Now, this morning I'd like to talk about another case from the Blue Cliff Record, a case of one hundred koans, one hundred Zen stories, and this is case forty-seven. And Yunmun's Six Do Not Take It In is the name of the case, Yunmun's Six Do Not Take It In. And the introduction to the case by Master Sui Do says, Heaven never speaks, yet the four seasons follow their courses. Earth does not talk, but all things flourish. Where the four seasons follow their courses, you can see the substance. Where all things prosper, you can find the use.

[01:06]

Now, tell me, where do you see the monk? Stop your speech, your actions, your daily routine, and closing your throat and lips, say it. In the case, a monk asked Yunmun, what is the true body of reality? And Yunmun said, Six do not take it in. So that's our subject for today, and Sui Do's verse on this case goes like this, one, two, three, four, five, six, even the blue-eyed Indian monk cannot count it. Rashly, they say, showed and passed it on to Shinko, or he, clad in the robe, journeyed

[02:11]

back to India. India is vast and far. He is not to be found. Lo, since last night, he has been here, facing Nyuho. So that's what we're going to talk about today, if we can, if possible. So, I always like to introduce the characters in these stories, because they're colorful, wonderful types, Zen types. And this is, in this case, Master Yunmun is one of the most famous of all Zen masters, one of the most important Zen masters. He was one who founded his own school, the Yunmun School, and it lasted for a while.

[03:14]

It doesn't exist anymore, but it lasted for a while. His Dharma name means Cloud Gate. And the Sui Do, whose introduction and verse I just read you, who is the compiler of the Blue Cliff Record, who chose these 100 stories, chose a lot of stories by Yunmun, because Sui Do was in Yunmun's school. He was, I think, two generations down after Yunmun. So Yunmun is kind of the godfather of the Blue Cliff Record. And to give you a little flavor for Yunmun's style and character, I'll quote to you from a book called The Golden Age of Zen, which discusses a lot of the classical Zen masters. And here's what the chapter on Yunmun, in this book, begins like this.

[04:14]

Chan masters, like other people, may be divided into two types. Some are slow breathers and others are fast breathers. Of the founders of the five schools of Chan, Guishan, Dengshan, and Fayan, belong to the slow breathers. And Dengshan is the founder of our line of Zen, so we belong to the slow breathers. While Linji and Yunmun belong to the fast breathers. Of these two, Linji breathes fast enough, but Yunmun breathes faster still. Linji's way is like the blitzkrieg. He kills his foes in the heat of the battle. He utters shouts under fire. When the lion roars, all other animals take cover.

[05:18]

No one can encounter him without his head being chopped off by him. It makes no difference whether you are a Buddha, a Bodhisattva, or an ancestor, Linji will not spare you if he should chance to encounter you. So long as you bear a title or occupy any position, Linji will send out his true man of no title, which is one of Linji's famous sayings, to kill you off in a split second. So terrible is Linji, but even more terrible is Yunmun. Linji only kills those whom he happens to encounter. But Yunmun's massacre is universal. He does away with all people even before they are born. To him, the true person of no rank, which is another way of translating, true man of

[06:23]

no title, the true person of no rank is already the second moon, therefore a phantom not worth the trouble of killing. Yunmun seldom, if ever, resorts to shouts or beatings. Like a sorcerer, he kills by cursing. His tongue is inconceivably venomous. And, what makes the case worse, he is the most eloquent of the Chan masters. So I think that's a pretty fair estimation of Master Yunmun. One, there is not recorded anywhere that we can find a kind word of Yunmun. All of his words are very sharp and to the point. But this description is very relevant to the point that I want to make today in discussing this case. The fact that Yunmun had a very ambiguous and interesting relationship to language and

[07:25]

expression. Linji's beating and shouting drives expression out, drives you back to silence. Yunmun knew that nothing at all can really be expressed. Or to say this same thing in another way, Yunmun knew that we are constantly expressing ourselves completely in everything we do and that everything is constantly expressing itself completely. Yunmun knew this. But unlike Linji, he expressed this fact in language, in words, very eloquent words. When he became abbot of a temple, we have recorded his first words on ascending the dharma seat and giving his first dharma talk as abbot. Here is what he said.

[08:27]

Do not say that I am deceiving you today by means of words. The fact is that I am put under the necessity of speaking before you and thereby sowing seeds of confusion in your minds. If a true seeker should come see what I am doing, what a laughing stock I would be in that person's eyes. But now there is no escape from it. And he began giving the substance of his talk. So I, over the years, can relate to this saying of Yunmun's. After a while, you get used to it. But at first, when you start giving talks, it's very difficult because you know that everything you say is going to be wrong. And furthermore, you think, and who am I to say anything to begin with?

[09:37]

So, I was just up in Washington State giving sesshin up there and one of my students, who is a priest, I usually purposely come a little late to the sesshin so she can give the first talk. And she was suffering, you know, over this. Who am I to give a talk and everything I say is wrong? I said, I know, I know exactly what you mean. And so does Master Yunmun. However, in the schedule it says, Zazen, Kinhin, Zazen, Kinhin, talk. It's part of the practice that there is a talk. And if you happen to be the person who is giving the talk, then you have to do it. And despite the fact that it's true that everything you say is wrong and you have no business saying anything, you still, you know, you bow and

[10:41]

hope that in your bowing you will already in advance atone for your sins. And then you get up on the seat and you start, you know, moving your mouth and the vocal cords do something and before you know it, it's over. And you get used to it. Although I know that people, many of us still suffer every time we have to give a talk, but if you do it enough, you get used to it. And it becomes more clear as time goes on that you're really not saying anything anyway. And also that people who come to the talk were probably, to whatever extent anyway, that they were confused before they came, they will be no worse off when they leave.

[11:42]

So you stop worrying about it, you know, you just show up and you do it. Some people, you know, fix cars. Some people sell software. And other people give Zen talks. It's what makes the world go round. So Yunmon was quite aware of this on a deeply profound level. And everything he said and did expressed this. I have to tell you just a few stories about Yunmon because they're very interesting stories, I think anyway. Like many of the Chan worthies of the classical period, he was ordained very young. He was probably from a very poor family, and if you were from a poor family, it was

[12:44]

just like in Western monasticism. That was one good way to live, go to the monastery. So he went there when he was maybe ten or twelve years old and studied, as many of them did, the Vinaya, the rule, monastic rule, which is a very complicated study. But he wasn't satisfied with this as a spiritual path, and so he went out seeking a Chan master, and he found one who, unlike most of the Chan masters who lived on mountains and were abbots of monasteries, this man, Mujo, was a sandal maker. He made traveling sandals for monks and lived in a small hermitage in a village, and Yunmun sought him out. But Mujo was of the type of Zen master who really doesn't like students

[13:45]

hanging around, so it was hard to get in the door, literally, with Mujo. Somebody came knocking on the door, he wouldn't open it, usually. So one had to have a lot of commitment and persistence to study with Mujo. So Yunmun would go and knock on the door, no answer. One day he knocked on the door and Mujo said, Who's there? He said, Yunmun, what do you want? I'm here to clarify the self. So Mujo opened the door a little bit, took a peek at Yunmun and immediately slammed the door in his face. The second day was the same, and by the third day Yunmun realized that he was going to have to get physical. So when Mujo opened the door a little bit, Yunmun sort of forced his way in. And Mujo grabbed him

[14:47]

immediately and said, Speak! Speak! And Yunmun, startled, couldn't say anything. So Mujo threw him out, physically. And with the words, You ancient drill turning in a rut, threw him out the door, slammed the door and Yunmun's foot was in the way. And he slammed the door on Yunmun's foot and it really hurt. And Yunmun was awakened. That was the beginning of his lively Chan career. So it's not so hard to see why he was the way he was, if that was his beginning. You know, this saying, You ancient drill turning in a rut, is actually like, what do you call it, a slang expression. Many of the Zen sayings were, they used, unlike other schools that used

[15:48]

proper ceremonial language, the Zen elders were famous for using slang, street language, everyday language, and this saying, Drill turning in a rut, means you useless thing. But the origin of this slang expression is quite interesting. Apparently there was a Chinese emperor long ago, in ancient, ancient times in China, who decided that he was going to build a city such as the empire had never seen before, magnificent, gigantic city, so huge that the tools to build it were not in existence. So the first thing he had to do was build some sort of gigantic machinery, a drill of some sort, in order to quarry the stone, or I don't know what, for the city. And as things turned out, the emperor was deposed,

[16:51]

and the city was never built, but supposedly these giant drills that he had made sort of sat there for a thousand years, nearby the site of this city that was never built. So it became an expression, meaning something totally useless. So it's interesting to think that this is like the self, a gigantic drill to build a city that's never built, this is the ego. So that's what Mujo said to Yun-Man when he kicked him out. One more story about Yun-Man that I think is very interesting is he actually went to another teacher, Xue Feng, and studied under Xue Feng and completed his training under Xue Feng and then he went on pilgrimage, as they often did, from teacher to teacher to test

[17:52]

their understanding and to learn more. So he was traveling around, and there was a monastery someplace, and it's a very typical thing in those days, and even today, that the abbot of the monastery appoints a head monk, and the head monk is kind of like the second in command and serves as head monk for a long time, and then when the abbot retires or passes away, the head monk becomes the abbot. So there was a monastery in which the head monk seat was available and the abbot did not appoint a head monk. And everybody wondered, you know, why don't you appoint a head monk? And the abbot said, well, my head monk isn't born yet. Some years went by and people started saying, why don't you appoint a head monk? He said, well, my head monk was just ordained. And some years went

[18:53]

by and, you should appoint a head monk. It's really not right. My head monk was just awakened. My head monk just finished his training. My head monk is on pilgrimage every couple of years. You know, he would say these things, and he never appointed, 20 years went by, he never appointed a head monk. Finally one day he said, my head monk is coming tomorrow. So everybody got excited, you know, the head monk was coming tomorrow. And it just so happened that, you know, Yun Man was on pilgrimage and he happened to come in to the monastery the next day. And when he came in everybody said, head monk, welcome. And he said, what? But he did become the head monk and when the abbot died he was appointed abbot of the monastery. And that's how he became abbot. So that's how these

[19:53]

Chan guys did things. It's kind of a wonderful way, don't you think? To do things. Paul Haller, who's one of our senior priests over at the city center, he and I were talking and, you know, Paul is from Northern Ireland. He's been living in the United States for many, many years, but he's from Northern Ireland and we were talking and getting very happy and excited because Paul has a dream to do Zen retreats in Northern Ireland with Catholics and Protestants dedicated to peace. And I think it's a wonderful thing and I really hope that he can do that sometime. And he was telling me that, you know, Ireland was the seat of some of the most powerful Catholic monasteries on the planet. And he said that to express and

[20:55]

test their faith, often the monks from the monastery would build a small boat about six feet long and I think two or three of them would get in the boat with nothing but what they were wearing and they would cast out to sea with the idea that wherever they landed whether it was in life or death, this would be their destination and that this is how many of the monasteries were founded because the ship would just, the little boat would just end up on the shore somewhere and they would crawl out and feel that this was where God had sent them, you know, to build a new monastery. And apparently a number of the monasteries were founded in that way. So the Chan people are not the only ones who do things like this apparently. So Yun Man was well known for his many different styles of answering questions. One of his famous

[21:57]

styles was to answer questions with one word which is called the one word barrier of Yun Man. And so there are many many examples of this. Once somebody asked him, what is Buddha? And he said, cake. Somebody once asked him, what is right Dharma? He said, completely. Many many lists of these, Yun Man's one word barriers. Another technique of his was to get up on the Dharma seat and immediately pose an impossible question to the assembly and then hardly give them a chance to answer it and then he would answer it himself. That was another thing that he did and there are many examples of that also. Once he asked a question about ultimate reality and he said, body exposed in the golden wind, which I always

[22:59]

thought was a very beautiful saying, apparently quite elegant in classical Chinese although I don't read classical Chinese. So the present case is another good example of Yun Man's way of talking. What is the true body of reality? He was asked and he said, six, do not take it in. So the true body of reality is an English translation of the term that maybe some of you are familiar with, Dharmakaya. A reality body or truth body or Dharma body of Buddha and there's a traditional teaching about the three bodies of Buddha. The Dharmakaya body is one body, the ultimate reality body of Buddha. The second body is

[24:00]

called the Sambhogakaya which is often translated as the enjoyment body or the bliss body of Buddha. The third body is called the Nirmanakaya, the manifestation body of Buddha. So the Dharmakaya stands for the ultimate, nameless, unnameable, beyond space and time, eternal aspect of reality. And the Sambhogakaya, the bliss body, stands for that aspect of reality that appears as pure form, usually associated with the meditation realms in which sometimes there are visionary experiences and even the ordinary world, when one perceives it, is purified of any imperfection. And the Nirmanakaya body of Buddha stands for this ordinary world that we all live in,

[25:00]

of corruptible material things which are eroded by time. So those are the three bodies of Buddha. And the Dharmakaya, as I say, is ultimate reality, which is by definition beyond space and time, beyond words, beyond our senses. So, the student is asking, what is that? Please say a word about this. And Nirman said, the six do not take it in, or it's beyond the six. Now, actually, this is quite easy to understand in a way. It's very simple, because the six means the six senses, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

[26:02]

Because in Buddhist philosophies and psychology, mind is considered a sixth sense. These six senses, so there's no, that's why in Buddhist psychology there's no fundamental bifurcation between body and mind. Of course, it's understood that there's a difference, but the difference is not a fundamental difference, and body and mind are all lumped together as that apparatus by which we apprehend this world, whatever the world is. We really don't know all we know is that the six take it in. So, it's very simple. What is the true body of reality? The six don't take it in, it's beyond the six. Very obvious. But,

[27:04]

the thing that's so wonderful about this case is that obviously Yunmun didn't mean that when he said the six don't take it in, and the commentaries to the case say don't get confused and think this means that the six senses don't take in, don't perceive the true body of reality. So then, what does he mean when he says the six don't take it in? It's a very similar case, in a way, to the famous koan that appears as case number one of Mumonkan, Master Zhaozhou asked does the dog have Buddha nature and he says no. And, you know, as everyone knows, in Mahayana Buddhism all things have Buddha nature. So, knowing this, a monk asked does the dog have Buddha nature and Zhaozhou said no, which is usually translated, not translated into English as no, but left

[28:05]

in the Japanese as mu. So we're all familiar, right, with this koan mu. And they purposely don't translate it into English because the commentators say this mu doesn't mean no, even though it says no. It doesn't mean no. Often the commentators say it has nothing to do with yes or no. So what is it? And the same here. The six do not take it in has nothing to do with the six do not take it in or the six do take it in. So what is it? And there is the burden of this koan. The true body of reality has nothing to do with beyond our senses and it has nothing to do with within our senses. So what is the true body of reality? And this is what we have to discover on our cushions. So I leave that job to you, but today I will say something about it. For today I would say

[29:12]

that Yun Mun's answer points to the necessity of, the absolute necessity of and the impossibility of in the endless dimension of expression. Human expression. The more I live and the more I make my effort to teach the Dharma, the more I'm struck by the tremendous poignancy of our humanness. We humans suffer a lot, I think, and we get caught over and over again in the trap of our own minds, the trap of our own confusion. Being a person

[30:15]

is always, always, no matter how badly or how well we do it, being a person is always a complete manifestation of truth. Being a person is always a beautiful thing. And yet at the same time it's always a problem for us as we, each one of us, limp our way along the endless or not so endless road toward death, all going in the same direction. And part of our humanness an inevitable part of our humanness is our need to express ourselves deeply, even though whatever we say, whatever our expression is, is always going to be not quite what it is that's in our hearts. Still, it is necessary for us to come

[31:17]

in touch with our heart and to somehow try to express our heart. And if we're not in touch with our heart, if we don't try to express our heart, our life will feel out of balance, not quite right. We will feel shut off from our deepest self, somehow as if we're not completely living our lives. We will know that something is missing. And yet, it's so beautiful to me, so poignant that and yet even when we express ourselves it's never quite that which we really need to express. Somehow, I'm not sure how or why, but it seems to be true that to express ourselves most deeply is connected with a great sorrow,

[32:17]

almost an endless sorrow, sadness, perhaps the sadness of our own mistakes or inadequacies that we come to acknowledge, or the sadness of our own suffering, what has happened to us that we come to acknowledge, or the sadness of our griefs, our losses, or sometimes without any apparent reason, tremendous sadness comes welling up in us. In some way, I think this need to express ourselves is connected to suffering and sadness. Somehow it's related. And expression is also related to our feeling which we may or may not be aware of, that death is inevitably a part of our human life, that in each moment death is present.

[33:22]

This is the nature of time, isn't it? And in each moment there's a total loss of that moment of our life. So expression somehow has to do with all of this, with an acknowledgement of the darkness that is inherent in each moment of our lives, a darkness that we can't ever really enter completely. I was recently in Guatemala and I went to a church in Antigua Guatemala, the church of San Francisco, actually, and it was full of worshippers and they had a big line of people going to confession. And I never saw

[34:23]

this before, perhaps maybe you're familiar with it, but I'd never seen, I've only seen confessionals that are kind of like various versions of a booth that someone goes in, in which the person confessing and the person hearing the confession are not seen. But this was a confession in the open. There was no enclosure. There was a kind of piece of furniture with a piece of, it looked like a kind of a, something you'd hang a suit on or something like that. Two bars like this and on the bottom kind of like this, a board that the person knelt on when they made confession and on top another board where they could put their head as they were speaking and the priest who seemed to be a young, fairly young man sat, not facing him directly but facing this way and they were over to his left or right, I forget which, and he leaned over

[35:23]

and listened very closely and the people waiting in line of course tried not to stand too close by so that they couldn't hear. But it was all in the open. You could see the people confessing and you could see their expressions and you could see the expression of the young priest and Guatemala you know is a lot of very large indigenous population about 70% of the people in Guatemala are indigenous people still many of them speaking the ancient language is still living in the same places where they've lived for thousands and thousands of years. So there were many indigenous people standing in line, many older people, many women especially and it was to me, I watched for a very long time this process. It was very beautiful to see them bringing you know their hearts full and bringing that and expressing very softly

[36:24]

you know their hearts and to see the priest listening to them trying to say something and then even the next person come, very long line and hours worth of confessions and I don't know you know anything about the practice of confession although I was telling this story to someone and they told me that the Catholic Church has recently changed the concept of confession and they now call it reconciliation which I didn't know. In any case I have no idea you know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing or what but I know that to my eye at that time watching this I was very moved by it and although in Buddhism we don't have a practice like that we do have a kind of practice of confession that we take to heart very seriously for us it's we chant a verse of confession and we try

[37:26]

our best to chant it with real intention all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed hate and delusion born through body speech and mind I now fully avow we chant every morning after before after zazen and once on the full moon hopefully with our hearts really meaning that whatever we might have done what we know about and even what we don't know about may we acknowledge it and let it go and try to start fresh knowing that even today we will add more that we'll have to let go of tomorrow so this is a kind of deep human expression

[38:27]

that needs to be made and we make expressions like this in various kinds of ceremonies or rituals wedding ceremonies or funeral ceremonies or memorial ceremonies like one we'll have today where we have a chance to express ourselves from our deepest heart make an effort anyway to express the inexpressible in our hearts say out our commitments our promises our griefs our hopes I want to read for you a poem by the poet Paul Celan a poet whom I've been studying lately reading very closely he was Eastern European poet it's hard to say what country he was from because he was born in 1920 at a time when in Eastern Europe when the country

[39:29]

kept, you know changing what country it was he was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire but then it later became Romania he was also a Jew and if you were in Central or Eastern Europe at that time and you were a Jew you really did not have a place to be and he his family was murdered at concentration camps he was himself wore the yellow star and was later in a work camp but managed to somehow escape that as younger people did often but all his life after he eventually settled in Paris and changed his name to Celan to make it sound more normal in French but he always wrote in German because he was from the German speaking part of Eastern Europe

[40:31]

and this in itself was an enormous contemplation for him his whole life through that he was writing expressing himself his deepest expression in German a language that had created terminology and an expression that was quite awful anyway oh and he he was born in 1920 and died in 1970 he was a suicide he drowned himself in a sin river anyway his poem is called Speak You Too Speak You Too Speak as the last say out your say speak but don't split off

[41:32]

no from yes give your say this meaning too give it the shadow give it shadow enough give it as much as you know is spread around you from midnight to midday and midnight look around see how all things come alive by death alive speaks true who speaks shadow but now the place shrinks where you stand where now shadow stripped where climb grope upward thinner you grow less knowable finer finer a thread the star wants to descend on

[42:33]

so as to swim down below down here where it sees itself shimmer in a swell of wandering words let me read it one more time speak you too speak as the last say out your say speak but don't split off no from yes give your say this meaning too give it the shadow give it shadow enough give it as much as you know is spread around you from midnight to midday and midnight look around see how all things come alive by death alive speaks true who speaks shadow but now

[43:33]

the place shrinks where you stand where now shadow stripped where climb grope upwards thinner you grow less knowable finer finer a thread the star wants to descend on so as to swim down below down here where it sees itself shimmer in the swell of wandering words so I think this is a poem of Paul Celan's whole life and I think of our lives too that we each of us has to speak has to say our say and we have to speak as if we were the last person only our own truth which we have a responsibility to find in our hearts and to say and in our speaking we can't split off

[44:34]

yes from no only speaking in the light the things that we know about or the things that we would like to be proud of in our lives we must also find the know we must also find the darkness and speak in the shadow which is after all not dark and not light the shadow look around see how things all come alive by death alive this is so true death is a part of life as I said earlier every moment of life is a death and that's why things are alive because of death this is true in every life how much more true in the life of Paul Celan who saw death in a way that

[45:35]

I hope none of us will ever have to see but things come alive by death when one recognizes this the place where one stands shrinks he says where will you go when you can find your true expression taking in the no and the yes you have no choice but to climb he says climb grope upwards this is the spirit this is the spiritual life this is the path and in the process of the path thinner you grow less knowable it's very true you know Dogen says to study Buddhism

[46:35]

is to study the self to study the self is to forget the self the more we look inside with more and more honesty and more and more clarity the less we know about ourself or about our world so where will you stand climb you grow thinner less knowable finer and then this wonderful image at the end finer like a thread I imagine it as a kind of a spider's thread a thread that a star up in the heavens like the Dharmakaya body of Buddha this star wants to descend down that thread that fine thread that becomes your life this star wants to descend on that thread to swim here down below where it can see itself shimmer in the swell

[47:36]

of wandering words so the Dharmakaya Buddha body which is outside the six swims in this world it shimmers by our fineness our thinness in our sea of words remember Sui Do said in the opening to this case heaven never speaks yet the four seasons follow their courses earth does not talk but all things prosper now tell me where do you see the monk stop your speech your actions your daily routine and closing your throat and lips say it the non-human universe

[48:37]

the heaven and earth is always expressing itself perfectly that there is a world at all that there is any world at all is a kind of deep expression and I think this is why we love nature so much why nature is so healing because the very existence of nature is the deepest and most satisfying eloquence of all and I know many of us have had the experience of some time when we can let our human chatter just fall away and simply look at the sky or look at a tree or a leaf or a flower and we can feel as if we are being spoken to in the most beautiful way a way that

[49:40]

absolutely demonstrates to us a peacefulness and clarity and a deep, deep sanity but we human beings must respond we must say our say we've got to express the person that we are in some way it's necessary for all of us to live the story of our lives and to speak that story somehow but we have to be careful not to get entangled in our story not to attach an importance to it that can be an overestimation of what it is our lives are small circles of light surrounded by an immense darkness as if we were all living

[50:42]

in a little cabin on a plane with a little kerosene lamp and all around us endless space and darkness and that little circle of light is all that we will ever see that's our place to work with but we cannot forget we cannot avoid the darkness we must bring it in the darkness is within our circle of light it's the very nature of our circle of light as well in our practice we enter the darkness on our cushions it gives us a space a place of safety and possibility to enter that darkness and never forget it

[51:47]

and when we do that we get up from our cushions and we make the effort to express our lives in the impossibility of any expression that could ever touch the immensity of what our lives are how could we ever possibly hope to express ourselves to say or embody what's true to say or embody what really matters and yet at the same time with every breath it is there so this is our human challenge to grope upward toward that expression and when we encounter it to have the presence of mind to see it to have the courage to say out our say Suedo's verse says

[52:52]

one, two three, four five, six even the blue-eyed Indian monk cannot count it rashly they say shot in passed it on to Shinko or he clad in the robe journeyed back to India India is vast and far he is not to be found lo, since last night he has been here facing Nyuho so this has a lot of literary references in it that I have to explain the blue-eyed Indian monk is Bodhidharma the original ancestor of Chan Buddhism and Bodhidharma often stands for Dharmakaya in this case or the true essence of the teaching so a typical Zen question is why did Bodhidharma come here and which means what is the teaching all about so one, two, three, four, five, six

[53:55]

it could be six gazillion even the Dharmakaya cannot count the vastness of our lives the vastness of the darkness and the light rashly they say Shodan passed it on to Shinko so Shodan is another name for Bodhidharma and they say that he passed the Dharma on to his disciple or sometimes they say that he there is a legend about Bodhidharma that he when he was buried he became resurrected and he lost one of his sandals so on one sandal he walked back to India sailing across the ocean after a while on a reed there is a legend about Bodhidharma so they say that about Bodhidharma but actually if you look for Bodhidharma in India you'll never find Bodhidharma India is as big

[54:56]

as the whole universe you can't find Bodhidharma in there and since last night he has been facing Nyuho Nyuho is a peak in the monastery of Suedo the author of this poem so he's writing since last night although we can't find Bodhidharma anywhere in India it's too vast actually he's here right here facing this peak that is here as I'm writing this poem so I don't have to tell you that Zen practice is not about Bodhidharma or Yunmun or about some old Zen masters whom we understand or don't understand if you want to penetrate

[55:58]

the endless dharmakaya the true body of reality you have to look right here facing the Nyuho peak of your own life every moment we have a chance to encounter Nyuho peak we're always facing Nyuho peak the true body of reality the inexpressible beyond form and time beyond language endless dharma beyond birth and death always available in the middle of whatever circumstances our lives bring forth and our question is how will we express it? Thank you.

[57:09]

There's a book published a book called Deng Qi recently reading there's a case there in which there's a master Nyang 42nd case reportedly said to himself everyday wake up wake up don't let anyone condemn you for another moment in the commentary which is actually one of my questions in law the commentary goes it's too much to let your mouth fill up with blood and breathe better to wait till spring comes better to shut up and wait till spring comes so as my dilemma with expression continues to bring me to blindness it it makes it makes me wonder how much one expresses that

[58:30]

grief that in the koan the master refers to as making one's mouth fill with blood or how much one shuts up and waits till spring comes I'll repeat the question so that everybody can hear stop me if I'm not repeating correctly can you hear me? can everybody hear me ok? oh is this working? oh yeah this will be good yeah no I'm I'm mic'd now so now you can certainly hear me John was bringing up this the problem of expression and I was trying to bring out the nuances of this in my talk the fact that on the one hand expression is easy to get entangled in it's easy to overdo it

[59:30]

or it's easy to reify experience with expression on the other hand to censor ourselves or to keep silent is not right either so that's why I think the key to it is in the pointer to this case that I brought up this morning where Swado says with your lips shut tight and your throat closed say it you see that's that's the answer I think in other words not to say it in such a way that one is not getting entangled in it not getting not falling into attachment and entanglement in the first place and in the second place to say it with a realization that we can never say it anyway and we're always saying it so I can never express my grief because I might have whenever say I have say I'm grieving for a particular reason a loss in my life well

[60:30]

that loss in my life brings up the endless grieving that's endemic to time itself and to being human which I can never know and never express and yet I come into touch with it through my own grieving in this individual case so my expression is most true when I have when I'm conscious of that in my expressing and also like I say when I'm not entangled in my expression so that's the that's the paradox in a way but I would say to be honest here and to be fair that I was probably emphasizing in my talk expression more than it would be emphasized in traditional perhaps more than it would be emphasized or in a way that it would in a way that it would not be so much emphasized traditionally and I and I did that and I do that on purpose because I feel that

[61:31]

for our western frame of mind it's necessary to do that because sometimes following the eastern path which seems to be more about silence than expression I think that we can often do violence to our cultural need to manifest ourselves in expression so it's a very fine point because certainly in the tradition they also talk about expression expressing the Dharma and how to do that without getting entangled in it and without missing the main point which is expression is impossible and also constant is one of the main issues of of our tradition actually Zen is very contemporary in that it's very concerned with language philosophy I mean it really is it seems to be it's really clearly one of the number one philosophical issues that are expressed over and over again in the koans so I don't think I'm entirely making it up but I'm emphasizing it in a way

[62:34]

out of my experience in working with western students and seeing how sometimes people who practice Zen in the west end up feeling like it's not proper to express oneself sometimes and that's not that's not good for us I think so but how you do that this is we all have to find our way and I think that the practice then is you know mindfulness looking within and seeing so how am I doing now am I now you know wallowing in my expression and becoming very attached in my expression and reifying myself and making a big confusion out of my life with my expression or am I expressing what needs to be expressed and going on to the next moment how am I doing and I think suffering and attachment is the guide when we see we're becoming you know suffering more

[63:35]

and we see our attachment is increasing we know oh yes well this is not good the way I'm expressing myself and the way that I'm focusing on this point so there's letting go and there's expression and I think that koan that you quote of Thich Nhat Hanh translation is also about that point yeah yeah the the way that that case is usually translated into English and it may be that it's different because it goes through the Vietnamese language it comes out different but usually translated from Japanese from Chinese to Japanese to English comes out every day the Zen master would ask himself something like how are you today are you good I'm fine don't be fooled by anything I won't be that was a practice that he said to himself every day don't be fooled by anything I won't be he told himself that every day and so that's a very good way of you know that's a good practice

[64:35]

right if you want to know how your expression is going every day tell yourself John yes you okay today yes don't be fooled by anything okay and let's see now am I being fooled here let's see you know so we follow our feeling inside and see how how we're doing yeah Jack did you have something you had your hand up I just wanted to say after struggling for 30 years with my own self-expression listening to you giving me immense confidence that whenever I try and do it it'll be okay well thank you I'm glad yes I had a question about peripheral aspects of your talk not the central that's okay yeah in terms of dealing with the characteristic

[65:37]

and challenging and wonderful methods that some of the masters have used throughout their students and I wondered if you could say something about it in a non-Zen mind of course some of hearing some of the methods that you used that may sound quite could sound quite cruel and yet obviously at times they're enormously helpful and effective over the centuries and yet from the point of view of the student there also are times when one can even simply be too harsh or too cruel and as a student one has to kind of thread one's way through that and there can be a lot of complexities to that and confusion

[66:38]

to that and I know there's no simple way to talk about this but I wondered if you could just say something about how one might approach that as a student when trying to figure out the actual dhamma for our teachers yeah well one of the most important notions I think in Mahayana Buddhism is the idea of upaya or skillful means and this is the idea that that teaching always fits the occasion that it's not that the dharma has an eternal means of expression or an eternal style that it's always presented in this way but rather that in response to conditions that are coming forward the dharma comes forward to meet those conditions in the most skillful way and it's one of the jobs of a teacher one hopes to be able to discern what would be the most skillful way of teaching so when we're talking about the ancient masters in China you have to keep in mind the context

[67:38]

in which they taught they were teaching students who were at least as far as we know the reality is always more complicated than what historical documents tell you but as far as we know they were teaching people who were sullivant monks who were absolutely committed to liberation as the only thing that they were doing with their lives and who were already quite grounded and steeped in Buddhist thought and Buddhist practice so Chan was considered kind of like capping study in your Dharma study typically many of these monks would have studied as with Master Yunlen would have studied the Vinaya would have studied other traditions and would be very grounded in all the teachings of Buddhism in the teachings of emptiness compassion and so on and so forth they would have absorbed all of that and then they would say okay now I want to

[68:39]

go to a Chan master I'm determined to achieve the particular kind of liberation that Chan has to offer and so I'm going there I know what's involved I'm ready for this I've gone through a lot of practice already and I'm experienced so it was in that context that they taught not to mention the whole cultural context and the whole Asian context of those days so I think that we have to keep that in mind now to me it seems to me that such methods would be highly ineffective in our present circumstances I think they would just be and some teachers do even nowadays even in the West do use methods like that because that became the tradition this is the way Chan is presented and it became solidified into a kind of approach but I don't think that it was originally solidified into an approach it was a response to the possibility in other words yeah you get people like that who have that level of commitment and that degree of knowledge and then you create a pressure

[69:39]

cooker atmosphere in which you can do certain kinds of things so it is valuable but I think it's very not so useful in our circumstances is my opinion that given you know Chinese people in the 8th century you can imagine where in many ways their psychology was quite different from Western people in the late 20th century and so the teachings suited where they were at so I think that with the same essence and the same truths we have to present it in a different style I think it would be not skillful so I don't know if I were a student and there was some and I have encountered teachers like that you know who present the Dharma in a very traditional old fashioned way so I would just see what I can benefit what I can get out of it you know and I would try not to take it personally you know what I mean yes okay maybe they're going to beat me up or they're going

[70:40]

to shout and yell okay that's the game what can I learn from this and if I felt like nothing then I would say thank you very much but I'm out of here and if I felt like I think there is something I was talking to a priest who came to my session in Bellingham last week and she is a western woman who is an ordained priest who is going now to a place in Japan where this is the way the training is they actually beat up people you know except they didn't beat her up because they know that I mean the teacher said well you know we only beat up Japanese guys we don't beat up American women because it's not proper but we don't hide you know we don't hide the fact that we're beating up and they do like a kind of a hazing there's a hazing this I don't think was part of Chinese Zen but in Japanese Zen there's a kind of a hazing ritual almost like in a fraternity when a young monk comes they're new they give him a hard time you know and to our eyes it's very cruel

[71:40]

and I think it's very cruel myself and I'm sure that they find it cruel also but it's just there that's what they're doing so I mean if I was there I don't think I would you know I would say geez you know cut it out but she said well she said I find that I get some benefit out of going there it's good for me you know in some ways there's something that I there's a dimension to my practice that I find valuable so then she has her eyes open she knows what's going on she said she described it as she's actually also a therapist so she described it as the dysfunctional family from hell she said it's because it's a small it's a very small like there's about a dozen fifteen students there and she said it's like the dysfunctional family from hell but you know I want to go back there because I feel that there's something for me you know that I can learn from it so but like I say when I see that kind of thing to me personally I mean it's just me but I don't know

[72:42]

it strikes me as kind of like ridiculous in a way more ridiculous than cruel it just seems like people are acting out some sort of a fantasy it would be hard for me to take it seriously when they shouted at me and this happened to me I've been in places where they shout at me and I go come on give me a break are you kidding and they don't know what to think when you do that but this is my actual honest reaction I was at one place there's one place in New York that has a Japanese Zen teacher who's like that and he's actually kind of a terrible guy in a lot of ways he also does other things that are you know beating up is nice compared to some of the other things that he does but anyway so I went there and I did something that was improper and not him he wasn't there but one of his lieutenants shouted at me and afterward

[73:42]

he came up to me all stern and I didn't really care he didn't know what to think because in other words that's a whole system you're supposed to feel a certain way when the shouting happens I didn't feel that way so the guy just didn't know what to think so that's my reaction to it but on the other hand I suppose maybe my friend I don't actually she didn't tell me exactly why or why she was going there but I think maybe part of it had to do with her wanting to work with fear and to be able to go in there and come out the other end not being bothered by it well maybe it's good for her I don't know so if you can find some benefit in it then good but if not I don't and I think that see what's going on here is that we're having many people coming to Dharma centers the average person who comes to a Dharma center is not knowledgeable about Buddhism enormously they need to learn actually one of the things that we've learned is that we have to teach not only

[74:43]

Zen but also general Buddhism people have to learn many other aspects of Buddhism besides Zen is one thing that's fundamental but it's not the only thing in Buddhism so we have to teach many other things and also basically people are coming they're not coming with a very strong and clear commitment they're coming with a strong and clear commitment I believe to their own lives and to the possibility of spiritual growth but they're exploring what that means and how to manifest that so to assume that everybody's coming as a hardcore Zen adept is completely wrong and so one needs to teach in such a way as to actually reach the people who are coming and not to teach in that way is really just not in accord with Buddha's heart according to the Mahayana sutras which said the Buddha appears in whatever way one needs the Buddha to appear so that's how I feel about that and you know like I say especially in Korean Zen I mean they actually

[75:43]

take it to the extent where there are like standard answers to the questions this is the question you must say this if you say anything else no matter how wise it is it's wrong because you must say this and you must tap your stick in this way you know and so that's how they train that's a very Asian old-fashioned Asian way of training you imitate the teacher or the mom or dad and you do it exactly the way that they did it and then you teach your children that way and there's something beautiful about that not to say that that's a bad thing but it just doesn't really suit our contemporary sense of what good teaching and learning is all about so we'll see what happens in the end yes yeah good yeah mm-hmm I have a question I think it's about skillful means actually you talked about as we begin or as one might begin a spiritual path you get to a place

[76:43]

where you realize that we don't know that I don't know the answers in our society so much of the time so much of what goes on requires you to kind of have some sort of self-assurance or even act as if you do know and I'm thinking specifically in relationships you know or even in professional capacities so how do we rationalize in my mind it really seems true that I don't know anything but as I function out in this world you know when somebody says to me are you sure I really feel like no I'm not sure it's quite the way that takes away a lot of possibility so he's bringing up the contradiction between on the one hand recognizing in oneself that one doesn't know radically doesn't know and society seemingly our social contract which calls on each of us to sort of be very self-assertive and sure of ourselves and so forth and these seem like contradictions and how do we negotiate that well the first

[77:44]

point I think it's a really good point to bring up the first point is that our coming into touch with that one who truly doesn't know that's not the same as doubt and confusion it's quite the opposite the ultimate sense of groundedness and self possession so to speak and confidence is to be in touch with this not knowing because you see it's not a not knowing that comes from like well somebody knows or I'll know later it's just that right now I don't know I'm a big dummy it's not that it's like not knowing is like the ultimate truth there is nothing but not knowing anybody who doesn't understand not knowing doesn't really understand so I'm completely confident in my not knowing and it's also not contradictory at all on the relative level you see because this not knowing is on an absolute level it's not at

[78:45]

all contradictory on the relative level to say yes that's it in fact you can say yes that's it with much more confidence when you know you don't know because if you say yes that's it and somebody says no that's not it you say fine good then it's that let's go you see so it's not a problem really it's not a problem it's because we think that there's something to know that our I don't know looks like oh I don't know oh gosh I don't know no no I don't know this is like I don't know you know it's like hmm totally I don't know and yeah then we can easily say it's this let's go this way see and then if that turns out to be totally wrong in the next moment drop it and let's go the other way that's fine full confidence in this way now we have to change good full confidence in that way too so I actually really don't think it's actually a problem but I also know

[79:46]

that it's not easy to do because we're working on this it's not like you know all of a sudden like you know there we are it's we're working on this so I understand that in the working on it it can present itself as a problem but you know even though we have these social conspiracies together you know like this at the same time I don't think anybody any one of us if you can touch we can touch each other in our deepest hearts every one of us also is concerned about this the issue of birth and death concerns all of us you know so we can all reach ourselves and reach each other you know at that level and I think if one has confidence in that and that confidence comes from going back to the cushion and touching yourself at that level the more you touch yourself at that level the more you come to realize everyone else is also on the path at whatever place they are and sometimes you find

[80:47]

over and over I have found anyway over and over and over again that the people who most insist on ignoring that part of their lives are the ones who have the biggest hurts and the biggest wounds and the deepest need for it and so sometimes so you have to be firm enough in your own path not to get hooked into the kind of thing that we do with each other you know is this clear how we do this to each other you know and it's possible just like this guy who shouts at me in his endo and afterword waits for me to be hooked into the same reality he is and I say oh so what you shouted at me big deal you know I didn't say those words but obviously that was my attitude then right away he dropped he was kind of confused you know so it's the same way with some worldly person you know expects you to feel guilty or expects you to feel diminished by his or her domination and so on and you don't feel that you're just you know your attitude toward them

[81:47]

is you're a Buddha I want to meet you as a Buddha even though you don't say that you know those words but that's where you're coming from then people eventually will harmonize with that I really believe that so our job is to constantly work on getting in touch with ourselves in that way so that we really see the world in that way and we come from that place so I think it's not a problem to get along in the world and be a practitioner in the world and it's not a problem to do the things that we need to do whatever they are I think that we have to come from the place of suppose it all falls apart suppose I get fired and I have nothing I'm ready for that too we have to be you know if we're afraid if we're holding on and we're afraid then definitely we can't practice that way so we have to really I believe myself I'm sorry to say this but I really believe that practice is ultimately about renunciation even though we live in our house and we have our family and we have our job and everything that's fine it's not that we have to give that up but we have to give it up in our hearts

[82:47]

that's the only way that we can live it beautifully because if we're afraid insofar as we're afraid of losing what we have then we're prey because that's what the social conspiracy is based on it's based on our mutual fear together that we would lose what we have and that's how we keep each other entrapped that's how we do it and if we can break away from that then we're fine we can negotiate our way through the world and if ultimately because we're righteous we lose our job well I mean of course who wants to lose their job? Nobody wants to lose their job but if it comes to that okay so we'll suffer and we'll survive somehow I think so it's possible I don't think there's a contradiction in the teaching and in the life there's a contradiction in our hearts because we're still working on it and so our job is to look at that contradiction and be clear about it not pretend it's not there or say well wait a minute now he said this is how you'd be Zen so I'm gonna be that way

[83:48]

no no you have to look and see we have that contradiction and it is difficult because of that we have to look and we have to be very honest about it be mindful of it and keep going ahead and eventually little by little as we touch ourselves deeply in our lives that little by little dissipates and falls away so it's a great adventure to practice in the way that we're practicing it really is it's a great possibility I hope we can do it more and more and I think that it gets more and more possible all the time because there are more and more people who have more and more understanding of the Dharma and the appreciation of Dharma is spreading wider in the society I think so now like we have this ongoing series of retreats with people in business you know practicing Zen in business and more and more people are seeing that well they can tell their colleagues at work that they practice Zen and they find at first they thought

[84:49]

they'll think I'm crazy they'll think I'm flaky you know but now they're finding actually in many cases they get respect for it and people say gee you know I'm glad that you're here I'm glad to know you're practicing here and all of a sudden sometimes people come to them with a different spirit and sometimes the workplace takes on a new feeling because of that and that's more and more happening so you know you find a wonderful thing where you know there's somebody at the workplace that you know about you know and then you tell them that you're studying Zen and they say oh so am I you find that happens sometimes you know so yes I had a situation with my boss and I used to speak up and it kind of was a bubble out of the relationship because it wasn't stopping yeah it was like you know the training environment says can be stressful yeah and

[85:49]

you know so I'm sitting there and now that that is kind of an address you know that the behavior wasn't acceptable to me and I told him please and it's interesting because now it's like I'm at the point where I'm trying to see that it wasn't that I was just outgrown to the job in the situation and it's not personal but I my mind keeps going back to oh yeah yeah but it's relieved it's getting eventually to be somewhat of a relief from that kind of fear of adulteration and speaking of this that was the point of inflection from there but then it's like well how did you deal with me then yeah yeah the poor fellow right don't you feel sorry for him laughing yeah you know

[86:50]

yeah excuse me go ahead yeah so I guess um and then it's like I think that it's something like um like working at the end of playing around with family matters being played out yes yes you know you go thinking about that and then sometimes I guess to see that it's a situation that means that I'm outgrown but I also know there's all this drama and I can't really distinguish it all out but I have little hints about that I try to sit on the pillow right here yeah yeah but in the meantime it's just like enough enough yes yes I don't know who provided handy when the woman said no poor Milton he didn't come to it enough and then he had enough with the whole lawyer thing he said that I'm clean that's enough and I guess it's hard to let go of something that you're used to like a lot of

[87:50]

people who don't know all that yeah well in specific cases of course it's very difficult to know what to do you know and sometimes one just takes one's best shot you know having courage not to be afraid of doing what you feel is right but sometimes you know in a case like that the right thing to do for you is to leave the job sometimes maybe it's not I don't know but one thing I do know is that when you when you really contemplate you know karma and what karma really is you know that someone who is causing harm you know someone whose life is so unaware that they can't help their whole mode of being is disrespectful or harmful to others you know one can really know that that person is themselves causing harm in their own lives and to me someone like that is more to be pitied than to be feared or opposed

[88:51]

you know with the heart of opposition and hatred you feel sorry for someone who you know there are plenty of people who are so miserable and so far from their own hearts in the lives that they're living that the only way that they can have any any feeling of satisfaction is to feel that they're dominating others and amassing huge fortunes of money which of course is not making them happy anyway but they feel like at least that's the only thing that justifies how far they are from their own hearts and this is not an abstraction to me at all I mean it seems to me that you can see this in the face and the body and the life of someone who's living that way like to me when I look at that I look at such a person I just see it there it is right there it's a person who's very far removed from the humanness of being human so then when someone when you're on the other end of that kind of person rather than you know saying feeling oh you know I'm mad at them

[89:51]

or I hate them they're treating me this way and this way and this way you feel oh how sad this is that the person has to be this way feels that they have to be that way now you now realistically one may feel hurt in a lot of ways in so far as we don't have that vision of each other we're still working on it you know but it's very important to keep that vision in front of us and remember it come back to that oh yes I'm hurt by this person but really and truly I should remember that this person is himself suffering you know and that's where that is coming from now if we were if we were all Buddhas you know we could go to the office and let them do that to us and little by little through our loving heart soften them up and pretty soon before you know it we would all be nice to each other unfortunately we're not there yet so sometimes we have to do things like quit our job or sometimes get angry if that's the only way that we have to express ourselves sometimes that's what happens and we have to do that and that's because that's how we are but it's just good

[90:51]

to keep that vision in mind that people who are like that are suffering yeah it comes and goes yeah you totally see that person and you see the humanitarian side yeah yeah yeah and it goes falls back into right right right and you have to know yourself too you can't you can't pretend oh I'm Buddhist I'm going to take this and I'm going to take it and I'm going to take it and I'm going to take it and then really in your heart you're not able to really take it and so then you have to make an adjustment so it's yeah it's hard to know you know we have to just do our best and try to look within ourselves and discern what's really going on and what's the best thing for us to do given where we are and who we really are we can't pretend to be something that we're not yeah so sometimes yeah we do what we need to do yeah please yeah mhm it seems to me Norman that it's about expression that's what I was talking about one if someone is going they're pretty miserable they're pretty unhappy they're pretty scared or vulnerable or whatever yes that's what I'm saying yeah they're not able to express it

[91:52]

so the way it comes out mhm and then we get we buy into it and then we can't express how we're feeling because we get intimidated we can't say that's not appropriate or there's too much milk in my teeth yeah yeah we have to know sometimes when to quit right exactly yeah so it's about expression that's really what you're saying mhm but it's from both ways it's like for us to realize there's not expression that's really going on right for us to find a way to keep going yeah yeah my heart yeah that's right so it's always completely we can never say you know here's how you behave in that circumstance we never know it depends on the situation yeah I believe that yesterday I saw this in 2020 you're saying about radical expression or radical honesty this guy that would have retreats with people where they would scream at each other oh yeah yeah get it all out there yeah yeah and in a way

[92:53]

you know it made some sense to me because since I've been studying then and [...]

[93:01]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ