Here we are on the last day of our seven-day retreat together. I'm so grateful for the wonderful effort that you have made sitting upright in the samadhi of Buddha activity. Again today I bring out the loom and spin some ancient yarns.

[01:28]

Do you know the word yarn, Pasha? Do you know it means Fiber? And it also means a story? It means a story also. Like weaving a story. I must admit that there's a kind of an impulse to tell you many wonderful stories.

[02:34]

And if I tell you many, you won't remember them. even though there are so many good stories. And I feel, I admit also that I'm a little embarrassed to tell you the same story over and over. But if I do, there's a chance you'll remember it. So I've told you a story about an intimate conversation between two people in the ninth century in China. The conversation probably occurred around the year 840. a conversation between two of the ancestors in this family.

[03:48]

Yuen Yen, Cloud Cliff, and his main successor, Dung Shan. They live together for a while. As often happens, the child leaves home. The successor goes away. And usually in this tradition, when the successor goes away, he or she comes and says good-bye to the teacher. And on many such occasions the successor asks the teacher, a hundred years from now, how do you depict, describe your teaching?

[05:08]

And the teacher, Yun Yan, was quiet for a while, and then he said, Just this is. Just this is. Just this is. And in this conversation, Dongshan entered deep thought. After some time, the teacher said, now you have received responsibility for this. Thoreau going.

[06:21]

I guess that he was Thoreau going. And he left his teacher and carried this teaching with him for many miles, and as he crossed a river and looked into the water and saw the reflection of his face, his face which he could not see, he understood, just this is it. This is one of the great moments in the history of Zen. This is actually several moments in the history of Zen. Now you've heard this story and you might almost be able to tell other people about it.

[07:42]

Now again, I don't know how things work out really, but at the place where they now say, this is where Dung Shan saw his reflection in the water, there's a bridge over that river. And on the bridge it says, where he encountered it. And then up the hill a little ways from that bridge is a monastery called Dungsan. So the monastery of Dungsan is a short walk from the place where he met Just This Is It, where he understood the teacher's teaching. There and with some help from the universe, a monastery was built.

[09:09]

And the last time I saw it was there and it had been rebuilt in the 1980s, around the beginning of this century. It already looked pretty old. Anyway, it's there, you can go visit. And some of us who did visit it felt, some of us felt like, of all the monasteries we met, of all the monasteries we met, this one feels closest to Tassajara. It's not a grand, huge monastery. Dung Shan and his friends built the monastery, and he lived there, and he did memorial services for his teacher, Yuen Yuen.

[10:14]

And before one of the memorial ceremonies, he told this story of his last meeting with his teacher. And then maybe you know the next part. Do you? Did you understand it? Pardon? Did you understand it? Close, yeah. A monk came forward and said, Did you understand? When Yuen Yuen said that to you, did you understand? And Dung Shan said what? Louder please. Anybody else?

[11:21]

Oh yeah, at that time, at that time I nearly misunderstood the teacher's meaning. So the monk came forward and said, when Yuen Yuen said, just this is it, what did he mean? Right? The monk came forward and said, John, when Yuen Yuen said, just this is, what did he mean? What was his meaning? And Dungsan said, at that point, I nearly misunderstood. And then the monk said, did Yunyan

[12:38]

Did Yuen Yuen himself understand? Did Yuen Yuen himself know it? And Dung Shan said, If he didn't know it, how could he speak thus? If he did know it, how would he be willing to speak thus? So this is a basic tradition. Just this is it. And then it's unfolded into if you know this, how would you be willing to say it?

[13:42]

And if you don't know it, How could you say it? Let's see. Eight, nine, ten, eleven. nine, ten, eleven. About three hundred years later in the twelfth century a successor from Dung Shan brought this poem, brought this story out

[14:50]

and used it in a book that he made called The Book of Serenity. He made a collection of stories that was made into The Book of Serenity. And the 49th story is the story we just And then he wrote a poem celebrating this story. The poem in English goes like this. Speak thus. Speak thus. In the fifth watch of the night a rooster crows dawn in the forest of houses.

[16:10]

How would he be willing to speak thus? The jade loom. Bright? No, the jade loom. What does the jade loom do? The jade loom. The jade loom. See them both show up at once. The jewel mirror, clear and bright, tests principle and phenomena.

[17:24]

The style of the school of yin-yang and dung-shan is greatly influential. Its careful steps, continuous and fine. Teacher and disciple accord with circumstances and pass through. Their fame has become vast. It has spread all the way across China, over the to California. for 1200 years, repeating this story.

[18:42]

Now you have it. The easy way to tell the story is, just this is. That you probably can remember. And it unfolds at dawn in a forest of houses In this collection of stories I just referred to, case story number 49.

[21:54]

The first story in this collection of stories is called case number one. The world-honored one ascends the seat. the world-honored one ascended the seat and then got down from the seat. And then Manjushri Bodhisattva struck the gavel and said, the teaching of the sovereign, of the teaching

[23:07]

the teaching of the sovereign of teaching is thus is such this and then there's a poem which celebrates this story a Chinese poem The unique, the unique, the one breeze of reality. Can you see it? The mother principle continuously works her loom and shuttle, incorporating the patterns of spring into the ancient brocade.

[24:39]

Just this is it. Just this is the mother principle incorporating the patterns of spring into the ancient brocade. Do you see it? At such a time, like this, Yuen Yuen said to Tung Shan, now you have inherited the responsibility of this.

[27:32]

You must be thoroughgoing. May our intention equally stand to every being and place with the true merit of breath's way.

[28:07]

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