Yesterday, I pointed out that the sutra says that the Buddha initially teaches people who have not completed the assembly of virtue or merit and wisdom. He teaches a lack of own being in terms of production, a production lack of own being. He teaches the other dependent character of phenomena. It's a kind of selflessness of phenomena that the Buddha teaches initially, and it

[01:04]

leads to liberation, but then the Buddha said it doesn't lead to complete liberation. It leads to a disenchantment with regard to all compounded phenomena, but not a complete disenchantment, a basic disenchantment. And from this basic disenchantment, from this impact on our body and mind, from listening to the teachings of dependent co-arising, from this impact arises the practice of virtue. Not so much by trying to do virtue, but by naturally relating to things appropriately,

[02:08]

or relating to them without excessive involvement. So we're walking along on the path, meeting things one after another without excessive involvement, and this kind of meeting is virtue. And based on this virtue, one becomes ready to contemplate the more profound aspects of selflessness, which are brought up by the next two types of selflessness. So, we are meditating on dependent co-arising all the time, hopefully, practicing virtue, and then we start to consider how… well, not start to consider, we continue to consider

[03:18]

how the dependently co-arising phenomena that we are meeting are masked, are obscured by our mind's projection of imaginary forms upon transient phenomena. We're looking at, we're meeting transient dependently co-arising phenomena, we're meeting transient dependently co-arising phenomena, moment after moment, but our mind throws up images upon these transient dependently co-arising phenomena.

[04:23]

Our mind superimposes appearances, imaginary forms upon transient interdependent phenomena, and what appears to us are these images. So, you've already heard about this, but after being well-grounded in meditating on dependent co-arising, you again consider this process of illusion, this process of imagination, and you again consider that there is perhaps some strong adherence to these images as being

[05:31]

what is happening. The sutra says, actually, that by strongly adhering to the other dependent, the transient other dependent phenomena as being the imputational, the other dependent is known. The way we usually know the other dependent, the way we grasp it, is as we imagine it. Not as it is, but as we imagine it. That's the way we know it, that's the way it appears. What is appearing is the other dependent character, but the way it appears is imaginary. When I meet you, what appears to me is you, you're what I'm meeting,

[06:32]

but the way you appear is my imagination. My imagination is based on what you are, but you look like my imagination to me. The sutra also says that in dependence upon the absence of strong adherence to the other dependent as being the superimposed images we have placed upon it, the thoroughly established character is known. If we know the thoroughly established character, we can cure ourselves from believing that the images our mind creates of things are those things.

[07:36]

During session, it seemed that it would be good for us to consider how our ancestors in our lineage teach their students or taught their students to give up strong adherence to the other dependent as being the superimposed images of it. How they taught them to give up grasping conceptual superimpositions on transient life and thus to see emptiness and to test it in their practice. Starting with Bodhidharma, I said over and over that he taught Huay Ka to do just this,

[08:59]

to put to rest all circumstances, to put to rest all stories that his mind throws up upon the world. That was a new turn of phrase there, I hadn't thought of it that way before, of our mind vomiting stories on the world. Hmm, that's cute. Our mind vomits stories on the world and we think the vomit is the world. We strongly adhere to our vomit as the world. No wonder we have problems.

[10:09]

No wonder the world looks so scary sometimes and stinky. Anyway, we do that. Bodhidharma says don't do that. Bodhisattva says, well he doesn't say don't do it, he says give it a rest. He says give it a rest. That character can also be translated as cease, desist, but it can also be just give it a rest. And also to breathe through these stories that we see that appear to us due to our mind. Then in our mind there'll be no more congestion, no more choking and panting and we can enter the way with this kind of mind like a wall. So he gave that instruction which you can see I think is very much in accord with the sutra.

[11:22]

But we don't have stories about his conversations with Huayka until Huayka had worked it all out. And at the end we don't see how he tests them, very brief testing. But the result of the test is that Huayka was no longer adhering, there was no longer, was he grasping the conceptualizations that the mind throws up onto our dependent fleeting life. But later stories in our tradition give, I think, lots of details about how the students and the teachers and the teachers and the teachers and the students and the students work to help each other, not strongly adhere

[12:31]

to our transient empirical life as being our ideas of it in terms of essences and attributes. In the lineage of this temple we have Bodhidharma and then we have

[13:39]

five more generations leading up to who we call the sixth ancestor. And I was going to say that there aren't too many stories of the sixth ancestor where we see how he worked with people to help them give up their conceptual clinging. And I guess I can continue to say there aren't too many stories, but there are some I think we can see. Right off the bat. This person was a wood collector, a wood salesman, selling firewood or something in Guangzhou, which is a big city in southern China.

[14:41]

A man named Lu is going through the marketplace selling firewood and he goes by a fortune-telling booth. And in the booth a person is chanting the Diamond Sutra, the Prajnaparamita, Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra. And as he's walking by, the person is chanting section 10c, which says a bodhisattva should give rise to a mind which has no abode. Again, I hear that saying, a bodhisattva should give rise to a mind which does not cling to some address, which is not based on the concept of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or touch.

[15:47]

And he heard that and for a moment his mind gave up grasping. And he awoke from believing his dream was the world. And that's a story, now you can give that a rest. He then asked the person about the scripture and the person said that there was a teacher who lived in the north part of China who taught about this Diamond Sutra. And the layman Lu decided to go on pilgrimage to see the fifth ancestor of Zen and get further

[16:56]

training in this practice of giving up, grasping the imputational as being the other dependent. So, so, he finally arrived at the place of the fifth ancestor and even though he wasn't a monk and also was illiterate, he managed to get a meeting

[18:02]

with the great teacher. So, at that time the culture center of China was in the north and Guangzhou was really kind of like the wilderness in terms of Chinese culture. The fifth ancestor asked

[19:07]

the workman where he was from and he said he was from the south. And the fifth ancestor said something like, �There's no Buddhism in the south.� And the layman said that there's really no north or south in Buddhism. Is that right? Is that how the story goes?

[20:22]

Yes? Of course, there's something about literate and illiterate that the fifth ancestor said. What is it the literate person doing here? And the Buddha also says, �No matter the difference between literate and illiterate, there's no difference, no relevance in Buddhism.� The Fifth Ancestor then didn't tell anybody what he saw in this new arrival. He wanted to hide him from fame and also from the attacks probably that would happen to him

[21:34]

if the other monks realized that a new candidate for becoming the Fifth Ancestor succession had arrived. So he told him, he put him in the back of the monastery in an area for pounding the rice, pounding the brown rice and making it into white rice. And some of us went to China and we went to the Fifth Ancestor's temple and we asked, you know, where is the rice-pounding area? And they showed us they have a little building there where they have a little stone there where supposedly that's the stone where the Sixth Ancestor was pounding the rice. Again, part of the story that we have is that the Fifth Ancestor just happened

[22:59]

to be sort of in the mood for retirement right around the time the workmen arrived, so he decided to have a contest, a poetry contest, to see who had the best understanding of the Dharma, of the Buddha. So he said, okay you guys, anybody write a poem and post it and I'll judge who is the best in terms of understanding of Dharma. And supposedly most of the monks said, well there's no point in writing anything because the head monk will write a poem and that will certainly be the best, so might as well not write one. And the head monk thought, well everybody's expecting me to write one, so I probably should write one,

[24:05]

but I won't sign it. And then if the Ancestor likes it, I'll say it's mine, and if the Ancestor doesn't like it, I'll discreetly leave the temple and go off and hide for the rest of my life. So he wrote a poem, posted it, and actually it's a perfectly good poem. It's about a certain truth in terms of the process of gradual practice and gradual enlightenment. It's actually about how the other dependent becomes purified of obstructions by meditating. However, he wasn't able to show in his poem what it was that one meditates on in order to purify

[25:15]

the other dependent. But it's still a pretty good poem in terms of at least the thoughts of it. The Ancestor saw the poem, didn't like it, but told everybody it was really good and that they should memorize it. I think he said that. And then the rice-pounding guy happened to see the poem, but he couldn't read it because he didn't know how to read Chinese, so he asked somebody who could read to read it to him and he said something like, that's kind of incomplete understanding there. And the person who read it to him said, who do you think you are? You can't even read it. And then the Future Fixed Sixth Ancestor said, well, I can't read, but I can say a poem and you

[26:26]

could write it. We'll see what the Ancestor thinks of that. So he wrote his famous poem, about how to stop grasping our life as being our ideas of it, and it was posted, and the Ancestor saw it and recognized his disciple. Not fully trained, but anyway, he saw this was who he thought it was. And then later that day, or anyway later, he went back to the rice-pounding area and I think he said to the Sixth Ancestor, who was working away, I think he said, is the rice sifted? And Workman Liu said, yes, but it's not yet white.

[27:30]

Is that right? Not polished? It's sifted, but it's not yet polished. So then the Ancestor took his staff, which he just happened to be carrying with him, and I think he hit the sieve three times, the rice sieve, three times with a stick. Just checking to see if there's any clinging. And the Sixth Ancestor, holding the sieve, shook it three times. And the Ancestor says, why don't you come up to my place tonight?

[28:42]

Around midnight. So the Workman did go to see the Ancestor and the Ancestor taught him more about the Diamond Sutra and gave him the Dharma. And also, as a symbol of that, he gave him his robe and his bowl. And he told the Workman, who was not yet ordained as a priest, who was still a layperson, he said, now, leave tonight, let's go, let's get out of here. It's not safe for you to be here, and I want you to hide until you're ripe. So he escorted him to a ferrying point and sent him off.

[29:54]

So in this story, there's not much to see in terms of, like, any sticking points. The story makes out the Sixth Ancestor, the Workman, to be someone who, he's being tested, but every time he's tested, nothing holds, keeps being, keeps being enlightened by everyone else. By every test. And then he starts teaching. He's not supposed to be teaching yet, but he has to do a little teaching before he goes and hides, because a group of monks start chasing him, because they notice that the Ancestor doesn't have any clothes anymore. He doesn't have his bowl, so they wonder what happened, and

[31:00]

the Ancestor makes some kind of obscure comment, and they figure out that this Workman has got the bowl and robe, so they go off to try to catch him and get the robe and bowl back from this Dharma bandit. I guess that although the Workman Lu was not a monk, I guess he had a Buddhist name that involved his name Hui Neng, which means able in wisdom, and the Ancestor made some comment about the person who's got that is able in wisdom. So anyway, they chase him, and the head monk who was not the head monk, but one of the leaders in the pursuit, the head monk by the way, as you can

[32:10]

see, the head monk sort of went away. He's not involved here anymore. But one of the other monks was a former general, a very strong guy, and he went charging off after the successor and finally caught up with him on a mountaintop, and when the new Ancestor saw him coming, he put the bowl and the robe down on a rock and hid in the bushes. When the general monk, monk general, came up to the thing, he came out of hiding and said, this robe is not something we should be fighting about, you can have it. So he tried to pick it up, but he couldn't. So here's an example of how a new Ancestor

[33:20]

teaches somebody to give up conceptual clinging. Just put something that they want down on a rock and then have them try to pick it up, and then make it so that they can't pick it up, even though it only weighs usually about a couple pounds. A strong person can't lift it. This is an example of the way that Ancestor helped him become free of his conceptual clinging. He started loosening things up anyway, a little bit, and then he said, then the general said, please teach me. And the new Ancestor said, don't think good, don't think bad.

[34:22]

What's your original face? So rather than saying, like the sutra says, he could have said, please teach me, he said, don't think good, don't think bad, cease strong adherence to the imputationless being the other dependent, didn't say that, because he didn't know any sutras really. He could have said, however, don't think good, don't think bad, give rise to a mind which has no abode. He could have quoted a sutra, and that might have worked, but in the contingencies of the moment he didn't say that. He said something which had never been said before, or at least I never saw said before in the history of the Buddhist tradition. He said, what's your original face? And there was a break in the general's mind.

[35:36]

He was relieved of conceptual grasping superimposed on his life, on his life together with all beings. And he thanked the new ancestor and asked him to be his teacher. And the new ancestor says, although you're like this, really, my teacher is your teacher. So he, the sixth ancestor, I think did teach this way, did teach this sutra. But again, considering how important he is, there's not so many stories about how he helped,

[36:49]

besides these, there's not so many stories that I know of anyway, where we see him working with students to help them give up conceptual grasping, to give up conceptual grasping, and see suchness. But for some reason or other, a couple generations later, we see a real fluorescence in records, in stories, about how his successors, how his disciples, how his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, how they worked with each other to to actually realize the view of suchness, the view of emptiness,

[37:52]

to overthrow our ignorance, our ignorant believing that our imagination is what's happening. The sixth ancestor had many disciples, I guess, but his two main disciples, which are sometimes called the two horns of the ox, were Nanyue Huairang and Qingyuan Xingzi. Qingyuan Xingzi is Seigen Gyoshi Daiyosho. Huaiyuan, the Japanese way of saying it is Seigen Gyoshi, Chinese is Qingzi, I mean Qingyuan Xingzi.

[39:10]

So those are the two, and in the lineage document, in the blood vein document that we use at this temple, we have both of those lineages on our document. Not all Soto Zen blood vein papers have both these lineages, some just have the the side of Seigen Gyoshi, but our lineage document has the side of Seigen Gyoshi and also has the side of Nanyue Huairang. So we have both of these on our blood vein document, which, by the way, tonight will be given to Bev, because Bev's leaving tomorrow to go back and take care of her family, but before she goes she will receive the Bodhisattva precepts. So in the document she will receive these two disciples of the sixth ancestor are there, and their two

[40:21]

main disciples, each of them had many disciples, but their main disciples were for for Seigen Gyoshi, the main disciple is Sekito Gisen, and for Nanyue Huairang, the main disciple is Master Ma, Matsu. So these two, these two monks, Shoto or Sekito, and Matsu or Baso, these two, well, I'd like to look at how they taught

[41:26]

and worked with people to help them give up their conceptual clinging. The previous generation, Nanyue and Chingyurang, Nangaku and Seigen, the previous generation, they actually, they were Dharma brothers, and they weren't really close. The sixth ancestor had lots of students and one was older than the other, so he had actually gone away, like an older brother that went away from home before the younger brother was around much. They weren't really close, but they were Dharma brothers, had the same teacher. So Shoto and Matsu

[42:31]

are like cousins. Their teachers were brothers. Okay, so you have these two great teachers and then you have their disciples, but their disciples, as far as I know, never met. But they wanted to know about their cousin, their Dharma cousin, and both of them knew their Dharma cousin was a wonderful teacher. Could you please email Andy Ferguson and ask him how far apart they lived? Because they send their students back and forth. There's many stories of where a monk comes to see one of them from the other one, and then he asks, well, what's he teaching? What's going on over there? Or some monk's leaving one of them and

[43:39]

going to the other place and saying, go do this when you go see him, and maybe come back and tell me what he says. So they had these couriers going back and forth, and sometimes they sent them back and forth so many times it couldn't have been that far, because it seemed like a maybe less than 100 miles apart, I don't know, maybe you could find out. But so they never, as far as I know, they never met, but they really were interested in each other and kept in communication, and they kind of knew how each other were because they were using their students to test the other one. They send their students, they do this and see what he does and come back and tell me. And then they would all say, wow, that was really, that was good. Sometimes in the records, the way they do it is they have the teacher gives a talk, and then they have dialogues. Sometimes they start with like a dharma talk,

[44:45]

and then they have the dialogues. In the dharma talks that these two gave, that's in the records, this is Shirto, okay? He says, just see what Buddha saw. The mind is Buddha. Buddha mind, all sentient beings are one body. Matsu, your own mind is Buddha. This very mind is Buddha. You who seek dharma should not seek anything. Apart from mind, there is no other Buddha. So maybe it's not so surprising that their teaching is so similar since their parents were

[45:51]

brothers. But anyway, they have this close relationship which then produces all the different varieties of Zen, basically come from these two. One day, one of Matsu's students was going to leave. His name was Yun Feng. He went to Matsu and said, I'm going to go now. And Matsu said, where are you going? And he said, I'm going to see Shirto. Shirto. Matsu said, the road to Shirto is very slippery.

[46:51]

And Yun Feng said, I'll carry a wooden staff with me. When I encounter such slippery points, I'll be ready. Upon arriving at Shirto's place, Yun Feng circled his meditation bench and then loudly struck his staff on the floor and said, what is the essential dharma? Shirto said, blue heaven, blue heaven. Yun Feng didn't say anything, but he returned to Master Ma and gave a report.

[48:11]

Matsu says, go back there again and ask the same question and wait for his answer. And after he answers, make two roaring sounds. Roar! Roar! Make two of those. So Yun Feng went back to Shirto and asked as before. And Shirto made two roaring sounds. Do you think this is a true story? Yun Feng went back to Matsu and told him, and Matsu said,

[49:28]

I told you the road to Shirto was slippery. It looks to me like those who are able to see suchness and work on it a long time, they develop the ability to do things which will help other people get over clinging to their conception about the way things are being the way things are. Sometimes, I don't like this kind of stuff of making robes real heavy. The interactive thing, I think, is nice. It just flies by.

[50:38]

But from this place of seeing suchness and meditating on it, the ancestors come forth with ways of helping others give up what's obstructing suchness from realization. So I'll just keep showing you stories of how our ancestors help people give their stories a rest during the session. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place

[52:00]

with a true, married heart.

[52:05]

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