After Bodhidharma left the emperor's court and went to Shaolin and sat, the emperor's court teacher, court Buddhist teacher, asked the emperor if he knew who that person was. The emperor said, no, who was that? And the teacher said, that was the enlightening being of universal, infinite compassion, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. When the emperor heard that, the emperor said, well, let's get him to come back. The teacher said, it will not be possible to bring him back, your majesty.

[01:04]

Bodhidharma then sat in silence, in deep silence in his cave. And in that silence, he was able to hear the cries of all sentient beings. We must be more quiet.

[04:00]

Sitting in deep silence, Bodhidharma did not get entangled in objects. If we get entangled in objects, we can only hear one or two or three voices and these voices will become sand in our eyes. They become hindrances. So Bodhidharma sat quietly turning the mind around learning the backward step, contemplating emptiness, his mind not involved in objects, but simply functioning naturally in calm expectation.

[05:13]

calm readiness, just readiness. In that readiness he could hear all sentient beings and feel connected to all sentient beings. And from this silence sitting, a great flower bloomed, the flower of Zen, and it spread all over China, Korea, Japan, to Southeast Asia, to Tibet, and now to America and Europe, South America, North America, and back to India.

[06:22]

When each object arises, use that occasion to reverse your thought. Think backwards to the mind that thinks. That mind cannot be an object. You cannot grasp that mind. Think back to the ungraspable, pure mind. And as you think back, that is simply readiness. The monk asked the master, Ummon, what was the teaching of the Buddha's entire lifetime? And the Buddha said, I mean, Umun said, an appropriate statement.

[08:17]

Another translation of this response of Umun into English is, the teaching on oneness, or the teaching on one. But if you look at the Chinese characters, it means a teaching where one, literally the Western eye sees the characters, doesn't know what they mean. It looks like what they're saying is a teaching which is one or each meets each. Each meets each. This is the appropriate response, moment by moment, of Abalokiteshvara, of Buddha. Just ready for the next thing that happens and meet it without seeing it

[09:40]

as an object without getting entangled in it. Just sitting like this and letting the flower of compassion bloom. Some In Tibet, the monks sit, the yogis sit, and they say Avalokiteshvara's mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum, to bring infinite compassion into their body. In the Zen school, we sit still and quiet to realize this compassion in our body. Just like the story of that rabbi who taught his son by silence.

[10:50]

That careless, unsympathetic boy living in silence. Eventually he could hear in the silence. Eventually he could hear the silence talk to him. Meditation on emptiness is to return to the natural purity of mind which does not get involved in objects, which abides in alert readiness. But on each thing, not denying what's happening, but using each event as the moment to realize suchness.

[11:54]

Abiding in such contemplation is called abiding without depending on anything. I had a dream which I told you about here. And it was a dream that occurred to me while Yanagida Cezanne was giving his talks about the ten ox herding pictures. It was after he gave one talk about the two different, two most famous versions of the ox herding pictures. One was most famous in China and the other was most famous in Japan. And that night, after he gave that talk, that night I dreamt that I killed something.

[13:03]

And I was trying to figure out which of these lists of teachings, which of these sets of stages I should go through to deal with this killing in response to this murder. While I was trying to decide between the two, a pink rose came up in front of me. I didn't know what this rose meant, but I was very happy to see it. And I forgot about the lists. That was enough for me. I didn't forget about the murder, the killing, but I felt I knew how to go on with my life with the teaching of this flower.

[14:22]

Later, someone explained the dream to me. in the, what do you call it, the small Buddha hall where they have a coffee. She said, you know what your dream means? I said, no. She said, you know what healing in dreams means? I said, no. She said, it means you're letting go of something extra, something you don't need anymore. And she said, do you know what the pink rose means? I said, no. She said, it means compassion. So I was happy to hear that. And I think that's true. If you can drop away everything extra, every experience that you're aware of,

[15:32]

The extra part is to make the experience into an object. Whenever you have an experience, it's a combination of an object, a consciousness, and a sense organ. A sense organ which mediates or separates the object and the consciousness. But all three are all, whenever there's an experience, all three are like touching. And the experience is not the consciousness, is not the object, is not the organ. It's always all three come together to make an experience. And you cannot, you can never untangle them. Really. The backward step Meditation on emptiness is to meditate, is to contemplate all three at once and see that none of them has an independent existence.

[16:48]

They all depend on the other two, plus much more. But we have evolved to a place in a natural process of human development to stress the object This stress is extra and can be dropped. You drop that stress by taking a backward step to contemplate the actual causality of your experience, which is all three, object, organ, and consciousness. And you don't necessarily even direct yourself to do that. The way you see, the way you will awaken to the actual causality of your experience is simply by paying attention without any further instructions.

[17:49]

That's the backward step. And there you will be able to see You'll be able to see with the back of your head. You'll be able to hear from the bottom of your feet. Zen teacher Ikkyu, they asked him how to practice Zen. And he said, attention. And the monk said again, how do you pay attention?

[18:58]

He said, attention. Please give me some further instruction on how to practice this attention. Attention. Attention. This is the signless. This is the wishless. This is the empty. This is wall gazing. And nice and simple. Nice and useful. But not easy. It requires every single ounce of your life flesh to do it. You can't hold back anything in order to do this meditation. Not easy. May I have the box?

[20:09]

I didn't know exactly what was in here. This is just sort of an extra surprise, this thing here. I didn't mean to show you this, but I couldn't resist since it was here. This is a string. Paper. This is what I thought was in here. This is a bowl, a begging bowl that the Buddhist monks use to beg and also you can eat out of this. Okay? I brought this because yesterday when I was serving I learned about some of your habits. I had a conference call today with Noel Weitzman to see if he supports some of these habits I saw, and he doesn't.

[21:40]

So now I'd like to, with a free conscience, make some comments. First of all, all these comments are about forms of Zen practice and the point of these forms is to realize the vast mind of Bodhidharma. These are not like little things to make you into a good person or better than other people or a real Zen student or an expert. They're ways to remind you to take the backward step. They're ways to remind you to contemplate emptiness and to have a ready mind. So all these things are unnecessary and irrelevant. They're just opportunities to realize the way.

[22:47]

Okay? So one thing is that when you wipe your bowl, you turn it towards you. And this is just not because turning towards is better than turning away. But Dogen Zenji, when he had extra water, he took it back to the stream. not to waste it, because water is such a wonderful thing. In the whole known universe, the only place we know where there's flowing water is this planet. Water is extremely rare and precious, so he didn't want to waste any of it. He went to the stream to return the water, but he didn't pour the water like this. He poured the water like this, back towards you. He felt that this was more honoring the water.

[23:51]

Okay? So, and we do that. We pour the water towards us. Not like this. And when you wipe the bowl, you wipe the bowl like this. Not like this. Okay? Back towards you. All right? But when you do that, this is a time and a place to realize emptiness. A time and a place on this experience to not have this be an object. There is an experience here, but don't stress that it's an object. Don't add that extra entanglement to make it an object. Don't get involved in objects. Get involved in experience, but not objects.

[24:53]

This is the Buddha way. This Buddha way is not an object. Oh, also, notice I have these two hands. Grasp the Buddha way with two hands, not one. Now, if you hold it with one hand, there's certain problems. Like, for example, some people hold it with one hand. Your thumb's in the way of the serving you cancel. That's a kind of practical problem. But also, two hands is coming. The two hands are unnecessary. You can hold it with one hand, right? If you have big hands, you can get a hold of it with one hand. I think all of you can do that. The other hand is not really necessary. The other hand is to put here to say, to remind you why you're holding this bowl, to remind you why we're feeding you, what your lunch implies. That's why we use two hands.

[26:00]

The extra hand, just for mindfulness, just for remembering the way. Remembering the pure primitive mind that does not dwell in objects, a childlike mind that is not yet disturbed by externals, the mind which is always in inward quiet and calm, never disturbed, never disturbed by objects. And yet, that mind embraces all objects. This is our child mind, the mind we yearn to return to, or yearn to be reunited with. So an extra hand reminds us of this mind, which is always present.

[27:04]

So a big bowl, but also the little bowl too, also two hands, the little bowls. Now, when you're holding with two hands and the server's giving you as much as you want, you sort of have to let go for a little while to signal, okay? So you let go and go like this. But actually, there's some debate about this. In some ways, some people feel to hold it like this, see, now the server puts the food in here, and then when they take the serving utensil out and go back to get some more, since you're reaching out to them with the bowl, you could just take the bowl back, and that could be the signal. But some people feel that's rude. I don't want to be rude, but that's another possibility. Just bring it back. But if that isn't clear and they start coming with the ladle anyway... Then maybe you have to let go and say... Anyway, I think either way is okay.

[28:18]

Either just bring it back or let go for a little while so the server knows you don't need any more. But also, there's another signal that's very difficult to give without taking your hand away. It's this one. the little bit one. So maybe you have to let go, that's okay. Eventually you have to let go of the bowl. This is only a temporary expedient. Goodbye. Would you like the lights a little higher? Uh... Yes. Did you hear her request? He has heard your request and he will do as you ask. You mean when you lift it up or at the offering time?

[29:30]

Well, the most elaborate, not the most elaborate, but one way to do it is like this. Okay? This is a lotus pedestal. Looks kind of nice. Some people go like this, like this, right? That's okay too. But you can also just join these fingers and just make it into one piece, kind of like that. And you bring it up to about eye level. So if you have one of those black lacquer balls, you get to see yourself kind of distorted with a big nose. The next point is

[30:35]

that the water that we use to wash these bowls tastes like ambrosia, right? But that's not by accident. It's because of a little preparation process that you go through. So the bowl goes into the first bowl, then you pour it into the second bowl, then you pour it into the third bowl. But when you pour from the second into the third, save a little bit in the second and drink that. that part has a little bit of junk at the bottom, right? From your cleaning process. You drink the junk. Okay? And then you give the spirits, all the spirits, all the beings that we're making an offering to, for their well-being, you give them the cleaner part of the water without the junk in the bottom, okay? Okay? But then when the next part comes again, there's still some more junk fall to the bottom.

[31:40]

So you don't pour all the water out into the offering bucket. You again leave a little bit at the bottom and you drink that part. So twice you distill the water and make it into ambrosia as an offering to all beings. Where did the thing come about pouring it all out? Does anybody know where that came from? No one wants to take credit for that? Yeah. You know where that started? Pouring all of the second bowl? But he didn't want to pour all the third bowl? No. Well, anyway, some of you thought you were supposed to pour the water out, and I really appreciate your follow-through on that.

[32:47]

I mean, some people were going... That's the spirit, you know. If you think the water is supposed to be poured out, then please, really, pour it out, you know. That's good. Yeah. Oh, that's another thing. Also, the understanding I had was that you actually touch your bowl to the edge, but the reason for touching it is not to make a sound. But so that you actually make contact and then the server holds the bucket at an angle like this. So when you put your bowl against it and tilt it, it runs down the side rather than if it's like this or if you pour it from out in the middle, the water falls down and goes tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. So just to be quiet, you touch it, but not to make that sound, but just touch it to let it run down quietly.

[33:55]

But there's another understanding, there's several other understandings. One is, give the spirits a send-off. Now, some people think that spirits like a little noise, so, you know. What? They like firecrackers. Oh, yeah, right. Is that what firecrackers are about? I don't know. Okay, so those are the points I want to mention this morning. A little later today we're going to have another high-level discussion about these things, and you'll be hearing a little bit more at lunchtime, I think. Some of the menues may not be so happy to you. I'll tell you in advance, maybe we could... Maybe we could discuss it now even. But what Dogen Zenji actually suggested, to accept the food as it was given and not to make yourself any additional little combination treats.

[35:07]

So I find it more difficult to actually you know, thoroughly accept without any resistance things as it is, then I do not to mix my bowls. But mixing the bowls is kind of a warm-up for meditation, the practice of suchness. In other words, you get these three dishes and that's what you're given and just leave it like that. That's what Dogen Zenji asked. He said, please don't mix them. Particularly, I myself love cooked fruit with yogurt or cottage cheese. And a combination of the cold cottage cheese and the warm fruit and all that, just fantastic. And maybe the Tenzo will serve that someday. But usually they give the cold cottage cheese or the cool yogurt separately. from the, or whatever, from the other dish.

[36:17]

But so then people want to mix them, those who know how good that would be. So, but I think what's going to maybe get decided this very day at the great San Francisco Zen Center is to return to the ancient way of not mixing. So please forgive Dogen Zenji, it's not our fault. But maybe not. Maybe the practice leaders will have some deeper commentaries to cite and we will continue to do this rather interesting variation called mixing. Yes? Particularly people like to mix their nuts. Yes? We're nearly all one. There are approximately eight million styles of how to eat in the Naked City.

[37:20]

One way that's kind of nice is the first bowl is kind of like, for those of you who don't have allergies, the first bowl is kind of the main bowl. And that's the main dish. The other ones are kind of like for protein and roughage and so on. The first bowl is like, what do you call it, the heater, right? That's what's keeping you warm. So you take quite a bit of that first one because it's a bigger bowl. And then you take these other bowls, OK? So you take one bite of the first one, or two, anyway, you take as much as you want to chew and you chew that, okay? Then you go, this is one way, then you go to the second bowl and take one bite. Then you go back to the first bowl, take one bite. Then go to the third bowl, take one bite. Then go back to the first bowl and take one bite. Then go to the second bowl and take one bite. Then go to the first bowl and take one bite. Then go to the third bowl and take one bite.

[38:24]

Then go to the first bowl and take one bite. This is the teaching of one very... What? I'm not saying it has to be one bite. I mean, just, you know, whatever amount you want to chew. Anyway, you don't eat... I'm supposed to say you don't eat, but that's one way. The other way is eat all the first one, eat all the second one, eat all the third one. And there's many other ways. But those are just three ways that you can, if you decide that, then you don't have to worry about which way you're going to do it. Then you can watch yourself relate to that. You can watch how, you know, how you respond to that particular form. But that's, those are, one form, the form of this, the first one, the more complicated one, is taught by a man named Noidi Roshi. He's a teacher, a Soto Zen teacher. He's a literary, and he's a good friend of Suzuki Roshi's.

[39:26]

He's still alive. And he is considered by many people in Soto Zen to be... What do you say? I want to say something about him. He's considered to be it in certain ways about Dogen Zenji within the school. He lives quite near to Suzuki Roshi's temple in Shizuoka, the province of Shizuoka in Japan. As a matter of fact, he really lives in the same town. And his temple is actually a smaller temple than Suzuki Roshi's temple. And Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu Roshi, who is now head of that temple, is actually hierarchically above Noiri Roshi. But Noiri Roshi is a much senior teacher.

[40:29]

Anyway, one of the times I visited Japan, I asked Hoitsu Roshi if I could meet Noiri Roshi. And he said, what do you want to meet him for? And I said, well, actually, Suzuki Roshi wanted me to study with him at one point, and I've heard wonderful things about him and also frightening things about him. So I'd like to meet him. And he said, OK. And then he told some stories about Naira Roshi. Like he said, he called Naira Roshi on the phone. He called and he said, hello, Naira Roshi? And nothing much happens. You go see Nae Roshi, he's always doing zazen, you know. You go see him, you go into his room, and somebody says something like, you know, some people came to see you now, Roshi.

[41:35]

And he goes... It's not exactly a social occasion, you know. Anyway, he's the one who teaches this way of eating the first bowl, then going to the second bowl, then going back to the first bowl, then go to the third bowl, then go back to the first bowl, in that way. Also, I think Narasakhi Roshi does that same way. It's one of the standard ways of doing it. The way of do one bowl, then do the next bowl, then do the next bowl was transmitted primarily by Jerry Fuller. Some of you don't know Jerry Fuller, but he's an old-time Zen Center member.

[42:37]

He's out at Green Gulch right now getting ready for lunch. All that's a true story, but it's just a story. So, taking one more step into the Book of Serenity, the third case is about Bodhidharma's teacher, sort of out of order, in a sense. But it makes sense when you listen to it, maybe why they put this third instead of second. The Bodhidharma teacher's name is Prajnatara. You know, prajna means penetrating insight, right? Hanyatara dayosho, we say in the morning. And para, what does para mean in that case, do you think?

[43:41]

Saving? Yeah. So, salvation or liberation by means of prajna, that's his name. So, one of the Indian rajas, the raja of East Indian country, invited this 27th Buddhist ancestor, Prajnatara, to a feast. And the ancestor of scrolls. Okay, so the scroll of your breath, the scripture of your breath, you follow this scripture, always with this scripture, forever with this scripture. Millions of times you recite this script, you reiterate this scripture, which is not getting involved in body and mind on the inhale, not getting involved or dwelling in myriad circumstances, breathing out. So it's the same practice that Bodhidharma had.

[44:51]

So you can see where Bodhidharma got his practice from in this story. So body and mind, you know, the five skandhas. He doesn't say that he doesn't completely... He doesn't say he ignores the five skandhas. To ignore the five skandhas, to ignore your body and mind, is dwelling in your body and mind. Does that make sense? You ignore it. You're dwelling in it. If you ignore it, you are the slave of your body and mind. All right?

[45:51]

But, so don't ignore it. Don't deny it. But also don't approach it. Don't get involved with it. Don't see body and mind as objects. That's also getting involved in it. Just let body and mind be body and mind. And then body and mind are the way of liberation for you. So breathing in, body and mind are the way of liberation, free of all abiding in them, either by denying or grasping, either by approaching or avoiding body and mind. That's kind of like, actually, that's another point about eating, you know. So you have this spoon, right? Now, we ask you not to make noise with your spoon hitting the bowl, right?

[46:56]

Well, part of the reason for that is to not make noise. So it's not noisy in there. So you can hear the street noise better. Okay? Okay. But another part of that is, again, this is an exercise in not getting involved in your experience. Just simply, you have to have an experience in order to not get involved in your experience. You need to be quite present with your spoon in order to not hit it. But also, you need to be quite present in order not to leave a lot of food in there. Now, you could leave a lot and get it all with your setzu. But, you know, I don't recommend that way. I think you should get as much as you can out of there with your regular spoon, but in such a way that you have to, you know, get pretty close to the edge and move the spoon along there to get the material, the food out of there, but without sort of being in a rush. So that care of how to use the spoon is, again, a possible time to meditate on being aware of body and mind.

[48:05]

The spoon is body and mind. The bowl is body and mind, the hands, body and mind. Use them in such a way to hit that middle way, that middle path between being inattentive and also grasping. This might make the meals longer, I know, but anyway, it won't necessarily make them longer. But it really requires that kind of attention. The feeling of that kind of care is the same kind of care where when you're aware of your breath, that same kind of care of not ignoring your breath and also not trying to grab your breath. To be aware of your breath as it is rather than not even knowing how it is or trying to make it a certain way or have some fixed idea about what it means to be aware of it. That same kind of attention of using your spoon, that same carefulness you can apply to watching your breath, to being with your breath.

[49:11]

And vice versa, the way you really feel in a good relationship with your breathing and your posture is the way to use your spoon. So this care for each thing, everything, it equally deserves your full attention, your deepest care. So it's not only that you take care of things, but the caring of each thing is necessary in order to settle with what's happening. So that's what Prajnatara says. He doesn't read scriptures. He just reads the scripture of the breath. Well, when you're, again, as someone mentioned earlier, zazen is to always be with your breath no matter what, okay?

[50:49]

But that doesn't mean, for example, some very sincere students that worked in the office here, they answer the telephone, but they can't talk to the person on the telephone because they're counting their breath, you know? Well, this is not what we mean by staying with your breath. Staying with your breath all the time would only be possible in some special, in a jhana, in a trance. And you wouldn't be able to answer the telephone in such a state. Well, when we say stay with your breath all the time, that's to a great extent is a statement of faith. That you're always with your breath. When I'm looking at Pam, at that moment, I'm having a visual experience. Okay? I'm not sort of thinking of my breath when I'm looking at you. I'm having a visual experience.

[51:50]

That's what I'm doing. But my intention is to be with my breath no matter what's happening, no matter what I'm aware of, no matter what kind of experience I'm having, I'm always with my breath. In other words, I'm always with my life. and my life is my breath. There's not two different things. So you should always be with your breath no matter what you're doing, but you cannot always be aware of your breath as an object. That would be disruptive to your life, to have some fixed idea of what your breath is. So when you're aware of your breath, in some limited sense, then be aware of your breath in a limited sense. But when you're not aware of your breath in a limited sense, be aware of your breath in an unlimited sense. In other words, the feeling of always being close to your experience, to your life. Now, I'd like to now tell you this story because it's now time to stop.

[52:58]

This is a story which I wanted to say at the beginning, but I had to do these first three cases before I could deal with this story. This is a story of the Zen teachers Yuen Yuen and Da Wu. Yuen Yuen is one of our ancestors. So one day Yuen Yuen was sweeping the ground And his Dharma brother Dawu walked up to him and said, too busy. And Yuen Yuen said, you should know that there's one who is not busy. And Dawu said, well, then are there, if so, then there's two moons. And Yuen Yuen raised his broom and said, which moon is this?

[54:04]

So if you're in the office answering the telephone, one of your Dharma siblings can walk up to you and say, too busy. And you can say, you should know there's somebody who's not busy. There's one who's not busy. So the same with the breath. If you're running around town, your friends may say, you're too busy, you're distracted, you're involved with objects. You're not aware of your breath. You're not with your breath. And you say, there's somebody who is always aware of the breath, who never gets busy, who never gets distracted. Well, so there's one who's busy and one who's not busy. There's two different moons, two different realities.

[55:13]

And Yuen Yuen didn't say yes or no. He just raised his broom and said, which broom is this? Or which reality is this? Is this the busy one or the un-busy one? So most of you, I think, are aware of the busy one, right? Anybody doesn't know what the busy one is? Everybody knows that one? Good. So then the ancestors ask us, please, while sitting in the zendo, while serving, while eating, while washing your hands and feet, while brushing your teeth, while bowing, while walking, while cleaning, while drinking tea, no matter what you're doing all day long, please recognize the one that's not busy.

[56:16]

But of course this one cannot be an object because in fact the busy, the one who's not busy does not have any objects of thought. The unbusy one is not involved in objects. So even while you seem to be involved in objects, remember and recognize the unbusy Bodhidharma that's there all the time. Please recognize that one. And without recognizing it as an object, when you recognize it, then, if you do recognize it, like Yuen Yuen, he was not just talking about that maybe, maybe he really did recognize the un-busy one, then we can say, I can ask you, are there two moons?

[57:08]

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