This morning we have an opportunity to explore further into the question, what is the great business under the patch robe of the Bodhisattva? not all bodhisattvas wear patch robes, but for those who do, I'd like to look under the robe and see what they're up to. This original question, which was raised at the beginning of this practice period on which

[01:03]

I've been raising for almost a year now. I started last spring at Green Gulch during practice period there. One of the practice period people said, could we discuss or could you say something about intimacy? And this question popped to mind. and I've been looking at it since last spring with people all over the world. I want to mention this morning that in the original story the teacher asked The Attendant.

[02:05]

That question. It's a story about the teacher and the attendant. And there are several stories about attendants which come up now for various reasons which I think might help us investigate this business under the patch robe. Many of the stories I tell you are stories when I was, formally or informally, an attendant to some teacher. Here at this monastery, when I'm playing the role of the doshi, which I think means way teacher, teacher of the way, I wait

[03:33]

by what we call the Doshi Han. I watch the monks go up to the hall and enter the hall. And standing there with me is an attendant. In this case we say, Attendant Clark or the work leader or guardian of wisdom. He's attending and he's guarding the wisdom. And the attendant has the opportunity

[04:39]

in attending a teacher to ask questions. Recently, Attendant Clark said, where does it say that When prostrations exist in the world, the Buddhadharma exists. And when prostrations or if prostrations disappear in the world, the Buddhadharma disappears in the world. And I said, in Shobo Genzo, Dharani, in the Treasury of True Dharma Eyes, chapter called Dharani.

[05:59]

Later I said to the attendant, so in one person, keeps bowing, that one person can keep the Buddha Dharma alive in the world. But it's hard to constantly do prostrations, so the person might need a successor. Afterwards I thought, why don't I check out the Treasure of True Dharma Eyes, Dharani chapter and see if I was accurate in my citation. And there it was. When Frustrations remain in the world, Buddha Dharma remains.

[07:16]

When frustrations disappear, Buddha Dharma disappears. This image came to mind just a minute ago of some of those modern movies where, you know, about after the world's destroyed. Not the world's, the world's not destroyed, just, but like... the government's destroyed, the hospitals are destroyed, the universities are destroyed. And all that's left is, you know, a few mechanic shops where people are like, you know, trying to build motorcycles or something. Or, you know, make a water purification system. You know, they're just barely getting by because most of civilization has been destroyed by civilization. And people are, there's no dry cleaners left, so people are pretty dirty. Their clothes are kind of dirty, usually. And they also often still have some guns left.

[08:22]

So they're often shooting each other. So, and I just thought, what if one person was there doing prostrations? Wouldn't that make the movie different? Like, you know, the Buddha Dharma would be there in the midst of all that result of destruction. One person just over in the corner doing prostrations kind of like would change the quality of the situation. People would be kind of looking, what is he doing over there? She is really weird. Now, this chapter is called, you know, in Japanese they say, the Japanese pronunciation is Shobo Genzo Durani.

[09:26]

That's the chapter of the Shobo Genzo that's called Durani. But it becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly, as you look into the chapter, that the Shobo Genzo is a Durani. Usually we say, you know, Dharani is like a chant that we do, a spell or incantation which has miraculous power. Or it has the power to kind of connect with reality. So Shobo Genzo and Dharani is one chapter in the Shobo Genzo, but the whole Shobo Genzo is a Dharani. At the beginning of this Treasure of Two Dharma Eye Dharani chapter, it says something like,

[10:42]

Well, actually, just let me tell you beforehand that it points out at the beginning the pivot of mind or the pivot of the heart. Or you could also say the essence of mind or the essence of heart. That's the first thing that's pointed to in the chapter. And this word essence, this Chinese character for essence, also means pivot. you know, our important point. So at the beginning of the chapter, the teacher's trying to get us to look at this essential mind, or essential mind or essence of the mind, or essence of the heart, but also the pivot of the mind, the pivot of the heart.

[11:45]

And our translation sometimes says the hub of the hub that translates that character as hub. The hub of the heart. The hub of the mind. So he says when your eye of study is clear your eye of true Dharma is clear. When your eye, as your eye of true Dharma is clear, your eye of study is clear. Can you see the pivot? When your eye of practice or study is clear, your true Dharma eye is clear. When your true Dharma eye is clear, your eye of study is clear. When your eye is clear about the true Dharma, your eye is clear about the practice.

[13:00]

When your eye is clear about the practice, your eye is clear about the true Dharma. The essence of mind is being gestured toward here. The pivot of the essential mind is kind of being offered here. And there's several translations of this fascicle. I looked at two, and I was really, I was not dismayed by them being quite different. Matter of fact, I was really encouraged and assisted by their difference. The differences were complementary, not oppositional or contradictory. That's how I feel.

[14:00]

See if you can pick up on how they help each other. After pointing to this, the way that the I of practice or the I of study and the I of Dharma, how they work together in this pivoting way, in this intimate way, Then our great ancestor says, the authentic transformation of this pivot is inevitably due to the influence of paying respect to a great good counselor, a great good teacher. The transmission of this essential pivot of mind is inevitably due to the influence of paying respect to a great good teacher.

[15:15]

This is the great purpose itself. This is the great Dharani itself. The other translation which in this case isn't different really. What authentically transmits this essential matter is none other than the power to see, or it is different, the power to see the teacher, to see the great teacher, or see a great teacher. So in one case, the thing that transmits this pivotal mind this essential heart, the thing that transmits it is the influence of paying respect to a great teacher.

[16:28]

And the other is, the thing that transmits is the power of being able to see the teacher. So in one case it's paying respect to the teacher, the other case is being able to see the teacher. So I think that those two different translations show that the ability to see the teacher is connected to the ability to pay respects to the teacher. And they kind of go together. Paying respects to the teacher and seeing the teacher, in that situation, this essence of mind is transmitted Paying respect to the teacher, the great teacher, and seeing, or seeing, maybe it makes more sense you see a great teacher, so then you want to pay your respects. But how about paying your respects and then seeing the teacher?

[17:29]

Or paying your respects kind of half-heartedly at first because you don't really see the teacher, and then paying your respects wholeheartedly and then seeing the teacher? Or seeing the teacher and paying your respects half-heartedly and saying, well, that doesn't make sense. So the two translations are nice because they show that seeing the great teacher and paying respects are also pivoting on each other. In the essential heart here, the paying the respects and the seeing are intimate. And there's many ways to pay respects that the focus of this chapter is paying respects by prostration. But there's other ways which will be discussed. Matter of fact, right now, Vendôgen says, always serve the Buddha ancestors

[18:37]

by bringing a towel and a basin of water. I would expand that to say always see and serve the Buddha ancestors by bringing a towel and a basin of water. This is a way of serving a person. It's bring them water and a towel to wash their face. Bring a Buddha ancestor some water and a towel so she can wash her face. This refers to a story which, if I live longer, I'll tell you. It is a great story.

[19:39]

Some of you are going to love it. The other translation is, without fail, we should sincerely serve towel and water basin. To who? To the great teacher. Thus, Dogen says, bringing tea and making tea, the pivot of mind is realized. Another translation. Thus, the disciple bringing tea and making tea realizes the essential heart.

[20:50]

Because of reading this chapter, what comes to mind is this pivot of mind. And therefore I asked that we chant at noon service the Zazen Shin, which is a meditation on this pivot. It says at the beginning, the essential function of all Buddhas, the functioning essence of all Buddhas, the functional, the essential function, the functioning essence. But also that word essence or essential could be pivot. The pivotal function of all Buddhas, the functioning pivot of all Buddhas. It's the same character.

[21:57]

So this meditation is meditation on the same thing in this text. Now, there's two main stories. The first story is a story about bringing the tea. About an attendant bringing the tea. The main characters of this story are the teacher. His name is Tianhuan. and the student is .

[23:06]

Da Wu probably means way awakening or awakening of the way. That's the teacher. And Lung Tan means dragon pond or dragon swamp. And the next part of his name is respect faith. Could be respectful faith or respect and faith. Lung Tan, dragon pond. I'm always happy to be thinking of Dragon Pond.

[24:08]

So he's a disciple of Tianhuang Dawu and his family members were cake sellers. I didn't know that until just a few days ago. And you'll soon see how important this is. His family members were cake sellers. And the kind of cakes that I think we're talking about here are what we call in Cantonese dim sum. And in Mandarin it's more like tian xin, which means dot heart. Tian in this case means a dot, a black dot, and xin means mind. So it's dotting the heart, and dotting the heart means to refresh. Refresh your heart.

[25:24]

That's the name of those pastries, dim sum. So his family sold these refreshments, these cakes. Now the teacher, Da Wu, lived near the entrance of Tianhuang Monastery. Each day, Chongxin would present small cakes as an offering to Dawu. This is before he actually became a monk. He used to bring offerings to the teacher. Each time he gave the offering, Dawu would set aside

[26:29]

I guess he gave him ten. He usually gave him ten. And each time Da Wu would set aside one cake saying, this is for the sake of your descendants. One day Cheng Xin said, Chongshin is Dragon Pond. He's not Dragon Pond yet. He has this name. He said, I have many cakes and I take them everywhere. So why do you leave one for me? Does this have some special meaning? And Da Wu said, you bring cakes and So what's the harm if I return one to you?

[27:42]

At this, Chongxin, the future dragon pond, grasped the deep meaning. And so he left home to study with Dawu. Da Wu later said, previously, you have been respectful to virtue and good, and now you've placed your faith in what I teach. So the name I give you is Chong Shin, respect faith. Thereafter, Chong Shin remained close to Dawu as his attendant. One day, in his practice as attendant, he asked his teacher, Dawu, since I came here, I have not received any instruction about the pivot of mind.

[28:57]

you haven't taught me anything about the essential heart. Da Wu said, since you came, I have done nothing but demonstrate the pivot of mind, the essence of the heart to you. The student said, How did you demonstrate it? Dawu said, You came bringing tea. I received it for you. You came serving food, cakes. I received them for you. When you paid your respects by bowing, I lowered my head.

[30:10]

Where did I not demonstrate the pivot of mind, the essence of the heart? Chongshin lowered his head for a while, a long while. Da Wu said, look at it directly. If you try to think about it, you'll miss it. This is also instruction for you at noon service when you chant this Zazen Shin.

[31:18]

Look at it directly, which makes sense because you're going to be reading it. Look at it directly. Look right at it, but don't try to figure it out. Just look and become intimate with it. You will feel, I think, yourself being spun around by this chant. It's very pivotal. It goes back and forth and round and round. It throws you all over the place. If you can pay attention to it, that'll be good. If you try to figure it out, you'll get sick. I think, unless you're smart or something. Anyway, the instruction from quite a few centuries ago, about 12, is look at it. Look at this pivot. Look at where the mind practice is clear and the dharma eye is clear. Look at where you bring the offering to the teacher and the teacher responds.

[32:20]

And there's the essence of mind. Look at that without thinking about it. Look at it directly. If you try to think about it, you'll miss it. Upon these words, Chongshin woke up. Chongshin then asked Da Wu, how does one uphold it? Just by looking at it without trying to think about it. Da Wu said, live in an unfettered manner. in accord with circumstances, give yourself over to everyday mind. For there is nothing sacred to be realized outside of this, of this pivot of mind,

[33:26]

which you can look at directly anytime, but you can't get a hold of it because it's a pivot. It's constantly turning and flipping the entire universe with it. This is the business under the patch robe. This is the great Dharani. This is realized by prostration to a great teacher. So, Dragon Pond.

[34:49]

After Chongqing completes his studies with Dawu, he goes off and sets up shop someplace in the mountains of China. And now what I've realized is that he got all of his family members to set up shops all around the monastery so that if any Buddhist pilgrims were going in the mountains and wanted to buy some cakes, when they come to the cake stand, his family members would test them, test their understanding. If their understanding was good, they'd just let the person proceed on their merry way.

[35:52]

If there was something incomplete in their understanding, they would send them to Dragon Pond. So I heard the stories about this before, but I didn't realize that these people who were sending students to him were in his family business. So there was once an intense Buddhist scholar who was a specialist on the Diamond Sutra. And he heard rumors about this school that was becoming very influential in China that had a transmission a transmission of the pivoted mind, of the essence of heart, that they transmitted without depending on scriptures.

[37:08]

And he got, what do you call it, exercised about that. He got upset. And he got the idea that he would go and visit some of the, he would travel around where these Zen people were, these special transmission people were, and he would meet them, interact with them, and refute them. So he headed to the places where there was a high density of these special transmission people. And as he was going along the road, he saw a little cake stand where there was an old woman selling these refreshments. Now I understand it was probably Dragon Pond's sister or aunt, maybe his mother. Maybe his girlfriend.

[38:17]

Who knows? But anyway, she was in the same business as him. Selling cakes as a way to transmit the Dharma. So the man says, I'd like some refreshment, some cakes. And the woman said, excuse me, may I ask, Reverend Sir, what's that on your back? And he said, uh... It's a pack full of Diamond Sutra commentaries. I'm a specialist in this study. And she said, oh, I've heard of that scripture from my brother. I understand it says that past mind cannot be grasped. and future mind cannot be grasped, and present mind cannot be grasped.

[39:21]

With which mind will you refresh yourself, venerable sir? Oh, excuse me, before she asked the question, she said, I have a question for you about the sutra, and if you can answer it, I'll give you the cakes for free. If you can't, you're not going to get any cakes. And he said, okay, go ahead, ask me. And she asked him that question. With which mind will you refresh your heart? With which mind will your heart be touched? And he couldn't answer. You can answer, but he couldn't. because you are hanging out where this special transmission is occurring. So she said, so I'm sorry, I can't give you any refreshment. However, I can send you someplace where you can get some refreshment.

[40:26]

His name is Dragon Pond and he lives over there. Check them out. So, this person whose name was Deshan goes to visit Dragon Pond. And he goes into the temple. And he comes into the temple and he says, I've heard of Dragon Pond. And now that I'm here, I don't see the pond and I don't see the dragon." And then Dragon Pond came out from behind the screen and said, Now you have really arrived at Dragon Pond. And then Deshan, the scholar of the Diamond Sutra, was allowed to stand in attendance of Dragon Pond till late at night. He paid his respects by attending the teacher.

[41:38]

And when it got late, the story says that Dragon Pond said, it's late. You should go rest. Or you should leave. So Dragon Pond escorted Deshaun, the scholar, to the door, raised the the folding screen, gave him a lantern. Oh no, raised the folding screen, and then Deshaun was stepping outside. He said, it's dark. So then Dragon Pond gave him a paper lantern. And as he stepped out into the dark, Dragon Pond blew it out. And Deshaun realized the essential mind, the pivot of mind. And the next morning he burned all his Diamond Sutra commentaries, but he kept his diamond suit.

[43:01]

And he said, never again will I doubt these special transmission weirdos. And so he became Dragon Pond's successor. And then his successor was Shui Fung. And the Yun Men school and the Fa Yun school come from there. So this lineage, most people don't know too much about Dragon Pond, but this guy from the cake selling family was well prepared for the practice of intimacy because his family made cakes. made refreshments to help touch people's heart.

[44:12]

So he was well suited, even before he met his teacher, he was already serving his teacher. And he just kept serving his teacher and they became more and more intimate. And then he transmitted this simple intimacy of daily life, which is the great Dharani, which is the treasury of true Dharma eyes. He transmitted this to the scholar, and the scholar transmitted it to the wonderful monk Shui Fung. And Shui Fung had these many disciples, but these two, Fa Yin and Yin Min, who made these wonderful schools of transmitting the pivot of mind Through what? Through intimacy.

[45:15]

In the intimacy of our exchanges, of our respectful serving of each other, of the student offering the tea and the teacher receiving the tea, and the student offering the cake and the teacher receiving the cake, there the pivot is demonstrated and transmitted. The old lady selling the cakes who sent Deshawn to Dragon Pond. Deshawn, by the way, means Virtue Mountain. The old lady who sent Virtue Mountain to Dragon Pond. She was also cooking up the intimacy. But in this story, Dragon Pond completed the story by having a special paper lantern that he could blow out.

[46:27]

So somehow we work together to realize the place where the transmission occurs and the serving the great teacher and the seeing the great teacher, the bringing of the tea and the bringing of the cakes. offering the prostrations, and as you see in the next story, which I'll tell tomorrow maybe, the bringing of the water and the bringing of the towel, the bringing of your words, the bringing of your thoughts, the bringing of your questions. Where does it say that when there's prostrations in the world, there's Buddha Dharma in the world? How are you feeling today? Bringing your questions in these interactions is where the special transmission occurs.

[47:36]

You can look at it directly. If you think about it, you'll miss it. But you can look at it directly. It's right there all the time. It doesn't say there is a great teacher exactly, but somebody has to see it. And in order to see it, you have to serve it. And in order to serve it, you have to see it. They work closely together. So this is a mystery of, you know, this is the, yeah, kind of mysterious. I don't know if scholars will verify my sense that the mountains were filled with Dung Shan's family members serving the Dharma, but that's what I kind of think now.

[48:40]

I didn't know before, a few days ago, that his family business was selling cakes. I didn't know that that lady, that wonderful lady who sent Virtue Mountain to him was in the same business as his family. But you know, in a way, some people feel that everybody's in the same business here. We're all in the same business. We're all working together to send people to the Buddha for special transmission. That's what we're doing here in this world. And prostration is part of it.

[49:39]

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