It's quarter past ten. There's no one in the place except you and me, friend. So set him up, Joe. I got a little story I think you should know. We're drinking, my friend. To the end of a brief episode, make it one for my Buddha and one more for the road. I was talking to a friend recently about how to respond to various difficulties.

[01:09]

And at the end of our talk she said to me, tough practice. I guess she meant the responses you suggested sound like tough practice. In Japan, sometimes when I was visiting and visiting monasteries, maybe I would take a cab And the cab driver would, you know, ask me about me. And I would tell him I was an obo-san, I was a Zen priest. And the cab driver would say, oh, Zen, very difficult.

[02:18]

Very tough. Zen's very tough. It had reputation. And if I visit Eheiji, if I take a cab to Eheiji, the cab driver says, oh, Eheiji, very tough. Kibishi. So Zen has a reputation in some quarters in Japan for being a tough practice. that Ino Sangetsu went to Japan earlier this year to visit a monastery for a practice period. And she went in the beginning of April to go to a practice period. They also have practice periods in the winter at this place, but she thought, maybe not in the winter. A little bit cold.

[03:23]

So we heard about the The abbot of that temple is so cold he can hardly, his fingers can hardly open his orgyoki bowls. Very cold in the monastery in the winter. Very tough practice. It's a little bit cold here, but not that bad, right? This is an overture to the story I'm going to tell you, which is a tough story. Sometimes some people say about Zen, bitter, bitter practice. Sweet fruit. Or you could say a bitter tree, but sweet fruit.

[04:26]

I've heard from some people that, you know, we have a tongue, and our tongue can taste sweet and sour and salty and bitter. And if we don't taste anything bitter, it's not good for our health. Zen's not always bitter. Sometimes it's sweet. But there is a bitterness that can come to us. It's part of the overall picture. In the Doksan room over here, I put a picture up, a picture I really appreciate. It's a picture of Bodhidharma, a painting of Bodhidharma.

[05:29]

And his first student, Daiso Eka, Dai Osho, the second ancestor. And Bodhidharma is sitting still, facing a wall. And he doesn't exactly look sweet, but he looks, to me, he looks very, very soft and relaxed. And the way he was painted is there's this very soft, milky outline around him, this soft, open, flexible aura of samadhi surrounding him. And then his disciple is saying, is holding out an arm, his arm which he just cut off as an offering to demonstrate to the teacher that he's, you know, he really does want to practice.

[06:34]

He's not just, you know, dabbling. He's ready to make a big commitment. And that's part of the scary background of the school. And even in recent times in Japan and other places, if you make commitment to the teacher And to the practice, it's something which you're supposed to be really careful about and really sincere about. And if you change teachers, you don't change teachers lightly. And to demonstrate that you're not doing it lightly, some people cut off part of their baby finger to show that they're not doing this lightly.

[07:37]

I knew one very nice Japanese nun who did that when she changed teachers. I'm not leaving you lightly, teacher. So there's, again, this kind of toughness in the sincerity. So you ready for a tough story? So like in the, you know, I'm thinking like in the 10th century, In China, there were two monks. I think one's name was Yang Chi and the other one's name was Fu Yurong. He became known as Fu Shan, Fu Yurong.

[08:39]

And they heard about a teacher named Gui Sheng. And they were really interested to practice with this teacher who they say was very frugal, stern, tough. But yet monks from all over China were interested to study with him. They felt he was a true bodhisattva. Again, back to Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma often is pictured as an Indian person, and he often has a beard. and his head's not shaved nicely often, kind of like he hasn't shaved it for a while and doesn't look very nice.

[09:50]

He doesn't look like he goes to a hairdresser. And he often has a very serious look on his face, not so sweet and beneficent looking as Avalokiteshvara or Manjushri. Manjushri actually means sweet splendor. He's actually quite a sweet face there. Bodhidharma, actually you can look at your leisure. Look at the Bodhidharma face on the left, up close sometime, and then look at the Manjushri. Bodhidharma is quite fierce, right? And then also Avalokiteshvara at the back of Zendo, very sweet. Not just sweet and gentle and calm and relaxed. Bodhidharma looks fierce. So Avalokiteshvara can be fierce.

[10:53]

The compassion can take a fierce form like, you know, you're wasting your time here. I don't really have time for insincere people. Go away. That's sort of the way Bodhidharma is supposed to have talked to the great disciple. That was his compassionate offering to this sincere person. But this person was not turned away by this form of compassion and became the second ancestor. So, Fushan, Fujuan and Yangchi traveled to see Guisheng. And when they arrived, they went into a room where traveling monks, itinerant monks, would stay when they visited the monastery.

[12:10]

In Japanese, this room is called tanga ryo. Tanga means traveling monk, and ryo means room. So it's a room that the traveling monks can stay in for one night, two nights. And if they stay a long time, they're making a gesture that they want to join the community. So if they sit sincerely, the senior monks come and look at them and see that they're sitting sincerely. And maybe the teacher even comes to look at them. And we practice that here for the practice period. We had two days of sitting initiation. At Tassajara we have five days. Maybe at Eheji they have seven days. Eheji, seven days? Yeah. So you sit for seven days in the tangadiyo.

[13:15]

We don't have a room big enough here for everybody usually, so we sit in the zendo. So these two monks were sitting and there were other monks sitting there with them in the tangadiyo. And the teacher, Guishan, came in and said, You people are wasting your time. I don't have any time for, you know, insincere students. Go away. And then he took, and it was winter, by the way, and it was snowing outside, but it was winter, and he took a pail of water and threw it on them. And I think Yangshi said, We've traveled a thousand miles. You think throwing some cold water on us is going to send us away?" And then Guisheng said to all the monks, he said, ìIf you don't go away, I'm going to beat you.î And I think Fu Yiran said, ìYou can beat us to death.

[14:28]

We're not going to go.î Oh, by the way, when he threw the water on them, all the other monks that were in the room ran away or left. And just those two were left. And then he said he threatened them with a beating. And Fuyuan said, we're not going even if you kill us. And then Guisheng said to the two of them, you guys are crazy. Maybe you should study Zen. So they were allowed into the tough practice of that monastery. And Fuyuran became the tenzo, the head cook. And the menu planner was the... Well, I don't know if the menu planner was the teacher, but anyway, the teacher...

[15:36]

didn't give the tenzo much to feed to the monks. The diet was really, there wasn't much and it didn't taste good. And the tenzo felt compassion for the poor monks that he was serving. And one day the teacher, Guisheng, left the monastery and while he was gone, the tenzo took the key to the storage room and stole some food to make the diet a little bit better tasting. And lo and behold, when it was time to eat, the teacher just happened to come back and tasted the food and knew that something funny had happened to the food.

[16:51]

And he called, and he was sitting, so the way, even in those days they had like what's called inner room, the naitan, the inner, the inner tan. like this, and then they had, outside they have what's called a gaitan, the outer tan. So he sat in the outer tan and received the food, and then he called the tenzo to see him, and he said, did you steal some food from the storage room for this meal? And the tenzo said, Fuyuran said, yes, I did. Please discipline me. And Guisheng did discipline him and kicked him out of the monastery and told him to calculate how much that food he stole for the monks cost and to repay it.

[17:56]

And Fu Yiran left the monastery. and sold his robes and his bowls to get money to pay back the monastery. I don't know what he was wearing after he sold his robes. But anyway, he sold maybe some of his robes and his bowls. and lived in the town near the monastery. And when he saw monks from the monastery, he would say, please ask the teacher if I can come back. And the answer from the teacher was no. And then he would say, even if I can't come back, can I at least come and meet you face to face? And the teacher said, no. No. One day the teacher was walking in town and he saw Fuyuran standing in front of a dormitory which was owned by the monastery.

[19:16]

And the teacher said to Fuyuran, are you staying in this dormitory? And Fuyuran said, yes. He said, have you been paying? And he said, no. And he said, well, you should pay. You should pay. the monastery for all the time you've been staying here. So he walked around the town begging and did eventually repay the monastery for staying in the dormitory. And every time one of these I don't know what disciplines were offered to him. They didn't bother him. He wasn't bothered. We just have the passing of one of our great poets and singers, or musicians, Leonard Cohen.

[20:30]

And Leonard Cohen, as you may know, studied Zen for quite a while, lived in a monastery, became a priest. So he did train at Zen, and he said, Zen really was helpful to me. It helped me to bear my suffering. And it taught me that perhaps the most inappropriate response to suffering is complaining. Fushan did not complain and you may imagine he suffered quite a bit. As a result of his kindness, you might say, So anyway, I don't know how long this went on, but one day the teacher went to town and saw Fushan holding his bowl.

[21:44]

He went back to the monastery and he said to the monks, Fushan is really determined to study Zen. And finally he invited him back to the monastery and Fushan, of course, became his main disciple. You all have had some difficulty during this session. And some of you have done a whole practice period now, just a day or so more to go.

[22:53]

And you have, almost all of you have had some difficulty. But you, like Fushan, have persevered So those of you in the session, I say thank you very much for persevering moment by moment through the difficulties of this training. And for those of you in the practice period, I say thank you very much for persevering, for bearing the difficulties in this training. Fushan became Guishan's main or only successor.

[24:11]

I don't know if he had more than one, but on the charts I look at, Fushan's the only one listed as his successor. I think he also became perhaps a successor of another Rinzai or Linji master. And living at the same time as Guisheng and Fushan was one of our ancestors who we call Taiyo Kyogen Daisho. And Taiyo Kyogen, Dayang in Chinese, was appreciated all over China as a great bodhisattva. And great bodhisattvas, of course, spend their life practicing compassion in their meditation.

[25:18]

And in their meditation they are practicing compassion with and for all beings. So no problem with Dayang, except when it came to the issue of having an issue, a successor. And he finally did find a successor and he was very happy to find a successor. Someone who was, excuse me for saying so, could bear a lot of suffering. Bodhisattvas need great patience. It's part of what we need. We need great generosity. We need great ethical discipline. We need great diligence. We need great samadhi. And we need great wisdom in order to take care of the teaching. And so he found a successor who he felt could take care of his teaching and transmit it to the next generation.

[26:23]

And then his successor died And the successor died when Dayang was old. Dayang spent many years working with his successor face to face. And he finally, he was successful at succession. And the disciple died. So now you have a great bodhisattva teacher with no successor. And he's the only Soto Zen teacher in all of China. the Soto Zen lineage, the lineage of Tozan Ryokai, and Yakusan Igen, and Sekito Gisen, and Seigen Gyoshi, all these great masters, the lineage is now having no successor, and you can't necessarily find a successor quickly. Even if you find someone who has the potential, they need training, and it may take a while.

[27:32]

Even the great teachers, like Fushan himself, took a while to train him. So now, Fushan was a successor in the Rinzai lineage of Guisheng, And Dayang has no successor. So he starts looking around, but now he's not looking for a young person. He's looking for someone who's already a mature teacher. He's looking for a teacher so he doesn't have to train him very long. And he finds Fushan. And he asks Fushan, would you please take care of my lineage. Would you be my successor?" I think you could... You're already trained, so I think we could come to an understanding quickly. And I think you have the... What's the word?

[28:37]

Anyway, you have the integrity to be able to carry this lineage. And it's a different lineage from your teachers, but I want, I'm asking you to take care of it." So they trained together for a while, and then Dayan gave his teaching to Fushan. And Fushan said, I will receive your teaching, I will be your successor, but I'll be more, I will only do it for a while. and I will find you a successor, and then I will not be in your lineage anymore." So when we chant our lineage, we go, . We don't say, . He's not mentioned. He didn't want to be in the lineage. He was in another lineage.

[29:42]

but he actually saved Soto Zen. It's a very unusual situation where you have a lineage that's about to die out and somebody from another lineage comes and takes care of it like a step-parent or a foster parent. taken care of it for a while. And he did. And then he found Tosugise Daisho. And he gave him the tradition. And Tosugise took care of it. And so now we have a Soto lineage again. And he found a disciple also. And that disciple found many disciples. So then Soto Zen was not depending on one person in all of China anymore. But this lineage almost died, and there are many lineages in China which did die.

[30:49]

But this training made possible the survival of this school, of this particular style of bodhisattva practice. So here we have a sincere monk training with a sincere teacher, and the monk is practicing the bodhisattva precepts, and the monk is practicing the bodhisattva precepts and does something without doing it face to face. He doesn't go up to the teacher and say, teacher, give me the key. Please give me the key. I want to give the monks better food. He gets the key not in face-to-face. He is not talking to the teacher. Or maybe he thinks he is, but the teacher doesn't think he is. And so when the teacher finds out they have a face-to-face and now they're working on the precepts together, the teacher doesn't think the tenzo has the correct understanding of the bodhisattva precepts.

[32:03]

He's not practicing them with the teacher. He's not saying, the monks are hungry. They're having too hard a time. I want to help them. Please let me give them some better food, some tasty food. He's not doing it with the teacher. He doesn't understand Zen. But then the teacher comes, and then he says, okay, let's do this. And they do it. And it's really difficult. And they do it. And it's really difficult. And Fushan just sits. He doesn't complain. He just stands in the street with his bowl. This is now, this is the way. He's doing this with the teacher. The teacher is saying, stay away from me. And he's staying with the teacher, staying away from the teacher.

[33:05]

He's staying as near as he can. And they're working together on the precepts all along. And Fushan, in the working with the teacher face to face, arrives at understanding what Zazen is. And then he takes care of that. He was practicing Zen as best he could, but he wanted to do it with a teacher and then And then he kind of said, no, I'm not going to do Zen with the teacher. I'm going to do it without the teacher. And then the teacher said, you did this without me.

[34:07]

And he said, yes, discipline me. And I did. And his understanding of Zen became mature. But it was hard. It was Probably hard for the teacher too. And hard for all the monks in the monastery. And here today in this monastery or in this temple, if someone does something without doing it with the teacher, if they if they modify or go against the first pure precepts of the temple without talking to the teacher, it may lead to the person being asked to leave.

[35:12]

And then the whole community can get upset. But this is still happening today in this temple. It's part of the practice. And it's kind of bitter. But this must be practicing the bodhisattva precepts together as compassion. It must be that everyone involved is fully responsible. There's no blaming. There's full responsibility. And in that full responsibility, the precepts come up and are lived. And again, the first pure precept is forms and ceremonies.

[36:24]

We have practiced forms and ceremonies together. the form of the schedule, the form of the seating chart, the form of serving meals, the form of eating meals, the form of our sitting posture, the form of our chanting, the form of walking. All these practices we've been doing together face to face. And if we do something unusual, we're asked to do it face to face, to write a note, to say to someone's face, I'm having trouble doing this. I want to do something different. This is the ancient way of face to face transmission, intimate transmission around these precepts. That's intimate transmission around the precepts, intimate transmission of the Dharma occurs in that container. In the story I told yesterday, the disciple and the teacher were practicing bodhisattva precepts together.

[37:37]

and there's no sign that the disciple had any problems or was doing anything unusual. He was doing everything with the teacher, so he was being responsible, and the teacher was doing everything with the disciple. They were both doing their job, and yet the disciple didn't understand zazen. He was practicing the precepts. He didn't understand zazen. What do I mean by that? He thought that there was some other teaching about the essential pivotal activity of mind than what they were doing together. He wasn't yet standing holding his bowl. He was holding his bowl, but he was looking, he's thinking, practice is someplace else from holding this bowl. When are you going to teach me the essential pivotal mind?

[38:43]

He didn't understand that the teacher was teaching him. They were practicing together, but he didn't understand that this practice that we're doing together is the Buddha mind. Our face-to-face meetings is the Buddha mind. He didn't understand that. And so he said, when are you going to teach me? Why don't you? And the teacher says, Didn't we do this? Didn't you do this? And didn't I do that? And didn't you do this? All these things are nothing other than teaching you that. Then he looked at, then he thought, oh yes, there it is. And it always was there. So this is not such a bitter story. The second one is different. And the face-to-face relationship, it doesn't have to just be with the teacher, because the teacher has face-to-face relationships with people who are not officially teachers.

[40:01]

So students can have meetings with students, non-students, teachers, non-teachers. It's face-to-face meeting with another teacher. And in the face-to-face meeting with another, when the responsibility becomes full, there is a teacher. There is the teacher's mind. When the responsibility in the relationship is full, the teacher's mind is realized. The teacher's mind is the transmission of the Dharma. Now I see some frowns and And I think maybe people still think that there's something other than what's going on, which is the teacher's mind. And if you're having trouble believing that there's some Buddha Dharma, that there's some Buddha mind other than what's happening right now in your life, in your meeting with others, you're in good company.

[41:15]

Many ancestors couldn't believe this, even though they were told this over and over. They did not believe it. But they eventually did and became our ancestors. Before they believe it, they're not our ancestors. But they had a hard time. Even though they were really sincere, they didn't believe their teacher when their teacher told them What you're doing now with me, that's the Buddha mind. And for your information, my mind is, what is it called, overflowing right now with other stories about this same point. So many stories of great students saying to great teachers, teach me the Dharma.

[42:20]

And a teacher says, you know what you're doing already is it. Give it a rest. And they don't believe it. They think something else. And they keep struggling and finally realize, oh, They wake up to their life. So many stories, the same point. The other stories will be told someday if we keep living together. For now, maybe that's enough. With one more for Buddha and one more for the road.

[43:28]

On this road, there may be trouble ahead. So while there's music and moonlight, And love and romance Let's face the music and dance Before the fiddlers have fled Before they ask us to pay the bill And while there's still a chance Let's face the music and dance Soon we'll be without the moon Humming a different tune And then There may be teardrops to shed

[44:39]

So while there's music and moonlight and love and romance, let's face the music and dance. May our intention

[45:09]

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