I'd like to begin talking about life and teaching of the sixth ancestor of Zen, who is the 33rd ancestor in the lineage from Buddha, okay? We're now somewhere in the neighborhood of the 91st generation around here. So if you folks can become Dharma successors, you'll be 91st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, depends on how long it takes you. So I'd like to tune in the Tang Dynasty now, China. This is the

[01:01]

very beginning of the Tang Dynasty. We've been studying about the Zen teachers and the last two, the 4th and 5th ancestors. The 4th ancestor set up shop on Mount Huangmei, Yellow Plum, in the Broken Head mountain range. And his disciple, Huangren, set up shop on a twin peak on Huangmei, both in the Huangmei area, two mountains in the Huangmei area.

[02:04]

So as I have been mentioning, the first two generations of this lineage in China had a very ascetic, radical, strict practice. And they didn't set up housekeeping, they wandered. And some people traveled with them when they were wandering, but basically only a small group of people were with them. And actually, about the time that the second ancestor was dying, he was starting to attract large crowds, but he still didn't have a monastery. So he was like preaching on the steps of a monastery, and he was attracting such large crowds that he got executed for it.

[03:16]

So the first two ancestors had a real hard time. Because being so radical and sincere, the Buddhist establishment persecuted them. The next ancestor, also being a leper, figured he better not come out in public. So he sort of hid out and transmitted to one person secretly. Then in the fourth generation, Zen comes out in the open, goes public, and is a great success. The fourth ancestor had about 500 disciples towards the end of his life. And as I mentioned before, it was attracting imperial attention, which he refused to have anything to do with. But still, the emperor knew about him and was very interested and respected him

[04:19]

a lot. Then he transmitted basically to one person, although some other schools of Zen, for example, the Ox Head School, starts from the fourth ancestor. All the different schools of Zen start from the fourth ancestor. Most come from the sixth, but all from the fourth. So the fifth ancestor then spread the teaching even further and had even a larger community, and was even more famous than the fourth. He just sat there and the teaching grew and flourished. But it looks like, which you'll hear more about later, it looks like things were so successful

[05:21]

that also things started already to get a little bit corrupt. And seeing as how there was, looks like they were just like, they got in the habit of transmitting to one person. So everybody was kind of interested in who would be next. Who's going to get Bodhidharma's robe and bowl in this big, this flourishing Buddhist school? And people seemed to be spending quite a bit of time wondering about this kind of thing. Wang Mei is out in the country, in a remote area, but it is in central China. It is, or it was, in the remote country mountain area south of the highly unpopulated parts of China.

[06:27]

But it was close to a culture center that is unsurpassed in world history. The Tang dynasty court and surrounds. A time when art of unsurpassable quality, literary, poetic, philosophical, painting, calligraphy, ceramics, sculpture, architecture, textiles, you name it. There's no time in history of the planet that's higher. And in the, then in the country area, the Zen school was growing. And trying to stay away from the flourishing brilliance of this Chinese culture. But still, people coming to study Zen from that kind of situation.

[07:32]

So this fourth and fifth ancestors are getting students from one of the highest civilizations of all time. When they study Buddhism. So I'm trying to draw a picture about the kind of situation we have here. Actually, someone asked the fifth ancestor, in studying the path, why don't you go to the cities and towns instead of living here in the mountains? And the ancestor said that the timbers of the Great Halls come from the remote valleys, not from inhabited areas. Because they are far from humans, they have not been chopped down and damaged by their axes.

[08:42]

One by one, they grow into giant things. Only then are they fit to serve as bridge beams. Thus, we know how to rest the spirit in remote valleys, to stay far away from the hubbub of dust, to nourish our true nature in the mountains and forswear conventional affairs always. But when there is nothing before the eyes, the mind itself is peaceful. From this, the tree of the path blooms and the fruit of the Chan forest comes forth. So there he was, the fifth ancestor, sitting up on Yellow Plum Mountain, talking like this to people of great culture, who were asking him, you know,

[09:50]

why don't you go to the city and spread it? He was trying to grow great timbers. I remember Suzuki Roshi said that you can have wise monks in the mountains, but the great sage lives in the city. There's truth in that, but he also said, you know, you can do things in the mountains, you can't do in the city. You can grow great, tall, powerful trees and settle your footing here in these remote valleys. So we need both. To have nothing before the eyes, the mind itself is peaceful. Continuing the teaching of no object of thought is tranquility itself.

[10:56]

And Chan school comes forth from this. So you have that picture now, this kind of talk going on there with all these wonderful cultured people. Now, this is in the center of China. And so here's, China is a big country, right? So you have like Chang'an, a great, brilliant capital of the Tang dynasty. Then down here you have Wangmei in the remote southern areas. But still, that's in the middle of the country. Then way, way, way down here, far below the remote mountains, you have the Great Wall of China. You have practically another world. Southern China, you know, like Canton. Ever heard of Cantonese food? Canton, right down there near the bottom of China. In those days, I don't know exactly what it was like, but it was really a frontier area.

[12:05]

And that's where our hero lived. He lived in the frontier. I try to think now, what would be equivalent situation? Like if you imagine, I don't know, imagine, you know, Europe in the, you know, around 1820, after Napoleon had been beaten and so on. Imagine Germany and England around that time. Imagine these brilliant cultures. Beethoven's still alive, right? Mozart's, is he dead yet? Anyway, the flowering of German, French, and English culture, you know, brilliant courts, brilliant civilization, okay? Then imagine like the United States, like Boston, New York City, okay? Then imagine like maybe the Midwest at that time, or maybe New Orleans, or St. Louis.

[13:09]

Maybe St. Louis would be good. Or maybe even Minneapolis. No, not Minneapolis, actually. Not yet. There's nobody in Minneapolis. But St. Louis by that time, just New Orleans or something there, you know? Booming frontier towns, you know? Cowboys and hog herders and stuff. Riverboat gamblers. San Francisco, like 1849. 1849? I'm talking about before that though, you know? Same atmosphere. Same atmosphere, yeah, right. So a frontier area, that's where this guy's from. He's a street person. Wandering around the streets. He's a traveling wood salesman. Now I thought, you know, at first I thought, well, maybe he's kind of like Abe Lincoln.

[14:12]

Abe Lincoln grew up in the frontier around, you know, and became president. But Abe Lincoln's a little bit different because Abe Lincoln was a man who taught himself to read. A man who, a learned person, even against his poverty, he educated himself. But this guy didn't educate himself. I don't know why. But he didn't learn how to read or write or think. So then I thought, well, maybe Davy Crockett or something. Or Daniel Boone. But that's too romantic, you know? He was a traveling salesman, this guy. He wasn't like, you know, fighting Indians and becoming famous.

[15:13]

He was just a guy in the street there selling firewood. So there he is walking up down the street selling firewood. Hey man, you want to buy some firewood? His name was Lou. Called him Louie. Hey Louie, what's happening? Ah, you know, it's the same old thing. I don't know. Now, one difference between that frontier town and St. Louis is that instead of people singing onward Christian soldiers or whatever, people walked around the streets, it was still a Buddhist country, right? At that time. And it's a Buddhist practice to walk around chanting sutras. Those were short ones. The country was, at this time, part of the reason why the issue of the succession of the Roman bull was such a big deal

[16:13]

was because the country was Buddhist. It had finally become, the Buddhists were in the sentence. The Confucians were on the retreat. The Daoists, you know, were curled up in a ball. And the Buddhists were ascending. The emperor, the only empress, the only sovereign empress in the history of China was on the throne at that time. All the other empresses were just wives of emperors. But finally you have a woman who actually was in power. The only one. Her name was Empress Wu. And she was a Buddhist. As a matter of fact, she wrote that verse we just chanted. Go, jin, jin. She wrote that one. Opening the sutra verse. So, people were, this guy was walking. So, you know, Lu was walking down the street and some guy walked by chanting the Diamond Sutra. And he heard him. And when the guy got to the section where it says,

[17:16]

A bodhisattva should produce a thought which is unsupported by anything. At that moment, he was awakened. He had no Zen training. He never, he couldn't read. He was a street person. But he woke up. A bodhisattva, a great being, should produce an unsupported thought.

[19:28]

Thought which is nowhere supported. A thought unsupported by objects. A thought which has no objects. Which is unsupported by sights. Sounds. Smells. Touchables or mind objects. This is a teaching that woke up Mr. Lu in the street. So, I hope that teaching can wake us up here in the mountains. I remember when I was studying the Prajnaparamita literature with Professor Edward Kanza.

[20:30]

As he used to like to call himself. The great and famous Edward Kanza. He was great and famous. He translated the Diamond Sutra. And he said one time, when talking about the sixth ancestor, he said, he was enlightened by section 10c of the Diamond Sutra. Section 10c. A bodhisattva should produce an unsupported thought. Thought which is nowhere supported by any objects. This kind of thought, this kind of objectless awareness, this objectless meditation is the great soothing activity for our senses. It soothes the eye, sense, ear, nose, tongue, and the body.

[21:39]

And soothes the mind organ. It soothes the organ that splits mind into two. It soothes the senses. The senses can then be quiet. It doesn't stop them from functioning. It just lets them be quiet. And when the senses are quiet, the psyche is quiet. When the psyche is quiet, the breath is quiet. When the breath is quiet, the nerves calm down. And our whole body and mind is quiet. This man in the street, this street person, quieted down. When he quieted down, he woke up.

[22:41]

He was sitting while walking around in the street. Many of the characteristics of this lineage of teaching were born with the fourth ancestor. I've mentioned many of them already. The teaching which I just said from Diamond Sutra was the central teaching. The willingness to use skillful devices to help people. The forming of a community. The willingness to let monks work to support themselves. The emphasis on self-reliance. The rejection of any outside Buddha. And so on. But with the sixth ancestor, a new dimension is added. And that is the dimension of the street. Of being ordinary. Of not depending on anything special in order to practice.

[23:49]

That you can be uneducated in the midst of daily life and still wake up. Thus making Zen a practice of universal liberation. But strangely enough, since it is a universal liberation, very few people can believe it. So if we can just soothe our senses by having no object of thought, or having a mind which is not supported by anything,

[24:55]

this is our work. That means that this level or non-level that you find yourself at now, you're grateful for this and you know that this is your work. This is your material. You don't look for another Buddha mind from this one. You're really grateful and satisfied with this. Even though you know there's something missing, you still feel lucky to have this. Even though you know you have more work to do, you still feel rich that you've got all this to work with. You feel very fortunate even though you know you have a tremendous amount of work to do.

[26:02]

You feel fortunate in your Buddha nature and you know it can get deeper and deeper if you work. You feel fortunate that your delusions are completely Buddha nature and you know that you can have a deeper understanding of your delusions and your Buddha nature. This is no object of thought. And as I said to someone the other day, the rich get richer. And the poor get poorer. Is that from the Old Testament or New Testament? Or No Testament? Billy Holiday song. Billy Holiday? That's a good example. Anyway, I think the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer. If you feel poor, well, you're going to get poorer. If you think the delusions that you have now are not good enough, well, you're right. You can prove yourself right.

[27:06]

Just keep thinking that way. What? The New Testament says something like, for him that has it, it shall be given. That sounds like Matsu. For him that has given, it shall be given. For him that doesn't have it, we'll take it away. Matsu says, if you have a staff, I'll give you a staff. If you don't have a staff, I'll take it away. If you have a teaching staff, I'll give you a teaching staff. If you don't have a teaching staff, I'll take it away. If you stand up, I'll clap. Yay, you stood up. Good for you. If you're not standing up, I'll take your standing up away. Anyway, it sounds pretty mean, doesn't it? That the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

[28:07]

But what that means is, if you're grateful, you get more things to be grateful for. And if you're complaining, you'll get more to complain about. This is not only true of Zen Buddhists, it's also true of everything. It's a software effect or something like that. It's a something effect. Anyway, forests reflect very little light. They absorb the light, dark green forests. And deserts reflect the light. They're almost like a mirror sometimes. And when that reflectiveness is low and a cloud comes by, what do you think it does with its water? Huh? It drops it. And when it goes over the desert where the light's getting reflected strongly, it holds it. It doesn't drop the water on the desert. Seems kind of mean, but that's what clouds do.

[29:09]

The places that get a lot of water, they give them more water. And the places that don't have any water, they don't put the water on there because it's just going to evaporate. They keep it until they can give it to somebody who can spread it and use it. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That's why we have to reforest the deserts. After he was awakened, Mr. Liu... What did he do then? Oh, he said to the guy who was chanting the sutra, he said, where'd you get that?

[30:11]

That's good stuff. And the guy said, oh, I got it from Zen teacher Wang Mei. I mean, that's a good thing. Huang Yu, who lives on Wang Mei. Mr. Liu said, where is that? He said, way up north. So, not only did he hear the Diamond Sutra and awaken, but then he immediately heard about his teacher, which he talked about what an amazing coincidence that was. So, he decided to go study more. And one story is that somebody realized what he was going to do and gave

[31:12]

him hope. Another thing about this guy is that he was an orphan. He also lost his father. So, the fifth and sixth ancestors were orphans in terms of not having fathers. They were both raised by their mothers in poverty. But the difference between the fifth and the sixth is the fifth, although he was raised in poverty, at the age of seven, he went to study with the fourth. And from the time of seven years old, he received education from the most learned and cultured people in China. So, he's like a toku, you know, or a Dalai Lama or something. Sometimes they find these kids in poor families, but then they take them and give them the best education in the country. So, the fifth ancestor was, as you heard from the story, was born without a father or lost his father soon, depending on which story you hear. Grew up in poverty to the age of seven, but then was recognized

[32:17]

as an incarnate bodhisattva and given a fabulous education. Sixth patriarch was 24 years old, I think, when this happened to him. He did not receive a good education in terms of high culture. He was just a poor orphan kid and he lived with his mom. So, he told his mother that he wanted to leave and she said, okay. And somebody gave him some money, some amount of money, so that she would be supported, so he didn't have to stay there and keep selling firewood to take care of it. He didn't abandon her. So, this young man, this young enlightened man, heads off to study more. On his way, on his travels, because this is a long ways away, people recognize him as an unusual person and start studying with him.

[33:24]

And he runs into one nun whose practice was to constantly chant the Nirvana Sutra. And one thing led to another and she found out that he could teach her about the Nirvana Sutra, even though he never heard it before. And she had trouble understanding how he could teach the Nirvana Sutra without ever being able to read or hearing it before. And he explained how he could do that. And she was very impressed and she said, she went and told some other people about this guy. So, they rebuilt an old monastery, an old temple for him and let him stay there. And people started coming in large numbers to study with him. They didn't care that he was illiterate. They recognized him somehow. Not only lay people, but also priests and monks came to study with him.

[34:34]

Finally, he remembered about the fifth ancestor and he thought, why stop halfway? And he left his congregation and finished the journey to Yellow Plum Mountain. And came to meet the fifth ancestor. And here follows a great cliché, a story which some of us have heard too many times already. But here's a cliché that you could take if you want. And the cliché is, he goes before the ancestor and he says, hello. And the ancestor says, where are you from? Who let you in here?

[35:37]

Imagine now, here's this great teacher surrounded by the most cultured monks in China. And this traveling wood salesman walks in and says, where are you from? And he said, I'm from Canton area. Well, anyway, he says, what are you here for? He said, I came, Reverend teacher, to receive your teaching so that I may become Buddha. What? James. I thought of James too. Yeah, that's what I thought. It's like James. James is a street person that came here last winter practice period.

[36:48]

He didn't stay. He wanted to take speed. So that's what he's doing. And the ancestor said, you're a barbarian in the South. People in the South have no Buddha nature. And Mr. Liu said, when it comes to people, there are such things as North and South. But when it comes to Buddha nature, there's no North or South.

[37:52]

The ancestor said, why don't you get out of here quick? Go work in the rice area. Of course, he immediately recognized him as his successor. But he was a little bit worried about, I don't think he was worried about himself. But I think he was worried about what would happen if he said to people, did you see what just happened? Would you just see who just came here? So, can you imagine this? I can.

[39:02]

In other words, we have a community of senior practitioners who are quite sophisticated and experienced in the practice. And somebody walks in, some new student walks in, who is already, in some ways, or in all ways, or in the important ways, is already understands better than the other people. And if you tell that to the other people, they may give that new student a hard time. Can you imagine this? It happens all the time around here. So, I can easily understand why he would just sort of like to get the guy out of the room quickly and hide him before anybody finds out anymore. I wish I had somebody up here. I can imagine him sort of reaching over and trying to put his hand over the kid's mouth. Don't say anymore.

[40:09]

So, most stories say, and he remanded him to the rice pounding area. He told him, go do manual labor. Okay, so he comes in, teacher immediately recognizes him and doesn't want anybody else to find out because he'll, who knows what will happen to the kid if they do. Sometimes people come into situations to study with a teacher and the other monks make such a hard time for the person that they drive them out. Right? The teacher doesn't even know what's going on. But back in the back rooms, older people are giving the new student a hard time because they, you know, the rice readings. And the person gives up and gets discouraged about the practice because of what the other people do to him. Many stories like this. So, here's the ultimate version of it.

[41:17]

But another version of the story, the way the man who wrote the book Golden Age of Zen, the way he tells the story, he likes to interpret these quite a bit. So, anyway, he has a little bit different story. He says that after the fifth ancestor said, after he said, after he recognized the six patriarchs, then the six patriarchs kept talking. He said, after he said there's no buddhanature, there's no north and south and buddhanature, he said, I confess your reverence that I feel wisdom constantly springing from my own heart and mind. So long as I do not stray from the path, I carry within me the field of blessedness. Now he's mad. Sort of like dragging him out of the room. One more thing.

[42:22]

So, anyway, don't say more. Just go pond rice. So, as far as people are concerned, there's north and south. In other words, from the point of view, from a psychological point of view, there's north and south. There's advanced and not so advanced. From the point of view of Buddha, there's no north and south. There's no, you know, advanced or not so advanced or superior, inferior. Everything is a buddhanature in its totality. So,

[43:32]

this is the way unsupported thought functions. Someone said to me, when you go to a psychotherapist, you bring your worst. When you go to a spiritual teacher, you bring your best. And I remember, you know, I never told Siddharajji anything bad about me. I didn't think he wanted to know. I used to sometimes think, well, should I tell him this or not? No, don't bother me. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't bring your worst, actually. There's these two dimensions. And I would say the sixth ancestor, when he first met the fifth, he brought his worst. He showed his worst. And people couldn't stand to see. When they saw the worst, they couldn't stand to see that actually the worst

[44:40]

also, there's no worst in the buddhanature. This guy is enlightenment. He's the worst. So, he said, I carry within me a field of bliss. And I would translate that as, for me, I would say delusion. I carry within the delusion of me a field of bliss. I carry within delusion a field of blessedness. This is what the sixth ancestor said. Delusions are the field of blessedness. It is delusions that are saying, this way to emptiness.

[45:58]

And what is delusion? Everything is delusion. Everything is delusion. But if you think some things are delusion and some things aren't, the things that you think aren't delusion, those things are not the field of blessedness. If you think these things over here are delusion, that's where you should cultivate blessedness. That's where wisdom will arise. It will arise in those things which you realize are delusion. The things which you think are truth, awakening will not grow there. Awakening does not grow in truth. It does not grow in the places where you know what you're talking about. It grows in delusion.

[47:14]

It grows in the places where you don't know what you're talking about. It grows in the places where you don't know what you're talking about. Same thing. You guys didn't understand it. Who says we didn't understand it? No, I agree with that. We thought he gave a good talk. Nobody disagrees with what he said or his way. Everyone loves his good in nature. It's the drugs that were the problem. It's the drugs. James would still be here if he hadn't taken drugs and we'd all be very happy that he was here. Right? To have somebody like that at Tassajara is great. It's okay. I saw him on the street. He said, I want to go to Tassajara and get off drugs. I said, good.

[48:27]

I'll ask if you can go. And I asked him and I said, okay. So he came. That was fine. But then he kept taking drugs. That was the problem. But the things he said and his intention, you know, he saw Suzuki Roshi. Just like this guy saw whatever. He was encouraged. He was inspired. But the monastery has standards and it doesn't work unless we bolter them. And again, we were going to let him come back too, remember? And he came back completely stoned. So, we're going to try. He may yet come. What? He may yet come again. I don't know. He may yet come. He may have, and I'm sorry to say, he may have to take up lodging in order to come again. But he will come again.

[49:28]

Buddha says, this boy will attain enlightenment. It's a question of when. We don't know when Dharma will arrive. I'm not in charge of the schedule. But it arrives in the person who is grateful for the delusion. That's where it can grow. That's where the rain will fall. It won't fall on the truth. Truth doesn't need it. So, this wonderful enlightened being goes to the rice ponding area. Okay, please, let's go to the rice ponding area, all right?

[50:36]

Let's go pound that rice. He worked hard at pounding the rice. Grateful to have a job in the monastery of his teacher. And his teacher was just sitting there, very happy that his disciple had come and was working away, ponding rice. So, tomorrow we'll find out what happened after he ponded rice for eight months. So, we'll find out what happened after he ponded rice for eight months. So, we'll find out what happened after he ponded rice for eight months.

[52:50]

I know this is rather unorthodox, but today is Catherine's 60th birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Catherine. Happy birthday to you. And many more. Thank you. Thank you.

[53:43]

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