One day, the world-honored one got up on the seat. Manjushri struck the gavel and said, clearly observe. The Dharma of the Dharma King. The Dharma of the Dharma King is thus. The World Honored One got down from the seat. This is the first case of the Book of Serenity, which is a collection of koans, a collection of public cases compiled by

[01:40]

Our ancestor, Hongzhi, Hongzhi Zhengzhui. This is the first case of 100 cases. I don't know where they got this story from. One time I was reading the Avatamsaka Sutra and I, in the first chapter, on page 129, it says, the Dharma of the Dharma King is thus.

[02:51]

And there is a style in China, and I guess maybe they had it in India, I'm not sure, of when you have an assembly, the leader of the assembly strikes a gavel and says, please pay attention to the teacher now. And in... in some Buddhist assemblies in China, the way they would start a lecture, not a lecture, but a presentation, would be for someone to strike the gavel and make such an announcement. So the indication here is to clearly observe the Dharma, clearly observe the teaching of the king of Dharma.

[04:10]

The teaching or the Dharma of the king of Dharma is thus. I feel that this indication is, it is a verbal indication And also a postural indication is probably happening at the same time, namely the Buddha is sitting. The Buddha offers a posture and also offers silence. Silence is pointing to the same thing as the word thus. Do you see where thus points? It points to the same place as silence. It is an indication of the void.

[05:20]

It is an indication of emptiness. It is an indication of the non-substantiality of the experience right at hand. And silence is the structure of the void. Silence is not nothing. Silence shows us something about the void. But Manjushri kindly went too far and told us that it's thus. The Buddha sitting there and he said, it's thus. This is the teaching of thusness.

[06:23]

This is the dharma of thusness. which you already have, now you have it. So keep it well. But we don't quite know how to keep it. We may have some problem about how to keep this because Actually what we're keeping here is a structured void, structured by the words and postures of the Buddhism ancestors.

[07:34]

So in a sense, I feel that what I'm trying to offer with the aid of the Buddhas and ancestors is kind of like, in a sense, like traceless rope bridges or a traceless spider web in vast space. Or you might even say it's something like a miniature golf course in emptiness. So you can putt over to there and putt over to there and putt over to there. It's not an absolute golf course, it's just a little golf course to play on, to get yourself out into vastness.

[08:42]

And the original instruction is silence, a silent posture, and then it's amended, it's amended by, this is thusness. you already know it, and then somebody's not telling you, well, this is thusness. This is thus. Here's thus. Actually, not even this is thus, just it's thus. Such instruction is an attempt to guide us to our practice. in such a way that we don't bring along a self. So that we can come to our practice, our sitting, our walking, our breathing, our thinking.

[09:51]

We can be there without bringing a self to it. to practice with these things thus, rather than practice with these things in some way we bring to it some understanding of our practice that we carry over with us. Like somebody said to a Zen teacher, how do you practice Zen? And he said, attention. And he said, how do you pay attention? And he said, attention. How do you practice? Thus.

[10:52]

How do you practice thus? Thus. This is a hint about how not to bring any idea along with you, although ideas crop up moment by moment. We don't import them from our past action. We don't cling to an understanding of practice. We meet it with empty hands and even an empty heart and an empty mind. and empty guts. As I said yesterday, this takes... you have to have heart to proceed this way and courage to follow through. Somehow we have to rouse ourselves for this selfless

[11:56]

this selfless project, and encourage ourself in something that's really good for our true self, but for our old imported self, it's curtains. This is the first case of the Book of Serenity. It sets the stage for the 99 following cases. The 99 following cases, each one sends a thread, a silver thread through emptiness or a gold thread dropped into the sky that Zen monks can grab a hold of and swing through space with. but this is the basic instruction. Now as I said on Sunday, speaking of which, did you notice a difference between Sunday's lecture and yesterday's lecture?

[13:18]

Some people saw both, right? Different, weren't they? At Tassajara, the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki used to give talks. At one practice period, he gave talks in the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is also a sutra about, a teaching about suchness. Anyway, he read the Lotus Sutra and the way he read it was he like opened the Lotus Sutra and then the first thing he ran into was like the copyright dates, so he read them. And he just kept reading like that. And he lectured on it for the whole practice period. And I think it was during that practice period, one of our students said to him, Suzuki Roshi, oh, excuse me, he lectured on it, but as soon as he started lecturing on it, all the students immediately went to sleep.

[14:36]

Well, maybe not all, but almost all of them went to sleep. So I guess I'm not really giving a very good lecture because you're not all going to sleep. I should say I'm not really talking about suchness. When you say Suzuki Roshi, people who are on Zen Center usually wake up a little bit because they think, oh, this isn't going to be about suchness. This is going to be cute or something. Anyway, everybody went to sleep. They really did. Can you imagine this dear teacher? He's so famous now and everybody thinks he's so great. And his disciples went to sleep when he was giving a lecture. Now if you came today, and especially if you're just giving a short lecture,

[15:42]

Like I said, dude, we're going to give a 15-minute lecture today. You probably wouldn't go to sleep, right? You don't think you would anyway because this is probably your only chance, right? He's just visiting temporarily because he's usually not around. So you probably look very carefully and try to remember everything he said and how he moved and stuff and watch really carefully. Or if Dogen Zenji was just going to visit for just 15 minutes. Or Jesus, imagine if you see Jesus for 15 minutes. Probably nobody would fall asleep. But probably when Jesus was giving lectures to his disciples, they were falling asleep. Anyway, so when someone said to him, Sukhiroshi, why do we fall asleep when you're giving lectures? In the city, when you give lectures, they're really entertaining and we never fall asleep. Give such good lectures. And he said, at City Hall, I make them laugh.

[16:46]

At Tassajara, I just say what's happening and you go to sleep. So when I give lectures, sometimes I go back and forth between these two styles. And Sunday is kind of like City Hall at Green Gulch. So why not? Make them laugh. They want to anyway, right? And so do you. But still, this is not City Hall anymore. This is the monastery. We're in the mountains now, not behind the plow. So I'm not so interesting. I'm sorry. I'm just talking about what's happening, even though I just said it was a slight entertainment. So you may go to sleep. Anyway, what I was saying on Sunday was that Dogen Zenji said, practice and realization, practice and verification are one in his practice.

[18:02]

Also in the Lotus Sutra, they're one. I wanted to talk a little bit about that word, those words, practice and realization. These words that are one thing. One is practice, which means kind of like the practice, means kind of like to breathe and to work and to eat lunch in the zendo and read sutras and be generous and be patient. Practice patience and practice mindfulness and practice generosity and practice wisdom and practice insight. Practice sitting. Practice walking meditation. All these practices we do which are our life. Okay, that's practice and that's enough on that. This other word, In Japanese, that's pronounced shu.

[19:03]

Practice is shu. The other word is sho. Shusho. Sho is a word I've had some trouble with. And I'm working on naming people for this ordination coming up at the end of the week. So I look up these characters that I use in their names to try to get... a better sense of the possibilities of meaning of these words so I can make a good name. And one of the words I was using in one of the names is this word, show. So I looked at it more carefully yesterday and part of what it means, if you look at its meaning, is proof. Proof. or verification or certification or evidence or vindication.

[20:08]

But proof and certification, I was uncomfortable with that. Practice and certification. But yesterday I felt a little bit more okay about certification. It's like, there's the practice and then there's the, you know, to certify means certitude or certainty means to be certain. And certify means to make certain. And certificate is a document or certification can be a document by which you make certain. Or vindication. You vindicate what? You vindicate your life. You vindicate your practice. Or you prove your practice. Or your practice proves something.

[21:15]

Or your practice and evidence become one. The practice becomes the evidence. The practice becomes the proof. What do you say? The proof is in the pudding. But often they say practice and enlightenment, but the emphasis in this word is on proof or vindication or verification or evidence. Oh, another word it means is, another translation of it is witnessing. Practice and witnessing. There's another word that's used in, that you hear in Zen a lot, which also sometimes is translated as enlightenment. It's the Chinese character which is pronounced go. And it is also pronounced, the Chinese reading of it is go.

[22:21]

or Wu, though Chinese people say Wu, Japanese people say Go when they read it as a Chinese character. But in Japanese, they say Satori, which is sometimes called awakening or enlightenment or liberation. But that Go is liberation from illusion. It's kind of a break or a penetration of illusion. Which is good, right? A little light cracking through the darkness. The clouds part and you see the sun kind of thing. And you also see that the sun was always there. You see it was just the clouds covering it. So Satori experiences... a pretty big deal for people, a pretty big encouragement. But show is liberation from go.

[23:31]

Show is to be liberated from satori. Satori is an encouragement, but the real vindication The real certification is when you become even free from freedom from illusion. And when you're really free from illusion, you don't even have any freedom from illusion. You don't even need to get away from illusion to be away from illusion. You don't even need a crack in it. So that show, when we say practice realization or practice verification, it's that character. So it's not like practice and this enlightenment experience where you break through illusion, but practice and the enlightenment which breaks through enlightenment.

[24:33]

And maybe that makes more sense about why they're the same thing. However, they're not the same thing, as I said on Sunday, if you bring any self to it. Because then you're just imposing delusion again. And then it's not liberation from illusion, and it's not liberation from liberation, it's just illusion. And the teaching of thusness is not to show us thusness, Because thusness is showing itself. Teaching of thusness is just to try to help us come to our life and our death without bringing anything. To come with a self-forgotten At the same time, if we're introduced to suchness, if someone says, well, here's suchness.

[25:52]

You got it. I mean, you've got suchness, plus you've got the teaching of suchness, okay? So take care of it and have a good time. See you later. If that's all that we get, usually we say, well, thanks, but can I have something to hold on to, please? And if the person who introduces you to the realm of or the persons or the situation that enters you or welcomes you or admits you to the realm of vastness doesn't give you something to hold on to, you're just going to grab whatever you can get a hold of on your own. You're just going to grab one of your old selves, which you can easily get because you've got a real good memory Plus, even if you forget them, a new one will always come up and you can just grab that one and just never let go.

[26:56]

You'll never, never have a problem being deluded. You can always do it. There's always something to hold on to. So, once introduced to the realm of suchness, to the realm of the void, and again, suchness and void aren't the same thing, by the way. Suchness is not just emptiness. Suchness is the dance of form and emptiness. But once introduced to the dance hall of form and emptiness... We're going to ask for some form to dance with, and we'll get our old forms unless somebody gives us a new form. So they offer you new forms to play with. In-house, you know, what are called the house forms of the school of emptiness.

[28:08]

These forms are handy because although you may try to hold on to them, they keep blowing up in your paws. For example, here's something they give you to hold on to. Say, come on in. What do you say? Walk right in. Sit right down in the void. Now I'll give you something to hold on to. You're going to want to hold on to something. You can't hold on to nothing. If we leave you alone, you'll just go back to some old stuff or make some new stuff to hold on to. So we'll give you something to hold on to. Hold on to this instead of your old stuff, okay? So here, take this. What do they give you? Huh? Breakfast? Yeah. Breath. That's a nice one, isn't it? Here, have some breath. Hold on to that. Cling to it. Go ahead. Cling to it all day long.

[29:12]

Never let go of it. That's a good one. That's a nice little thread through the vastness. Okay? So you don't have anything now. All you've got is thus. That's all you've got for teaching. So since you're not going to put up with that, since you're not going to accept that little, well, how about your breath? Take that one. Pretty good. Not much, but something. And breath will not behave according to your idea. If you're imposing a self on it, it won't work very well. However, after a while you can even impose a self on the breath. So there's a little bit further instructions about how. Now don't do the same thing with that either. So then what do they say? The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas.

[30:23]

This is something further to hold onto, which I've been giving you for six weeks and you're still having trouble holding onto it, aren't you? But that's good. Grip onto that and examine that self-destructing instruction. It's really such a beautiful thing because if you hold on to it, you will not be able to hold on to it. It really is. The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are really the forgotten self. So if you grab onto the forgotten self, that's okay. If you grab onto a self that keeps being forgotten. Here's another one they say. Green mountains are always walking A stone woman bears a child in the night. This is additional things to play with in emptiness. Rubber duckies, right.

[31:26]

Or the eastern mountains move over the water. East mountains move over or on top of water. These are, what do you call it, approved by the good Zen practice seal of, they have the good Zen practice seal of approval. You can play with these duckies in emptiness, it's okay. And all your other duckies, as much as possible, leave at home. Or anyway, yeah, leave at home and then leave home. and come and play with these duckies. Another thing about these duckies is if you start holding onto these duckies, since these duckies come from the ancestors, the ancestors get to say,

[32:35]

the way you're holding that ducky is actually now you're attaching to that too. So then after they introduce the duckies they say, remember the ancestors said mountains are mountains and that does not mean mountains are mountains. So even we can attach to these destructible duckies so they give you further instruction to give you the feeling that you should keep. The point here is anyway not to attach, but not to not attach by your idea But by this somehow, we don't know how. I was at a ceremony in Japan one time. It was an animal-releasing ceremony. Going to let these animals go. We could have an animal-releasing ceremony. And you could be the animals. We'll talk about that later. Anyway, this ceremony, the animals that were going to be released were chickens.

[33:42]

And they brought these chickens in, in these crates, you know, wooden crates, chickens. They did the ceremony, they opened the crates, and the chickens flew out, started wandering around, bumping into each other and bumping into the people that were there to release them. And gradually, they started to go back into the cages. They felt pretty good about getting out, but they didn't know what to do. So not in a clear way, they gradually wandered back and got in the cages again. It was fantastic. What are they going to do walking around outdoors with all these people around? They don't know what to do. This isn't home. Well, at least there's the cage. So when the teachers say, the Dharma of the Dharma King is thus, you have just been released.

[34:59]

And sure enough, when we hear that, what do we want to do? Where's my cage? Where can I find something to get a hold of? Give me some instruction that I can understand. Well, I'm sorry, but are you sure you want instruction you can understand? Yes, I do. Okay, follow the schedule. Is that enough? Yeah. Well, Fine. That's thusness too. No problem. Now, when you start following the schedule, if you just follow the schedule, then guess what you'll do? You'll just follow the schedule. That'll be it. And guess what that'll be like? That'll be like rather unusual. Can you imagine just following the schedule? Can you imagine when the bell rings, you just sort of go? You don't think, well... I'm going to be the first one in the Zendo.

[36:03]

Or I don't want to go to the Zendo. Or look at those turkeys rushing in there trying to be good little people. Or whatever, you know. It's pretty hard to just follow the schedule without comparing yourself to other people or resisting or wishing that the period would end or wishing the period wouldn't end or That's pretty hard. Try it. It's pretty hard. But if you can just follow the schedule, and that was all that was happening, and when the bell rang, you were ready for it, and if the bell was to move, you moved, and if the bell was to stop moving, you stopped moving, and there was nothing more than that. That would be it. That would be enlightenment. Nothing more than that. Just everything coming together, and that's you. But it's pretty hard to do that, so there's a little further instruction saying, please just do that.

[37:08]

We really do mean that. Those are events which are the self before the emergence of subtle signs. When just following the schedule is the self before the emergence of subtle signs. just following the schedule, or just sitting on your place, or just eating breakfast. That is the mountains and rivers abiding together and culminating the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. That is the eastern mountains moving over the waters. But in fact, the way we usually follow the schedule is not the eastern mountains moving over the water. Because we either submit to the schedule or we defy the schedule. To hit the mark and just meet the schedule without rebelling or submitting, that is the forgotten self.

[38:17]

That is culminating the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Thorough exhaustiveness. Culminating the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. To thoroughly exhaust this response to the bell. When the bell rings, just bell, just bell. Bell rings. Now me moves, or whatever. When I first started practicing, I asked Suzuki Roshi something about, what did I say? Anyway, I asked him something like, how can I practice? Or what should my effort be? Or how can I practice without self-clinging? Or something like that I asked him. One of those questions. What's Buddha? And he said, to get up when the alarm clock rings with no hesitation.

[39:30]

So I tried that. I've been trying that for a while since that time. Now I wanted to point to something I would put clearly observed in somebody's name. So I looked up... I have the book of Serenity in Chinese, so I looked up that case. and found the place where it says, Manjushri said, clearly observe. And the word for observe is a word I'm quite familiar with. In Chinese it's called guan, guan, like in guanyin, in Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. The one who guans, who observes, the yin, the cries of the world, the sounds of the world, okay? That guan, the guan is the observing, is the contemplation, is the wisdom of Avalokiteshvara looking down at all suffering beings, okay?

[40:49]

That's the guan, or in Japanese, kan. That's the observe, all right? But the other word, the clearly, I was surprised by. In Japanese, it's te, pronounced te or tai. And I'll just see if you can guess. What do you think that means by itself? I thought it was going to mean clearly, right? Clearly observe. Huh? Well, you know, in a way that's what it means, but not exactly. I mean, not at all, as a matter of fact. But actually, yes, it has the spirit of what observe means. It's like that, but not quite. But it's very close. You're getting warmer.

[41:50]

Huh? Empty? Like empty, but I don't know. They're both kind of close to it. Hmm? No, not Thai. That's a Chinese way. Not Thai in English. No. Pronounce Thai. Or Thai. But empty and without obstruction are part of it. Yes? Peace. Peace. Peace is part of it. These are all getting kind of around it. That's around it too. What? Calmly? Yes, that's there too. Yes. No self, yes. What? Now, yes. All these are around it, but you still haven't hit the words that they have in the dictionary.

[42:51]

But those are all around it, I feel. The word that they have there is abandon. To let go. to resign, to give up, to surrender. Isn't that interesting? By itself, that's what it means, but when you put it with vision or with observing, the compound means to clearly observe. The kind of observing that's clear observing or clear vision, The compound is composed of contemplation or observance and to abandon observance, to surrender, to give up. In other words, not to bring any little vision kits with you, not to bring anything with you, to give up and see.

[43:59]

So it has this wonderful thing. A clear vision is to look and give up at the same time, to resign yourself to this. Let it be. Let it be and observe. Observe and let be. That's clearly observing. Pretty hard. Pretty hard to surrender because we won't surrender until we've tried everything else. But still, they say, right off, clearly observe. Observe what? Observe this. The teaching of the Buddha is thus. Sometimes it helps to look up words. Find out what's going on there. Sometimes there's surprises.

[45:03]

What? The meaning is not in the words, but it. You know what it is? It is the teaching of thusness. Okay? The meaning is not in the word, but it responds to the inquiring impulse. So when you go to the dictionary, you don't get the meaning out of the words. Your energy that goes and looks, okay, gets met by the teaching of thusness. It's kind of like, you go to the dictionary to get the meaning out of the words, and you're looking here, and this is your spirit, you know, you want to find out, what does this word mean? I'm interested in what is clearly observed. And then somebody comes from behind you and says, good boy. I like that energy of inquiring, of trying to find out what the teaching that comes from the Buddhas means. But it isn't the word that gave me it.

[46:12]

It's a response to my inquiry that happened. And if you inquire into what the teaching of thusness is, although you inquire into words, the meaning is not in the words. You can just sit there, sit zazen right there, and in front of you you've got a big thus that's going all the way around you. Thus. But it's not in that word. But if you try to find out what thus is, even though it isn't in the words, What is thus? If you try to find out what is thus? What is thus? What is thus? What is thus? You try. You try to find out. You won't get it out of the word. But trying to find out, something responds to your energy, which is investigating thusness, which is investigating suchness, which is investigating...

[47:14]

the walking of the green mountains, which is investigating the eastern mountains moving over the waters, which is investigating stone women giving birth to children in the dark, which is investigating the one that doesn't think, and so on. There's all kinds of stuff to investigate, and if you investigate these words, there will be some response. they say. And not only that, but also remember that it isn't like you watch carefully because it isn't like you're investigating and then after you investigate, the response comes. Kind of like, well, I investigated, now what do I get? The inquiry, the investigation, and the response come up together. They happen at the same time. The arrival of your inquiring energy and the response to it, the teaching of thusness, are simultaneous.

[48:24]

There's no lag time there. So don't look around too long. As soon as it happens, you already got it. So then try again. It comes in like that. Somebody told me a little bit more about the, about that, what is it, the Tin Man? The Tin Man that wanted to, no, no, the scarecrow wanted a brain. So you gotta have the Tin Man, you gotta get a heart in the Tin Man in order to do this. You gotta get a gallbladder or a liver or something into the lion. Courage, I know, but what organ is it?

[49:26]

It's actually guts, isn't it? Got to get a heart into the Tin Man. Got to get guts, guts, guts into the lion. And you got to get a brain into the scarecrow. But the brain that you need, again, what kind of brain is it? It's, huh? Inquiring impulse, yeah, right. It's an inquiring impulse. It's not kind of like Manhattan brain, necessarily. It might be, but I don't want to say anything against Manhattan. But it's more like it's enough intelligence to, what does he say, while away the hours. And what is it? Confer with the flowers or confer with the birds and consult with the flowers. Is that it? Conferring. Conferring with the flowers and consulting with the rain.

[50:26]

That's it. That's it. Conferring with the flowers and consulting with the rain. It's enough intelligence to while away the hours. Count those hours, 4.30, 5.30, 6.30. While away the hours, conferring with the flowers and consulting with the rain if you only had a brain. That's enough and that's how much brains you need. But you do need that much. You know, kind of like flowers. Birds, did you hear those birds? Those were barn swallow chicks explaining to their mother that they wanted the food that she was just bringing to them. Did you hear them? Mommy me, mommy me, mommy me. So then they got it and then that's the end of that. Then mommy leaves. It responds to the arrival of energy. It responds to the inquiring impulse. And also, like what is it, that pop song, words don't really matter.

[51:42]

And words make all the difference in the world. They don't really matter. There's no substance to them. There's no meaning in them. But they make all the difference. They make the difference. Without them, there's no difference. But since they do make the difference, and without attributing substance to them, you should deal with the difference they make. Don't try to get the meaning out of them. Face the fact that they make the difference. They make the difference between practice and proof, between practice and witnessing, between practice and vindication. Those are what make the difference. The meaning's not in them. They make the difference. If you study how they make the difference, the difference will disappear. Right. The name of the game is the game of the name. Right. May our intention

[52:51]

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