Merely observe the Dharma. The Dharma is thus. Good Lecture.

[02:13]

Lecture 2 Seshine, March 11th. BUDDHISM IN ALL OF OUR GRATITUDE STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR LOCAL PROGRAMMING STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR PROGRAMMING STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR PROGRAMMING STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR PROGRAMMING

[03:29]

STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR PROGRAMMING [...]

[04:46]

STANDING MONGOL IN ALL OF OUR PROGRAMMING Now, Linji, at the beginning of his recorded saying, says, If I were to strictly accord with the ancestral source, I couldn't even open my mouth. So, yesterday, finally, I accorded with the ancestral source. Poor Dan and Kevin missed it. I didn't even open my mouth. But it was great to accord with the ancestral source so literally. I didn't say a word.

[05:57]

But Manjushri Disco had some things to say. He took the rap. He did the making on my behalf. Thank you for creating all that karma. He struck the hammer, the wooden hammer, and said, Clearly observe the Dharma. Listen carefully to the Dharma. The Dharma is thus. This is the first teaching of Zen Buddhism.

[07:12]

The unique breeze of reality. Can you see it? Creation continuously works. Or loom and shuttle. Weaving the ancient brocade. The beginningless brocade. Incorporating the patterns of spring.

[08:20]

But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. Somebody has to take the rap. Now, since yesterday I said nothing, today I can give a lecture twice as long as usual. And then I think of some people in this assembly that are like I used to be. When I used to go to lectures, I would sit with my legs crossed in triple lotus. And I wouldn't move. No matter how long the lecture was. And some people gave long lectures, like even Suzuki Roshi, dear man, gave hour and 45 minute lectures sometimes.

[09:30]

And sometimes Japanese teachers would come to visit. And then they give long lectures plus get translated. So they're doubly long. I remember one time Yoshida Roshi gave a two and a half hour lecture. She broke me. And I hated her. So, today's lecture will be approximately three hours long. Approximately. Perhaps shorter. If you get uncomfortable after two hours or so, please uncross your legs. However, if you're like me, or I used to be anyway, and you don't like to do that, then keep them crossed and hate me. Because, actually, although at the latter part of those long lectures I couldn't hear the lecture anymore. I was just trying to get to the next throb. And I really couldn't hear the lecture.

[10:32]

Still, I think actually I heard something. It was just a matter of survival. Something, I think, seeped in there around the edges of my cracking body. So, if you don't want to move, go ahead. Don't. This is good, probably. Something popped up in my head, which I wanted to mention. And that was... I remember one time I saw this movie. It was one of these movies where some, I think, earthlings are landing on some foreign planet. And as I remember, the person... This guy says this thing, and this guy is speaking, seems to me to be an Englishman, who have, you know, a colonial type. And he says... And he meets one of these inhabitants of this foreign planet.

[11:33]

And he's talking to one of his friends. And, of course, they don't speak English, right, these people? And he says to one of his friends, The more intelligent of us, or the one who is most intelligent, will learn the other one's language. I don't know if that's true or not, but I thought it was really interesting. But the more intelligent one will learn the other one's, rather than... Let's say I'm a colonial type, and I come in, and I say, OK, now you learn English, come on, you have English classes. There might be that attitude, but actually, if they do learn English, they're more intelligent in a way. I think there's a good point to that. And in that sense, too, children are more intelligent than adults, because they're willing to learn our language. They have certain motivations, which bring forth their intelligence.

[12:35]

Do we learn children's language? At least in that area, they're more intelligent than us, I would propose. How many of us learn children's language? How many of us use our intelligence to figure out what they're trying to say? I think most mothers do that. Do you? Otherwise, how would babies survive? Then mothers are smart. I think most fathers do that. Then they're smart. So, I don't know if the teacher should learn the student's language, and the student should learn the teacher's language, but whichever way, the more intelligent one is going to learn it. Another thing that popped in my head just happened to be something that I said, sorry. I said yesterday morning,

[13:36]

please try to bow on the floor. You don't have your sound absorbers now, these little mats. So when you go down on the floor, if your knees hit the floor with force, it makes a pretty loud noise. So I said, please try to be quiet with your knees touching the floor. And then I said, you can use something like, you can use your hands to help you go down. And I thought, hey, now that's good. So this is the beginning of Sashin, and at the beginning of Sashin, although it's not a... Anyway, at the beginning of Sashin, we kind of, we have to go down. And you can use your hands

[14:37]

to help you go down. Now literally, you can use your hand mudra. Dogen Zenji says, put your hand in the palm of your, put your mind in the palm of your left hand. But as I said at the early part of the practice period, just keeping your hand against your abdomen is very good very useful point of concentration. And I really appreciate the effort that I can see you making in that regard. Today I'm trying to emphasize that that kind of concentration helps you go down. Down where?

[15:37]

Last... I guess it was last August at Green Gulch, we had a... Sashinan. We were studying the case Master Ma is unwell. And the verse that Sui Du writes on this case is something like Sun-Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha. Are the ancient emperors worthy of respect or something like that? Monks should not take this lightly. You may find it helpful to use your hands in going down. Down to the ground.

[16:52]

Down to the Green Dragon's cave. When you get there, although it's not easy to get there, you'll finally be settled. And you can start working really well. In the last Sashin in San Francisco, someone said to me, after you get to the end of Sashin, she said this, she said, well, at the beginning of Sashin, I just decided, why waste time? She said, I just sort of sat down and I said,

[17:55]

okay, okay. Let's have it. Just give it to me. So, she got it. After a day and a half, she hit the bottom. Most of us kind of take about five days or four or five days before we finally stop resisting. So this Sashin you could take maybe 10, 15 days. Before you can get down. Or you can go down right now. And you can use your hands to help you go down. We as end students have to find some way to humble ourselves. Humble, you know, go down to the humus, go down to the ground. Our hands can help us go down.

[19:01]

One of the characteristics of the Zen school is self-reliance, faith in yourself. And at the same time, that doesn't mean that you think you're God. Humility goes with that. As a matter of fact, you can really have self-confidence when you're down on the ground, flat out. Smashed like a pancake on the earth, you can be really confident. Now, Dan, plug your ears. Odysseus went down into Hades. He went down there. And I think the instruction he got before he went down there was he was supposed to take some, I think maybe a black ram and goat, some other four-legged animals,

[20:04]

and slaughter them, and dig a little sort of hole in the ground and pour their blood into the hole. And then, the spirits, the shades, the ghosts would come to talk to him, and they would come over and drink that black blood. And after they drank the blood, they would talk to him, and they would tell him what's going to happen. And he would be told where he's going and what he has to do. We have to go down and let the ghosts drink the black blood. And they'll tell us what we have to do. Now, I've been talking about this wonderful teacher,

[21:26]

the fourth ancestor of Zen, Dai Doshin. Doshin means way of life. Way of faith. And dai means great, great doctor, great physician. He modified and adapted the teaching somewhat to the Chinese situation. He had enough confidence to try something new in order to make it possible for more people to get a foothold. So he provided, as I mentioned before, indoor housing and food and various skillful devices for people who couldn't get a foothold

[22:28]

in the practice of emptiness. But he was a pretty tough cookie, too. For example, he didn't lay down for 60 years. And he had to keep his eyes closed most of the time so he didn't scare people. So we've been talking about him and I really... he's just terrific. Boy, I... but... And I kind of rushed over two great Zen teachers to get to him because I was afraid I'd never get there if I dallied talking with you about the second and third ancestors. But I'm telling you, I'm actually feeling today kind of bad about skipping over them. So I have to go back a little bit and pay a little bit more homage. In other words, align myself with these dear ancestors. One step... two steps backwards.

[23:29]

So, four, three, two... The second ancestor is this guy named Huika. And... I told a story about him to some people the other day a little incorrectly. I said that actually there were two second ancestors. That's not quite right. The story was actually that the second ancestor was... There was this guy who was supposed... who was proposing to be the second ancestor but he really wasn't. He was proposing to be a big teacher and he was teaching in this big monastery. And Huika was teaching outside in front of the monastery in the street and attracting large crowds. So the teacher inside the monastery got a little upset about that and lost control that Huika was getting all the... getting the audiences. So he... he kind of told a lie to an official

[24:32]

and the official persecuted Huika. And Huika submitted and was executed. Which, you know, shows the... I don't know what shows. But anyway, he... He wasn't so sad because he was 106 at the time or 107. So he had had a nice long life. But anyway, he was killed. And also Bodhidharma was poisoned several times. These people were not teaching the... You know, they weren't going along with the usual understanding of what Buddhism was at the time. So a lot of people got upset with him. Then the third ancestor kept teaching to himself, didn't go out in public.

[25:33]

So he didn't get poisoned or he didn't get executed because he only taught one person. Keizan Zenji wrote little verses about all these ancestors. And I wanted to read you these verses to get a feeling of at least Keizan's view of them and the thread that Keizan saw running through them. So his verse for Bodhidharma is There is no location, no bounds, no outside. There isn't anything at all, even so much as an autumn hair. For the second ancestor, Huika, he said

[26:52]

Empty yet radiantly bright. Conditioned thought ended. Acutely discerning, aware, always open and clear. Huika went up to Bodhidharma and said I have ended all involvements. And Bodhidharma said Well, doesn't that fall into nihilism? Do you know what nihilism is? Is there anybody who doesn't know what nihilism is? Well, I don't, so I'll tell you. Nihilism means when you realize that things are empty,

[27:54]

that colors are empty, feelings are empty, emotions are empty, and so on. When you realize that things are empty, but you have not yet realized that things aren't empty. Okay? Okay? Or that you think nothing is a thing. You make a thing out of nothing. And if you make a thing out of nothing, well then, whatever, man. Nothing matters, right? You can do anything because things have no substance and there's nothing. So you might as well just do what you feel like. Like the father in Brothers Karamazov. He's a nihilist. So,

[29:00]

if you don't have any involvements, that can slip into nihilism. So Bodhidharma says, Isn't that nihilism? And Bhaika said, No way, Jose. No way, Jose. And Bodhidharma says, How can you prove it? And Bhaika said, I am always clear and aware. Therefore, no words can reach it. Pretty good, eh? See, that kind of emptiness, even that words can't reach, that words can't make into something, that's not nihilism. That's an emptiness which is not emptiness. True emptiness. Then Bodhidharma says, Good boy. This is the essence of mind which all Buddhas realize.

[30:03]

Doubt no more. Doubt. Empty, yet radiantly bright. Then the third ancestor. The third ancestor, as I mentioned before, really didn't, we don't really have, you know, have any kind of written message from him. And most of his, what's recorded about him are stories or quotes supposedly attributed to him where he quotes a sutra. But one quote I thought was really, really nice. It's a quote from the Lotus Sutra. It's a quote that Sung San told Dao Shin.

[31:07]

The third told the fourth ancestor. The Lotus Sutra says there is just one thing. So in that sentence from the Lotus Sutra we see in some sense, right there, the source of Zen Buddhism. There is just one thing. And this sentence from the Lotus Sutra is really what the fourth ancestor seems to have emphasized in all his teaching. There is really no second or third. Thus we know that the path of the stages is profound and pervasive, something that verbal explanations cannot reach. And there again, from the Lotus Sutra, you see a characteristic of the Zen school. A practice, a path, that verbal explanations cannot reach. A path

[32:10]

where verbal explanations cannot reach and where most of the people who practice it are talking constantly as if to save their heads from fire. So here is another origin for the Zen practice from the Lotus Sutra. The body of reality is empty and still. Again from the Lotus Sutra, another Zen source. Something that hearing and seeing cannot touch. There again, a Zen source. Thus written and spoken words are vain constructs. So just in that little quote there from the Lotus Sutra, you see you can get most of Zen Buddhism right out of that. It's called One-Stop Shopping. So then Keizan says about the third ancestor.

[33:21]

Essential emptiness has no inside or outside. Sin and virtue leave no traces there. Mind and Buddha are fundamentally thus. The teaching and the community are clear. So, I feel better now that I've gone back and paid homage to the earlier ancestors and now I'd like to continue with the with the fourth ancestor. Daido Daidoshin or Daoshin. I

[34:50]

think this point also has been made before but I want to mention it again and that is that these early Zen teachers recommended a practice of mindfulness of Buddha or recollection of Buddha. And when I started studying these early ancestors I was quite surprised that they recommended this practice because in reading the history of Zen I heard and went for the words from certain scholars which said that Zen Buddhism was going along pretty well and then and then they started to practice mindfulness of Buddha which by then had become what's considered to be a pure land practice. And when they started to do that mindfulness of Buddha that Zen degenerated so it looked like Zen was going along

[35:58]

they started to practice mindfulness of Buddha and then it fell apart but actually Zen practiced mindfulness of Buddha and then went into a period when they didn't seem to talk about it so much and then they started again. And the degeneracy is actually maybe not so degenerate after all we'll have to see. But also I found it quite interesting that the mindfulness of Buddha is a non-dualistic mindfulness of Buddha and that mindfulness of Buddha means simply to have no object of thought. And if we can understand how to have no object of thought this is calming the mind. So

[37:00]

Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi was giving a talk up in San Francisco someone arranged for him to have a translator but I asked him please give your talk in English. People can feel you directly then and actually your English is very good. But he had a translator sitting next to him anyway for the talk and he gave it entirely in English. The translator didn't have to do anything. But I thought he probably feels more relaxed and calm knowing the translator is there so that if he gets in any difficulty he knows he can get help. And I think that's the way it is

[38:15]

for all of us really that if we if we think we lack something like we lack our mother or we lack our ancestors or something if the ancestor comes and sits down next to us or our mother comes and sits down next to us then we feel, oh good I'm complete. Or if I'm sitting here and I feel that I'm not complete that I'm lacking something and the universe comes and sits down next to me I feel, oh I'm complete. But the universe is always sitting down next to me but I say it's separate from me I say it's an object and when I realize it's not an object the universe sits down next to me puts her arms around me I put my arms around her and we're one and we're at peace. If I can find a way

[39:25]

to understand what it means to not have an object of thought I'm completely at peace and I lack nothing. Going down is related to this the ground is not an object you're already flat out on it if you think you have somewhere to fall well, it makes sense that you would be scared so if you think you have somewhere to fall go down where you can't fall any further you're always there and yet you may find your hands are helpful to get there The Prajnaparamita Sutra says

[40:39]

to have no object of thought is called mindfulness of Buddha What is meant by having no objects of thought? Being mindful of Buddha being mindful of Buddha mind is called having no objects of thought There is no separate Buddha apart from mind There is no mind apart from Buddha To be mindful of Buddha is to be mindful of mind To seek mind is to seek Buddha Why is this? Because consciousness has no form and Buddha has no form

[41:41]

Knowing this is calming the mind Knowing this is going down With constant mindfulness of Buddha grasping at objects does not arise Then it is totally formless everywhere equal and without duality When you enter this station the mind that remembers Buddha fades away and no longer has to be summoned When you witness this type of mind this is the true reality, nature, body of the Tathagata It is called the correct Dharma Buddha nature the real identity of all phenomena

[42:47]

reality itself It is called the Buddha land It is called Bodhi It is called Diamond Samadhi It is called Fundamental Enlightenment and so on It is also called the realm of nirvana and wisdom and the like Though the names are countless they all share one and the same essence There is no sense of subject observing object observed All these wonderful Buddhist goals and names pivot on the practice of having no object of thought

[43:36]

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