I wonder what I could say to start off that would convince you all that this was a Zen lecture. Or what could I say that would make you think it wasn't a Zen lecture? For example, if we sang Onward Christian Soldiers, would that convince you it wasn't a Zen lecture? The Buddha said, please, he actually didn't say please, the Buddha said, train, train,

[01:06]

yourself thus. This teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it, so please keep it well. How do you keep it well? This is the fifth lecture in a row, so how do you keep this teaching of thusness well? Just do it, okay? In other words, take care of this teaching of thusness by not burdening it with a self,

[02:20]

by not carrying a self to it, by not pointing at it or talking about it. Just live it, okay? That wasn't a rhetorical question. Will you keep this even after acquiring Buddhahood? Will you just do it? Two smiles, does that mean you will? Yes, I will. All good. I'm a success. I want to, but I don't know if I can. Ah, now, that brings up a problem. The other night I said, I asked you, do you think the way Bodhidharma was acting was compassion?

[03:29]

And somebody said, yes. How does he know? But still he said yes. Okay? If I say to you, okay, now I give you this nice stuff, this wonderful teaching of thusness, now I gave it to you, not I give it to you. You got it. I didn't give it to you. Everybody gives it to you. Now you have it, will you keep it? Now if you say yes, well, how do you know you will? Well, you don't have to know you will, but you do have to say yes. Because if you don't say yes, you don't say yes. If you don't say yes, well, I'll get into fire and brimstone later. Okay, yes. So I've been pretty polite for five days.

[04:31]

Now I ask you again. Even after acquiring Buddhahood, will you take care of this teaching of thusness? Yes, I will. I'm more successful. So for four days I didn't pressure you, right? You've got nothing to lose by saying yes, except your old self, your old life, which is already gone anyway. And you have everything to gain, namely you have a brand new life to gain if you just say yes, I will. Yes, I'll do it. Even though I don't understand what you're talking about, I'll do it. I'll live it. I don't understand what Buddha is, but I'll live it. I'm not sure I will, but I'll live it. So I've been staying close to the people in the workshop.

[05:34]

Some of them are leaving tomorrow, so I can't wait any longer to get you guys to say you're going to do it. Did anybody in the workshop not say yes? Some of you are staying a little longer, so you can wait until Sunday. Okay, so, you know that in Sanskrit the word suchness is pronounced ta ta ta. Isn't that nice? And in Pali it's even better, it's da da da. The teaching of ta ta ta, the teaching of da da da has been transmitted to you. Now you have it. So please take care of it by your life, exactly by your life. Remember about this wonderful teacher, his name was Yun Yan,

[06:37]

which means, by the way, cloud cliff, or cloudy cliffs. Yun Yan is one of our ancestors. In the morning when we say, kun gan don yo dai yo sho, that's him. It's a Japanese way of saying cloud cliff, is kun gan. He's Chinese, he's a Chinese guy actually, in China they call him Yun Yan. He's a, well, I could talk about him forever, he's a real sweet teacher. Kind of a little bit the dumb type. Even though he became an ancestor of this tradition, many of the stories that he's in, he didn't get it. He studied with the great master, the superstar, Bai Zhang Wai Hai.

[07:42]

He studied with him for 20 years, he was his attendant for 20 years. And Bai Zhang died at 94, and he was 34 at the time. And when Bai Zhang died he still wasn't enlightened. But he did study with the great master closely for 20 years. Then he went to study with Yak-Ka-San, I mean Yue-Shan, Yak-Ka-San Yu-Gen. And he enlightened Yak-Ka-San about Bai Zhang's teaching. Even though he didn't get it himself. So, later he became Yak-Ka-San's disciple, he got things straightened out. And then, when he became a teacher on his own, he didn't have very many disciples,

[08:45]

because as I say, he wasn't the dazzling type. But it turned out that he got a referral from the great master, Gui-Shan, a very gifted young monk named Liang-Zhe, who is famous by the name Dong-Shan. This gifted young monk, Liang-Zhe, was visiting Gui-Shan, and Gui-Shan sent Liang-Zhe to Yun-Yan. So, Dong-Shan is the founder of Soto Zen in China. He was sent to this Yun-Yan. And you remember Yun-Yan? He's the guy who was sweeping the ground, right? Sweeping the ground.

[09:48]

And his Dharma brother Da-Wu comes over and says, You're too busy. And he says, Well, you should know that there's somebody who's not busy. And Da-Wu says, Well, then there's a second moon, huh? And Yun-Yan raises his broom and says, Which room is this? I mean, which moon is this? That's Yun-Yan, remember? So now Yun-Yan has the gifted young Zen master Dong-Shan coming to visit him. And I won't tell you their whole relationship. I'll just tell you that they studied together for a while. And then Dong-Shan, by the way, had already been enlightened. And was already well known as a very fine Zen student all over China by this time. Before he visited Yun-Yan.

[10:48]

So, after studying with Yun-Yan for some time, he was about to leave his teacher. And they had this little talk. Or they had these little talks. He said, Well, I'm going to go away pretty soon. And Yun-Yan said, Where are you going? And Dong-Shan said, Although I'm leaving you, I haven't yet decided where I'll stay. Yun-Yan said, But you aren't going to Hunan, are you? And Dong-Shan said, No. And Yun-Yan said, You're not returning to your hometown, are you?

[11:51]

He said, No. And then Dong-Shan said, When will you return? And he said, I'll wait until you have affixed a boat. And then Yun-Yan said, After your departure, it will be hard for us to meet again. And Dong-Shan said, It will be hard for us not to meet. Then, just as he was about to leave, just before he left, he said, Teacher, if after many years, in other words, if after many years means after you're dead. They don't want to say after you're dead. So he said, if after many years, or if after like a hundred years or so and you're dead,

[12:57]

if someone should ask me how to portray you, what should I say? How should I respond? And Yun-Yan said, after being quiet for a while, he said, Just this person. Dong-Shan was at a loss, kind of was lost in thought. And Yun-Yan said, Dear Jeff, having assumed the burden of this great matter, you must be very cautious. A footnote on this is the expression, just this person,

[14:00]

whatever it conveys to you, I'm sure it conveys quite a bit. But it also is an expression, if you see the characters, the Chinese characters, it's an expression which a person, an accused person, uses in Chinese to confess that they're guilty. You know, you're in court and if you want to say you're guilty, you say, just this person. And then he says to a student, he says, Now that you have assumed the burden of the great matter, the expression, now you have assumed the burden, means now you have been convicted of the crime. The crime of the great matter of birth and death. Okay. So I'll go over that again.

[15:04]

But before I do that, I wanted to tell you that tonight I didn't cover my right knee with my robe. Now I will. Is that a confession? No, it's the beginning of the story. The reason why I didn't cover my right knee was because every night when I sit down here, these first, these five nights, when I cross my legs, I look down and I see, see the holes? See the holes? See this robe? You see all the holes in this robe? So you can figure out what kind of robe this is, right? This robe, the thing I wanted to tell you, which I keep forgetting because every time I see it, I want to tell you about this robe, but then I cover it up with this nice robe,

[16:07]

this unripped up robe, and I cover it up and I forget to tell you because I forget to see the holes. What I wanted to tell you was, this robe was repaired by our plumber. You know our plumber that visited here? We had these plumbers came down, Frank Kilmer and Ted Hall, right? Ted Hall studied at Juilliard before he became a plumber. He was a classmate of, what's his name? Roger, no, not Roger. Robin Williams was his classmate. Anyway, that's one of the plumbers. The other plumber, Frank Kilmer, is the one who repaired the robe. If you want to see his work, I'll show you later. Anyway, the reason why I mentioned that was because, not only is it interesting that a plumber repaired this robe,

[17:09]

but he said the other day that he's noticed, he's been watching these Zen people for a while, and he noticed that after people practice Zen for quite a long time, they become very much themselves, which is not necessarily a compliment. It depends on, you know, who they are. And that's what I brought up right now because, he said, how will I portray you, teacher? And he said, just this person. I'm guilty of being me. In other words, I'm thoroughly and completely accepting being this person. This is the hallmark of this school.

[18:10]

People who practice hard and eventually, finally, they're who they are. I confess, it's me. I'm me, yes. I'm guilty of being me. And after practicing Zen for a long time, you can live, you can do that. You can be yourself. You can accept who you are. And not wiggle from that. Not wiggle from that. You can stay on your spot. And not move from it. But actually move at your spot. Like Kierkegaard says, despair is movement from your spot. Faith is movement at your spot. In other words, be yourself.

[19:11]

Total dynamic. Vividly alive. Constantly active at your spot. I confess, it's me. That's how he wanted his disciple to portray his teaching to the next generation. Now, and he says, then he says, and now that you're also guilty of this same school, of being you, be very cautious. And then Dongshan leaves his teacher. He walks off, he kind of doesn't understand what the teacher means. He remains dubious about what Yongyan said. And later, while he was crossing a river, he saw his reflection in the water. And this is a little, I have a little book here, which is about him.

[20:11]

And here's a picture of him. You can't see it, of course, very well, but anyway. It's a picture of him. Kind of a, he also has kind of ripped up robes. And here he is crossing the water, lifting up his little skirt, so it doesn't get wet, and looking down in the water and seeing his reflection in the river. And when he saw his reflection in the river, he was greatly awakened. And he then gave this famous, then his forgotten self spoke this verse. In other words, when you're awakened, you forget yourself, right? So he forgot himself and he woke up, or he woke up and forgot himself, and then his forgotten self. And again, forgotten self is a kind of like, not exactly a double entendre, and not exactly a pun,

[21:14]

sort of a pun, because it means two things. It means that you forgot yourself, but it also means the self, it is that you forgot the self, but then there's also the self that's forgotten. So the forgotten self can speak. So the forgotten self spoke this poem. And the poem goes like this. Earnestly avoid seeking outside. Lest it receive far away. Now I walk alone. Everywhere

[22:23]

I meet him. He is not other than me, and I am not him. Only this way can you live thus far away. Thank you very much. And if you listen, if you heard the song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, which Dongshan, this man wrote, which is what we chant every morning. We chant it every morning? Every other morning. This is the decadent version. Are you defensive or something? Who are you? Every morning during the old days and now, every other morning, we chant the song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi

[23:28]

written by Dongshan, right? And in the song it says, you are it, it's not you. That's where this came from. He put his poem, his enlightenment poem, into that song. This is how you can live with suchness in this way. Again, as I've been saying, you know, don't seek outside. In other words, outside means you come to the limits of you, right? And then you want to reach beyond that. Well, that's not beyond that. If you think it's outside, then you don't understand that you're just stretching more fully into who you are. And if you did that, then it receives.

[24:28]

It receives. Everything else besides you receives because you push it away, because you think that you're outside yourself. So, you think you're outside yourself, it can't meet you because you're not home. So, avoid seeking outside. Like I was talking about last night, don't try to understand what Dogen Zenji thinks, but try first of all to think how Dogen Zenji is talking to himself. Then try to find out what he thinks. Then, later, after Yunyuan died, Dengshan became a teacher,

[25:30]

and he was doing memorial services for his teacher. And he was doing a monk said to him, asked him why he was doing memorial services for Yunyuan. Because he, Dengshan, had studied with other teachers who were much more famous, had been recognized by other teachers who were more famous. They said, why are you doing a memorial service for that guy? What was so good about him? Oh, I screwed up the story a little bit, sorry. They were doing a memorial service, and the monk said to him, you know, what teaching did you get from Yunyuan? So, you heard some teaching

[26:34]

that he got from Yunyuan, right? Do you remember what he got? Just this person. Just this person. That's the teaching he got. He got some other stuff sort of like that too. So, a monk said, what teaching did you get from Yunyuan? And Dengshan said, although I was there, I didn't receive any teaching. So, again, this is a characteristic of this school. You go to study with a teacher, you don't receive any teaching. Then the monk says, since you didn't actually receive any teaching, why are you conducting a memorial service for him? That makes sense, right? Why would you do a memorial service

[27:36]

for somebody who didn't give you any teaching after you spent a lot of time with them? What's so good about that? Okay. And then Yunyuan said, why should I turn my back on him? And the monk said, if you began your career by meeting Nanchuan, in other words, that's what I meant by he had already studied with these very famous Zen masters. If you began studying with these famous Zen masters, why would you now conduct a memorial service for this little guy who didn't teach you anything? And then Dongshan said, it is not my former master's virtue or his enlightened truth that I esteem, only that he did not directly indicate

[28:37]

what he venerates in his teacher is that his teacher did not directly indicate. Then the monk says, since you are conducting the memorial feast for your former master, do you agree with him or not? And Dongshan said, I agree with half and don't agree with half. The monk said, why don't you agree with him completely? And Dongshan said, if I agreed with him completely, then I would be ungrateful to my former master. Now I want you to know I did not set this up. But I couldn't have done better

[29:44]

to pick this story. It summarizes the whole week. This is about meeting, okay? If you agree with your master, former or living, living or dead, if you agree with him completely, then your teacher does not have any descendants. You agree with half and you don't agree with half. You do not agree with the whole thing. You agree with half and don't agree with half. If you agree completely, you agree completely, but you don't meet your teacher. So in these little stories, you have really the essence of Soto Zen, which is the teaching of vastness, which is just this person. Very much herself, very much himself.

[30:45]

And the relationship is I am him, I am her, and she is not me. I walk alone and everywhere I go, I meet her. I venerate her not because of her deep teaching or her virtue, but because she never indicated precisely. She never directly indicated. She never exhaustively explained. And I am getting dangerously close to exhaustively explaining. But that just means that you won't venerate me. It's okay. You can venerate the one who doesn't tell you anything. Besides, I am soon going to change my story. And you meet. Meet means you don't submit and you don't rebel. You don't completely disagree with your teacher either. You half agree and half do not agree.

[31:46]

And the reason why you do that is because you're grateful. If you're really grateful to your teacher, you do not agree completely because you know that the life of the practice, the life of the tradition, means that you have your own contribution which your teacher never made and wouldn't want to. . You got that story down now? Isn't that nice? So I was talking to a mother of four today who was discussing about how to help her children and without me saying a word, she said, Well, I know now what to do for my children.

[32:47]

I'll do nothing. It's not easy to do nothing for your children. It's not easy to do nothing for your students and it's not easy to only half agree with your teacher. But again, you do nothing at a distance. Okay? You don't just sort of like leave town and do nothing. You stay close and do nothing. You stay right there with the person. You stay right there with the kids while they're doing this stuff and you don't do nothing right there. I heard a woman say one time, You know, what I appreciate most about my mom is that she never said a word. She never said one word. She was always there ironing and stuff, washing dishes, right nearby,

[33:48]

and she never said a word. I came in with those guys, I did this, I did that, and she just was there. So you got to be there though. You got to be there and not do anything. In other words, you have to be you have to be just this person. Not that person. You don't do their life. You do yours. It's very difficult. And don't stick your nose in other people's business. Even though you love them. So that's kind of, that worked out pretty well. And don't forget Bodhidharma. You know, he set the example really. So this is Soto Zen, right? This is Yunyan and Dongshan.

[34:50]

That's their style. That's sort of the up-to-date Song Dynasty version or Tong Dynasty, late Tong Dynasty version of Bodhidharma. Right? Bodhidharma who, when he saw the emperor, when the emperor asked, what's the highest meaning of the holy truth? Bodhidharma said, you know, empty, no holiness. Who are you? I don't know. This is the big gift. This is his version of being very close to the emperor and not touching the emperor with anything but his presence with just this person. I can only be Bodhidharma. Sorry. This is infinite compassion. And this practice then comes down, [...] and also goes back, back, back to Shakyamuni Buddha who said, please train yourself thus.

[35:52]

It's all the same teaching, the teaching of please be you. And who are you? The Buddha said, in the seen there will be just the seen. In the heard there will be just the heard. In the imagined there will be just the imagined. And in the thought or the known there will be just the known. When for you in the seen there is just the seen and for you in the heard there is just the heard and in the imagined just the imagined and in the known just the known then you will not identify with it.

[36:54]

When you do not identify with it, when you do not carry a self to it, when you do not defile it, then you will not locate yourself in it. When you do not locate yourself in it, there will be no here or there or in between. And this will mean the end of suffering. This is a Buddhist teaching this is Bodhidharma's teaching this is Yunyan's teaching this is Dongshan's teaching this is your life. And I'm really sorry to have talked so much but I thought I should. And tonight our song will be I'm not sure why I think it would be appropriate

[37:56]

which I don't know again I call upon my what do you call it? Birthsake? Is that what you say? No. Namesake. Huh? Namesake. Namesake? Birthsake? Okay, what is it? It is a gift to be simple It is a gift to be free It is a gift to come down where you want to be And when we have landed in a place just right we will be in the garden of love and delight When true simplicity is gained to bow and to bend we shall be ashamed And turning and turning will be our delight Till by turning and turning we come round we come round Would it be alright

[38:57]

to do that once more? Now would you be embarrassed to sit up there again right there? I wasn't embarrassed by that. Well what were you embarrassed by? You were talking about her birthdays. Oh! Oh, you didn't want people to know how old you were. This is Richard. He's not embarrassed to simply help me with this song. Here I go. Okay, this is called It is a gift to be simple Now, Yun Yan was a simple fellow. And so was Shakyamuni Buddha sometimes. Okay, ready? It is a gift to be simple

[40:01]

It is a gift to be free It is a gift to come down where you want to be And when we have landed in a place just right we will be in the garden of love and delight When true simplicity is gained To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed And turning and turning will be our delight Till by turning and turning we come round right Good lyrics. Is that it? Thank you. Well, I don't know. It's getting kind of late I guess. Maybe we can sing some songs some other night. We don't want these sing-alongs to get a bad reputation. We don't want these sing-alongs

[41:50]

to get a bad reputation. Buddha, Dharma, Jodha, Sangha, and Jodha Beings are harmless I am not awakened with them Delusions are inexhaustible I am not doing them Dharma, bliss, are bound to be boundless I am not invented them Buddha, surrender is unquestionable I am bound to be counted

[42:35]

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