii together because I really want to go back to Hawaii, but I'm not going to go until we can all go.

[45:25]

So that's this idea of all together now. We're all going to be free and we're going to do that together. And so how do we do that? We do that by practicing the path of liberation for all beings. So as the Buddha said, the path is enlightenment. Enlightenment is the path, every step of it. So just to return to, let's see what time are we. Oh, almost there. So I want to go back to China again, a few centuries back to 1,200 years or so, to the East Mountain Masters, which are about to change drastically. There's a big change about to happen in Zen from this, as I said before, from the mind-only teachings, the Yogacara teachings, to the Middle Way School, Nagarjuna. diagram I showed you with the green square in the middle. So as we're leaving the mind-only school, which still characterizes the first five of the Zen ancestors, I thought I would again briefly review Hongren, who's the fifth Chinese ancestor, who's about to transmit to Huynong, number six, and probably the biggest name in Zen history.

[46:45]

Hongren's treatise is on cultivating the mind. And so together with Bodhidharma's treatise and Hongren, fifth ancestor's treatise, we have the first ancestor in the fifth. We basically get what is the fundamental template for Zen meditation. The first step being to calm the mind, but in early teachings was called shamatha, or calming the mind, tranquility. And Hongren uses the metaphor of the setting sun as the focal point. You use your imagination to see the setting sun, which is a stable kind of glow, but not bright glow, just a kind of reddish glow on the horizon. And by doing so, the mind settles, quiets, calming the mind. And then you shift your attention to the flow of the transformation of mental activity. So this is a teaching where by shifting to the flow of your mental activity from this very calm, stable posture, the flow of activity itself begins to slow and kind of begin to slow to the point of dissolving.

[47:53]

And so then basically it's just the light of awareness, which is considered to be awakening without these distractions, these little things that are running around in your head. So then the mind is at peace. It comes to rest. So one of the big questions that also we'll be looking at throughout the Zen tradition is, is peaceful rest the same thing as the Buddhist awakening? Is that it? Is it the mind coming to rest? Is the cessation of thought? Is that enlightenment? Is that what it is? And some say it is, and some say it isn't. And everyone says it's a very pleasant experience. To quiet the mind. I mean, that's kind of bliss. Those are bliss states. The Buddha said, yeah, those are bliss states and they're very desirable. Bliss is a great rest, a place to rest.

[48:54]

However, as he also said, you can't stay there. They, like everything, they're impermanent. So there's no place called bliss. There's no place called bliss. total quiescence from now on. But there's something going on in there that has to do with relief that I think becomes a more nuanced conversation through the generations to follow through the centuries to follow. So how did the Buddha come to understand reality? You know, how did he come to explain it in the way he did? And part of it was the quiescence. But then the other part of it was his ability to put his understanding into language, into words, into the Dharma, the teaching. So I want to be looking at these generations of Zen teachings to see what they say about this question of what is enlightenment? You know, I mean, that's the big one, right? Buddha didn't give us much to go on. He didn't say too much other than I looked at the star and I woke up and I was like,

[49:59]

Well, could you give us a little more detail about that? But he didn't. I think he was very wise not to lock it down, because then we'd all be trying to kind of create something that would be like a thing, you know, a concept or an image. So by the end of what Dr. McCray, if you remember, the wonderful, wonderful, and I am so grateful for his books, Seen Through Zen, I find it to be wonderful. I've read it many times now, and every time I do, I find more and more of interest and of help in how he who has done much study of these issues. It's called Encounter Transformation and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. And Dr. McCray has passed away, but he left a wonderful legacy with this particular text and many other things he wrote. So he calls this phase of early Chan. And So far, in early Chan, we know that Zen, so far, all we know is that Zen has to do with meditation and that the appropriate technique for meditating is still under discussion.

[51:09]

So we've got meditation, but we don't know so much about do what. That hasn't been answered. We know that the purpose of our endeavor in Zen is to awaken for the benefit of others. It's the Bodhisattva vow. We know that there are two major schools which have fed into the Zen schools. The understanding of the Buddhist teaching, we know there's the mind-only school. This very mind is Buddha. And the middle way school, no mind, no Buddha. Compliments. Is and isn't. This mind is Buddha. No mind, no Buddha. Are non-dual. They complete one another. So a lot of these dualities that we'll... be seen again and again throughout the, as we go into the koans and so on, you get a lot of these compliments. And if you turn one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. So the big instruction that runs through all of these teachings is called pivot. Don't get stuck on one side or the other of any proposition.

[52:13]

Don't get stuck on this very mind is Buddha. Don't get stuck on no mind, no Buddha. So how do we keep from reifying our understanding, you know, being done? I got it. I'm done. I know. That's a good sign you don't. As soon as you, you know, there's a saying Dogen has that, forget it, something like, you know there's something missing. Oh, I'll find it again. It's gone. Anyway, it'll come back. It's missing. That's what it is. It's missing. But it's good. And I will find it. I have it right close by. So we also know that a major shift is taking place in Zen from reading scriptures and performing ritual to meeting face to face. So this is probably the biggest transformation that happens within what becomes called the Zen school.

[53:15]

The students are no longer sitting there in a classroom together, reading these texts and studying texts and asking the teachers to explain the text to them, which was a big part of the many, many generations that preceded Zen's formation. What's happening now is the student is coming and asking questions of their senior, of their teacher. And within that dialogue, the two talking together, the The complete realization appears. Rev was talking about that this morning. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can fathom the reality of all existence, as it says in the Lotus. Only a Buddha and a Buddha, only the universe itself in meeting with the universe itself completes, is non-dual, is the non-dual reality. It's not a person. Buddha is not a person. It's a principle, the principle of awakening. It's an epitaph.

[54:17]

Epitaph? Yeah. He's a Buddha. That guy was a Buddha. He was awake. I like that inquiry that was made of the Buddha shortly after his awakening. He runs into someone on the road and the man says, you know, you're very unusual. Like, are you a god? And the Buddha says, no. He said, are you a demon? He says, no. Are you a water spirit? He says, no. Are you human? He says, no. And then the man says, well, what are you? And the Buddha says, I'm awake. I'm awake. So it's a quality. It's a quality that we all have at the core of our being. And waking up is when that quality, like the sun, becomes the predominant understanding. we have ourselves of who we are and and what it is we're here to be and to do in our true nature so to speak so all of the zen teachings that we're going to be looking at next are conversations between teachers and students or between teachers and other teachers who are endeavoring to clarify what's called the great matter of birth and death clarifying the great matter of birth and death of coming and going of inside and outside of the two things

[55:41]

How do we reconcile these dichotomies? And the next phase of the Zen formation in China reads very much like a very good novel. It really does. We now have this narrative form. I think one of the things that makes Zen fun too, as someone once said, I think they said that Theravadan practice is really very helpful for psychologists. Vajrayana practice is very helpful for visual artists, and Zen practice is very helpful for poets. So the language of Zen is the language of poetry. There's all of the teachers, you read Dogen, and you're just reading page after page of poetry, enlightened poetry of enlightenment. So now we have narrative coming in. Now that Zen is in China, there's some storytelling. starting to happen. They're conveying the teachings through stories of the ancestors. So there are palace intrigues, there are declarations of falsehood among rival sects, there's competition, and then there's a winner-takes-all result.

[56:54]

So this is our next ancestor, Huynong, who takes the crown. Although the person himself, Huynong, had long passed away and may never have been very much of a significant teacher. He was one of 10 names under Hongren's discipleship. There was the name Hengong, but he was not mentioned much anywhere else. Although now we have an entire sutra that is attributed to him and his teaching. So this is kind of a wonderful, this attribution is a creation of the intellectuals of the capitals of China who wanted to make this very important iconographic image to carry the teachings and to carry the image of what a teacher is like. And what is that human being who's awake? What are they like? So the descendants of Huynong, you know, for them, he's their dominant king.

[57:56]

He's the one who won this competition. which is really quite fascinating, actually. Some of it has, there's some historical detail about this competition, this logos side of Zen history, which can help us better understand the mythos side, like where did this legend come from? What were they doing? It wasn't just, they weren't just trying to trick us, you know, several centuries later. They actually had a purpose in infusing the story of Fuenon. with certain very important doctrines, with principles, Buddhist principles. Along with like the Zen twist, you know, what's the little Zen contribution to Buddhism, to the teaching of the Buddha? So, let's see, I think that's it for now. I'm going to dive into the Platform Sutra, which is where Kuenang's story is told. Also in chapter 34 of the Transmission of Light, there's a nice summary and some really additional teachings that Keizan offers about Huenong.

[59:03]

So if you have Transmission of Light, I would invite you to read that if you have time. It's one of the longer ones. Most of them are about two pages. This one runs to about six pages. So please, if you can. whatever you would like to bring up right now i'd be very happy to to hear great assembly any uh anybody like to uh yay okay alicia is that correct did i pronounce that right that's perfect Good. Hi, Fu. Hi. I'm really curious about when Zen was in China, the influence of Taoism, because Taoism talks about the non-duality and a symbol of yin and yang, the form and emptiness and how they're all a part of each other.

[60:17]

So I'm wondering if you could talk about that a bit. Not very well. I'm really remiss in my Taoist studies. And one of these days I'm going to do it because people ask that question a lot. And I'm like, I don't really know. But I know there are books about that. I did get a book recently by Hinton. What's his first name? David Hinton, who's a translator of Chinese poetry, and I think he's a Taoist more than a Buddhist, or he doesn't associate exactly, but he talks about the terms because when Buddhism came into China, Taoism was already quite established and as was Confucianism. So the Taoists, when the people are getting excited about this new stuff coming in from India, they translated it in the Chinese using a lot of Taoist terms. So I think, yeah, here's this book by David Hinton called China Root, Taoism, Chan, and Original Zen.

[61:20]

So you might want to pick that up. I only started to read it because I was waiting for you, Alicia, or someone to ask me again. I'm going to be ready this time. But anyway, maybe I'll get it read before next time. But it's a great question. And I know there's tremendous amount of Taoism. In fact, some people say it's just that Buddhism just put on its Taoist, disguised itself. The Taoism basically got clothed in this Buddhist outfit, but really at the core is this really ancient teaching of the Tao. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Weston. Hello. Hello. I had two questions. One of them was how, what is Buddhism's current relationship with like, I guess I would consider it like more Western psychological language, like the idea of me projecting onto you or like fusing a thought with an emotion or those sorts of things.

[62:26]

And then my second question was how does any of the monastic traditions deal with or do anything about like prevent? themselves from becoming like kind of insular and like on this little island where something's happening and people like looking in there like wow this is really weird and just kind of like walk away yeah yeah yeah well that second one happens all the time so it's really hard not to look weird when you're practicing zen but anyway um yeah i mentioned episcopalian and i think one of the things i really feel really grateful for my roots is that the Episcopal priests that I grew up with were married. They had children and they wore, you know, they wore their regular civvies during the week. They didn't wear clerical clothing except on Sunday. And then they had these really nice robes and so on. So I thought, well, that's nice. I kind of do that. I wear my civvies during the week. When I go to Whole Foods, I'm not wearing my robes.

[63:29]

And I do have kind of short hair, but that's just... That's OK. That's OK for me. So I think there's a wish to not be so weird that you put people off. But then, you know, who knows? I don't know what people are thinking. I just try to smile and say, can I help you? You know, it's an issue. I know it's an issue. friendliness. When I was at Tassahara last couple of years back with, I think I told this story to you all, some of you, one of our students who's African-American, I asked her if she wanted to go down with me. I was doing a workshop with Angel Kyodo and I was really happy to be going down and I thought she might enjoy it. And she said, sure, because she wanted to find out if she could practice at Tassahara and would be comfortable there. And about the second day we were there, I asked her how it was going. She said, I can't practice here. And I said, why not? And she said, these people are really unfriendly.

[64:30]

And I said, they are? She said, yeah. And I said, will you tell them? She said, okay. So we had a residence meeting. And I said, you know, Dina wants to tell you something. And she told him, you know, I just don't feel friendly. No one said hello to me. They don't greet me. You know, I don't know why. And somebody raised their hand and said, oh, we thought you were a guest. And I said, what? That's how you treat the guests? So there is a thing about Zen, new Zen students in particular, mistaking sobriety and meditative composure for their social form. It's like Buddha said, I taught them this thing that I just read. So the Buddha called his monks aside because townspeople were complaining that the monks were unfriendly. They went to the Buddha and they said, those monks are so unfriendly. And so the Buddha said, excuse me, what are you doing?

[65:31]

And the monk said, oh, we have our eyes cast down. We don't look at anybody. And he said, no, that's just in the meditation hall. So when you're on the road, say good morning to people, greet them, be friendly. So he actually had to teach them that. And we have to teach people that because there's this little mistake about, The appropriate what's the appropriate time for different formations, different behaviors. And so friendliness is really a big thing that we have to remind people. You have to be friendly. So back to your first question, which was what? My first question. Oh, how Buddhism like relates to modern, like psychological things of like projection, like I'm projecting my experience onto you or I fused an emotion in a story and I can't. them apart very i think western psychological teachings are taken from buddhism in fact i just read a paper about that that was really pretty convincing they said you know no one's crediting the buddha with all of this you know mindful secular mindfulness and all this stuff it's like excuse me but this is directly out of the sutras um

[66:48]

I don't know if you were here for the Yogacara teachings, but the mind only teachings include a very important description of the mind. The way the mind functions is that reality itself, that little exercise we did. OK, just look around without trying to don't label everything. Just look at what's here. You know, just raw the raw data of your experience. There's it doesn't come with labels. Right. Projection. The projections are produced by your mind and the Buddha called them imputations or the imputational character of phenomena is what you're calling things. And there are these three characteristics of all phenomena. So this is a phenomenon. It's something I can perceive with my senses. So I, you, we all do this thing where I look at a phenomena and it's got three characteristics. The first one is that it's dependably co-arisen. depends on, oh, my God, how many things went into making this, you know, metallurgy and silk and tassels.

[67:50]

And I mean, it's completely very complicated and dependently coerced on all of that that went into making it. That's his first characteristic, which you can't say. I can't say all of that. I just can go. See, see it. So that characteristic is not nameable. The second characteristic is called the imputational. I put on this thing that this is my bell. I bought this bell in Japan. That's my story, my projection on this object. That's the second. The third characteristic is the liberative one. Those two things, they're not the same. The imputation and the dependent core is in nature. of phenomena are not the same. The finger, meaning the words, pointing at the moon, meaning that up in the sky thing, up in the sky, are not the same.

[68:53]

We mistake our words for the thing they're referring to. Like, foo. That's just a word. That's not even close to whatever this is. I have no idea. Don't know. No clue. Just like this thing. I don't know how this got here or what it can do or how it got made. I have no way to name it, but we do anyway. I gave it a name. Oh, hi, my name is Fu. That's my imputation. So if I think something about you, if I project on you, my stories, it's nothing to do with you. It's not who you are. So, you know, you are free of my stories about you. And that's Western psychology. Don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. It's really good to see the two coming together, actually. I don't feel critical of that. It's nice to notice that you're getting a lot of your material from a very ancient source.

[69:55]

And these insights have been around a long time about us. It's not new. That's not Freud and Jung. It's just like... They did fine, but, you know, yeah. Thanks for asking. Thanks for sharing. You're welcome. Hi, Lisa. You are muted. There you are. There you are. I was going to say, let Richard go first. He was ahead of me. Oh, I'm sorry. Hi, Richard. You okay, Richard? Oh, I see. Did you want to share something? I had a question. You mentioned a book, Transmission of Light. I was wondering, is that a book that you're going to be using as a basis for the weekly talks?

[71:04]

And I was looking on Kindle for it, and I just wanted to make sure I found the right book before I get it. Are you talking about the David Hinton book? It says, Records of the Transmission of the Lamb, Volume 7, Books 27 and 28, Biographies by Gao Yun. Okay. Well, the one I have been using and is worn out from use is by Thomas Cleary, Translations, Transmission of Light. This is Kezon, Japanese Teachers. Oh, there's another version of it that Kelly's holding up. Oh, there's another one. Who did that translation, Guy? It's also Thomas Cleary. I think it's just a new one. Thomas Cleary. Yeah, that's the new cover. It's a new cover if you're looking for it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, Thomas Cleary, Transmission of Life.

[72:06]

Thomas Cleary, yeah. Okay, I'll look for that. Zen and the Art of Enlightenment, yeah. Zen and the Art of Enlightenment. Is that a book that we're going to be using as a basis for a while? Yeah, well, we're getting there. We started with Shakyamuni Buddha. That's the first story. In the book. And then, you know, the names of the Zen ancestors that we chant are in this book. And we have worked our way through Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu. And now we're up to Huinong. We've gone into China. So it passes from India into China and then into Japan with Dogen. Toward the end, I think the last Eijo, Kone Eijo, is the last one. Wonderful. It's a great book. I think you'll really enjoy it. Transmission of Light. Dharma Transmission.

[73:07]

Dharma Transmission of Light. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Take care. Thank you. Lisa. Yes. Yeah, you're good. Thank you. So I'm sitting here trying to balance between the idea of the authority of the ancient teachings versus Gillism and Phuism and Lisaism. How do we keep from going off the rails? You can't. Ah, no. Don't even try. Don't try. You're already off the rails. But then we have the transmission. And we have Dharma transmission and lineage. Yeah. Well, it's a big field.

[74:08]

It's a big field. You know, it's hard to miss. I told you that story about Kobanchino with his archery. Remember? Kobanchino was a master Japanese archer. He had that beautiful outfit and the kyudo and the... long bow really long bow and they set up their targets fairly close if you've ever seen it great to look up on youtube some of these kyudo masters are absolutely gorgeous as are all the zen arts you know like tea ceremony anyway covencino who was in america from suzuki roshi's invitation was invited to esalen and he set up his target and he had his outfit on and he had his bow and he pulled it back and then he He shifted the direction slightly and shot the arrow into the ocean. Someone asked him why he did that, and he said, can't miss. That's Dharma transmission.

[75:10]

That many options. Can't miss. Can't miss. Shearing. It's encouraging, isn't it? It is. I think so, too. We're all we're all we're all it. Each one of us is it is an expression of of awakening. Yeah, I like this thing I read recently that being alive is Bodhi. I thought, yeah, being alive is Bodhi. You you were born awake. And then what are you going to do with it? You know. You know. It says on our hand, don't waste your time. Whatever you do, don't waste it. It's so precious, you know, to be alive. You could use that as an excuse to do all sorts of things you shouldn't do. No, you can't. You can't. You can't, Lisa.

[76:14]

Don't talk about other people. You have to be good. One could. No. No, no, you can't because you're studying the precepts. You're studying the precepts, aren't you? Yes. Okay. Fun's over. You have to have that to balance. You have to have the bodhisattva vow because there's no harm. You wouldn't harm a flea. Well, close moths, but okay. Just invite them. I had this... terrible infestation of flies there was a dead rat in my little storage room and i opened the door i hadn't been in there for a while and there must have been a hundred thousand flies in there it was absolutely unbelievable and that's probably exaggerating but a lot of flies and i reached behind the bed to see what was going on i felt this furry thing and it was it was this really long gone rat somehow died under my my storage

[77:18]

thing anyway so I'm trying to think what am I going to do I can't I don't know what to do you know I don't want to kill them so I read somewhere that flies can smell meat from about two miles away so I got a little piece of meat and I hung it on a string outside the window and I opened the window and they all went away so I see we just have to be like skillful how do we protect our turf Our clothes. You know, what's the, you know, what's Bodhisattva going to do? It's kind of a lifelong challenge. Shooting for the ocean. Shoot for the ocean, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, everyone. Very good to see you all. Please take care. Please take care. Hope you're all getting vaccinated soon. We're going to open one of these days.

[78:18]

I'm really excited about that. Little by little, start to bring people back to our little place here. So if you'd like to unmute and say goodbye, you're very welcome to do that. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Have a good week. Have a great week. Bye, everybody. Spring has sprung. Have a nice week. Thank you so much. Take good care, everybody. Blessings on all of you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Even with daylight saving time, it's dark where you are. 20 after nine here. Oh.

[79:19]

Same time in Mammoth, I bet. Thank you. We're in Santa Monica this week. Oh, you are. That's why things look so strange. I don't recognize the environment. We're in our hotel room in Santa Monica. We'll be back home next Sunday. Thank you. Oh, good. Have a nice trip to the sun. Thank you. Thank you. But it is beautiful in Mammoth right now. Oh, my God. It's very warm. Actually, it's too warm. It's like 10 or 20 degrees above normal. It's like spring. Yes. So you have skiing's no good? Kate's saying hi. Victoria. Hi. Yes, I thought my cross-country skiing was over, but I went up to the San Joaquin Ridge and used every muscle and energy of any part of my body left. So it's so good to be here now. Thank you.

[80:22]

Well, bye everybody. Bye Richard. Thank you.

[80:32]

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