DHARMA SPRING: Recent Episodes
Andrew Palmer
This is the podcast of Andrew Palmer, a Dharma Teacher in The Open Source Koan Zen Tradition, covering topics related to meditation, koan practice, Zen/Chan, Daoism, spirituality and more. Recent talks and teachings as well as those from prior months/years are posted weekly, so tune in regularly to catch each episode.
Form Is No Other Than Emptiness, Emptiness No Other Than Form
A nice hot kettle of stew. He ruins it by dropping a couple of rat turds in. It's no good pushing delicacies at a person with a full belly. Striking aside waves to look for water when the waves are water.
Forms don't hinder emptiness; emptiness is the tissue of form.
Emptiness isn't destruction of form; form is the flesh of emptiness.
Inside the Dharma gates where form and emptiness are not-two
A lame turtle with painted eyebrows stands in the evening breeze.
-from Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra
(Normal Waddell, trans)
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In my most recent talk, Talking to a Rock, I referenced a talk from a few years back in which I shared the story of my journey to practice, and said I would post it here. So here it is, dusted off and freshened up a bit, with tales of affinity for the Way via things occurring in early childhood through to adolescence and on to early adulthood, culminating with my participating in the ceremony of taking refuge, which marked the beginning of my journey with The Open Source and Pacific Zen School.
Enjoy!
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Yunyan asked a student what they had been doing.
"I've been talking to a rock."
Yunyan asked, "Who spoke first, you or the rock?"
When the student didn't reply, Yunyan said, "It was nodding to you before you even said a word."
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Nothing will do. What do you do? This is the fundamental koan, the koan that is the common denominator of the thousands of koans.
-also-
Whatever I do it just doesn't do what do I do?
-Shin'ichi Hisamatsu
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After several unsuccessful attempts at receiving advice from Vast Obscure…
Generalissimo Cloud said, "It is a rare and difficult thing to meet with you, O Heaven! Please give me just one word!"
Vast Obscure said, "Ach! The nourishing of the mind! Just stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves. Drop your body away, vomit out your precise powers of hearing and vision, sink yourself into the forgetting of things, become vastly merged in fluidity and darkness, unleash your mind and release your spirit until you are left like a still and silent desert, like there is no soul in you. All things throng and flourish, but each returns to its root. Each returns to its root, and yet they do not know it! Mixed and blended, in chaos and confusion—as long as they live they are never separated from it! If they knew it, they would then be separated from it! They do not ask its name, they do not spy out its character: thus do all things generate themselves!"
-from Chapter 11: "Being There and Giving Room" in Zhuangzi: The Complete Works (Brook Ziporyn, trans)
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Obstinate and mindless
Block of Stone,
Lying here
On this green moss,
Oblivious of rain and dew,
Immune to frost and snow.
How many times has this garden
Flourished and Decayed!
How often have these flowers and trees
Bloomed and Faded!
Just ask old Mr. Stone -
He remembers it all!
-Zheng Banqiao
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Let go of hundreds of years
and relax completely.
-Shitou Xiqian, from Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage
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Danxia Tianran traveled to meet with Great Ancestor Ma. Upon first seeing one another, Ma had a good look at him and said, "I am not your teacher," advising him to go to Shitou's place. Danxia made the long journey and joined Shitou's community as a layperson, working in the stables and temple kitchen for several years.
One day Shitou announced to the assembly, “Tomorrow we're going to clear away the weeds in front of the Buddha's shrine.” The next day everyone arrived equipped with tools to cut down the weeds. However, Danxia showed up with only a bowl, filled it with water, and washed his head; then he knelt in front of Shitou. Laughing, Shitou shaved Danxia's head for him, in preparation for taking refuge in the Way as a monastic. As Shitou began to confer the precepts, Danxia covered his ears and ran out.
Danxia then journeyed back to Great Ancestor Ma's place. Before meeting with Ma to pay his respects, Danxia went to the monk's hall, climbed onto the large statue of Manjushri, and sat astride its neck. Everyone became quite upset, and some hurried off to tell Ma what was going on, who then came to the monk's hall to see for himself. Seeing Danxia upon the statue, Ma smiled and said, "Ah yes, my son, so natural."
Danxia climbed down from the statue, bowed before Ma, and said, "Thank you, teacher, for giving me my Dharma Name" (Tianran, which means "natural")
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Dragon murmurings in a dried-up tree aren’t used up
-Xuedou
A student asked Xishuang, “What is ‘dragon murmurings in a dried-up tree’?” Xishuang replied, “I still have joy.”
A Student asked Caoshan, “What is ‘dragon murmurings in a dried-up tree’?” Caoshan replied, “The bloodline is not cut off.”
A student asked, "Who can hear this?" Caoshan said, "In the whole world, there is no one who does not hear it." The student asked, "What book is 'dragon murmurings' taken from?" Caoshan said, "I don't know what book it's from, but all who hear it die."
-from Blue Cliff Record, Case 2 (verse and commentary)
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Today I sat before the cliffs
I sat until the mist drew off
a single crystal stream
a towering ridge of jade
a cloud's dawn shadow not yet moving
the moon's night light still adrift
a body free of dust
a mind without a care
-from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Hanshan)
Red Pine (trans)
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The suffering of the Wheel is relentless
back and forth stirring up the dust
the ant patrol on its endless round
the Six Paths are nothing but confusion
changing heads and switching faces
doesn't free you from your self
bring this hell of darkness to an end
don't let your mind grow dim
-from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Hanshan)
Red Pine (trans)
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Here's a message for the faithful
what is it that you cherish
to find the Way to see your nature
your nature is naturally so
what Heaven bestows is perfect
looking for proof leads you astray
leaving the trunk to search among twigs
all you get is stupid
--from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Hanshan)
Red Pine (trans)
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A tree grew here before the grove
its age is twice as great
the shifting earth has gnarled its roots
wind and frost have parched its leaves
people scorn its withered outside
no one sees its fine-grained heart
but when its bark is stripped away
what remains is real
-from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Hanshan)
Red Pine (trans)
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Before the cliffs I sat alone
the moon shone in the sky
but where a thousand shapes appeared
its lantern cast no light
the unobstructed spirit is clear
the empty cave is a mystery
a finger showed me the moon
the moon is the hub of the mind
-from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Hanshan)
Red Pine (trans)
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Someone asked, “What is my heart-mind?”
Changsha replied, “All the worlds in the universe are your heart-mind.”
“If that’s so, then there’s really no particular place for my body to be.”
“That’s exactly the place for your body to be,” said Changsha.
“Where is that?”
“The great ocean, vast and deep.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dragons and fish play freely, leaping and diving.”
-from Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson
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Someone asked, "What is the great way?"
Changsha said, "It doesn't exclude you."
The person asked, "Who is the teacher of all buddhas?"
Changsha said, "For the incalculable eon, who has ever concealed this?"
-from Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson
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A monk asked, "What is the true monk's eye?"
Changsha said, "So vast and wide that you can't leave it."
Changsha also said, "Those who become buddhas and ancestors can't leave it. The six realms of transmigration can't leave it."
The monk said, "I don't understand what it is that they can't leave."
Changsha said, "In the day, see the sun. In the night, see the stars."
The monk said, "I don't understand."
Changsha said, "The lofty mountains are colored green upon green."
-from Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson
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Changsha entered the hall and addressed the assembly: "I say to you that all worlds pervading the ten directions are the true monk's eye. All worlds pervading the ten directions are the true monk's complete body. Pervading all worlds in the ten directions is your own brilliant light. All worlds in the ten directions are within your own light. And throughout all worlds in the ten directions there is not a being that is not you. This is what I've taught you when I've said that all the buddhas, dharmas, and sentient beings of the three worlds are the great light of wisdom. But even before this light was propagated, what is the place where you existed? Before this light was propagated, before buddhas and before sentient beings, from where did the mountains, rivers, and the great earth come forth?"
-from Zen's Chinese Heritageby Andy Ferguson
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When I look deeply
into the real form of the universe,
everything reveals the mysterious truth of the Tathagata.
This truth never fails:
in every moment and every place
things can't help but shine with this light.
-from Torei Zenji's Bodhisattva's Vow
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Someone asked Yangshan, "Can the dharmakaya expound the dharma?"
"I'm not able to expound it," replied Yangshan, "but there is someone else who can."
"And where is this person who can expound it?" the questioner continued.
Yangshan pushed forward his headrest.
from Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho Kirchner (trans)
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Someone asked Yangshan, "What is the difference between heaven and hell?"
Yangshan drew a line on the ground.
-from Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson
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Yangshan said to the assembly:
"Officially, not even a needle can enter; unofficially, you can drive a truck through."
-from The Open Source's Miscellaneous Koan Collection
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When Yangshan was residing at Dongping, a letter and a mirror arrived from Guishan. Yangshan ascended the high seat and received the letter. Then, holding up the mirror, he addressed the assembly.
"Monks, this mirror comes from Guishan. Tell me, is it Guishan's mirror or is it mine? If you say it's mine, still it was sent by Guishan. If you say it's Guishan's, still it's here in my hands. If you can say something, I'll save the mirror; if you can't, I'll smash it."
He repeated this three times, but no one in the assembly responded. Yangshan then smashed the mirror.
Later, Wuzu Shijie answered in place of the assembly: "I would have said, 'Teacher, please, try to explain your meaning a bit more clearly,' then snatched away the mirror and shattered it myself."
-from Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho Kirchner (trans)
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Guishan asked Yangshan, “Where have you come from?”
Yangshan replied, “I’ve come from the fields.”
“How many people are in the fields?”
Yangshan planted his hoe in the ground and stood with his hands clasped.
Guishan said, “Lots of people are cutting water mallows on South Mountain.”
Yangshan picked up his hoe and left.
Book of Serenity, Case 15
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One day Guishan was picking tea with Yangshan. Guishan said, "All day long I've heard your voice but haven't seen your form."
Yangshan shook the tea bush. Guishan commented, "You know how it works but you don't know what it is."
"You know what it is but you don't know how it works," Yangshan responded.
"I spare you thirty blows of my staff," said Guishan.
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A student asked Nanquan, “Is there a teaching that the wise throughout the ages haven’t conveyed?”
Nanquan said, “There is.”
The student asked, “How would you express it?”
Nanquan said, “It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not things.”
The Gateless Gateway, Case 27
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Luzu asked Nanquan, “People don’t recognize the wish-fulfilling gem. I picked it up myself in the Tathagata treasury. What is this treasury?”
Nanquan said, “It’s me engaged in conversation with you like this.”
“How about when there’s no conversation?”
“That’s it, too.”
“What is the jewel?”
“Reverend Luzu!”
“Yes?”
“Go on, you don’t understand my words.”
Case 93, The Book of Serenity
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A student asked Nanquan, "As you formally sit in your quarters (for Work in the Room/dokusan), how do you guide people?"
Nanquan replied, "Last night at midnight I lost the ox; this morning as dawn arrived I lost the fire."
from Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho Kirchner, trans
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A student asked Nanquan, “The buddhas of the past, present, and future don’t know it; cats and oxen do know it. Why is it that the buddhas of the past, present, and future don’t know it?”
Nanquan said, “They still knew something before entering the Deer Park.“
“Why is it that cats and oxen do* know it?“
“How could you possibly doubt that they would?“ answered Nanquan.
-from Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho Kirchner, trans
*The Deer Park is where the Buddha, after his awakening under the Bodhi Tree, gave his first sermon and gained his first disciples.
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Zhaozhou Congshen asked Nanquan Puyuan, "What is the Way?"
Nanquan said, "Ordinary mind is the Way."
Zhaozhou asked, "Can we deliberately strive toward this?"
Nanquan said, "To strive toward it is to turn away."
Zhaozhou said, "Without striving, how can we know the Way?"
Nanquan said, "The Way has nothing to do with knowing or not-knowing. 'Knowing' is delusion, 'not-knowing' is apathy. If you really attain the Way-without-doubt, it is vast and boundless like open space. How can you speak of affirmation and negation?"
At these words Zhaozhou was deeply enlightened.
from Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho Kirchner, trans
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Someone asked, "The Honored Ones of the ten directions all had a single gateway to ultimate liberation. What is this gateway?"
Yunmen said, "I can't tell."
"Why can't you tell?"
Yunmen said, "If you, just you, present the problem, then I can."
from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans.
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Once Yunmen said, "There is nothing whatsoever that does not explain the Dharma. Striking the bell or beating the drum is no exception. If this is the case, nothing will beDharma, and nothing will not be."
He added, "One should not assert that when one speaks, it is, and that when one doesn't speak, it isn't. Even what I just said has not quite made it. Well, as long as it benefits people, it may be okay. . . ."
from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans
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Someone asked Yunmen, "What is Chan?"
Yunmen replied, "That's it!"
Then they asked, "What is the Dao?"
Yunmen replied, "Okay!"
_____
"What is the Dao?"
Yunmen replied, "To break through this word."
"What is it like when one has broken through?"
"A thousand miles, the same mood."
_____
Someone asked Yunmen, "What is Chan?"
Yunmen said, "Is it all right to get rid of this word?"
-from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans
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Someone asked, "How about when one makes a hole in the wall in order to steal the neighbor's light?"
Yunmen said, "There it is!"
-from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans
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A student asked Yunmen, “What’s the particle-by-particle samadhi?” (Another translation: "What's the deep state of mind in which, through any moment, you can enter all deep states of mind?")
Yunmen said, “Food in the bowl, water in the bucket.”
Case 50 of the Blue Cliff Record
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Someone asked, "How should one act during every hour of the day such that the ancestors are not betrayed?"
Yunmen said, "Give up your effort."
The person said, "How should I give up my effort?"
Yunmen said, "Give up the words you just uttered.
-from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans
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Someone asked, "How should one act during every hour of the day such that the ancestors are not betrayed?"
Yunmen said, "Give up your effort."
The person said, "How should I give up my effort?"
Yunmen said, "Give up the words you just uttered.
-from Zen Master Yunmen, Urs App, trans
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
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I vow not to disparage awakening, the way, or my companions
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is one, not holding dualistic concepts about ordinary beings and awakened beings is called the vow of not disparaging these Three Treasures.
Dogen: Your expression of the actual body is the harbor and the weir. This is the most important thing in the world. Its power comes from the ocean of essential nature. It is beyond explanation—we just accept it with respect and gratitude.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to indulge in anger
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is selfless, not contriving reality for yourself is called the vow of not indulging in anger.
Dogen: Not attacking, not withdrawing, not real or unreal. There is an ocean of bright clouds. There is an ocean of solemn clouds.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to be stingy
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is everywhere, not holding back resources is called the vow of not being stingy.
Dogen: A phrase, a verse: that is everything—each blade of grass. This way, this realization: that is all the Buddhas and Ancestors. From the beginning, there has been no stinginess at all.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
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I vow not to praise myself at the expense of others
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world of the Dharma of equals, not insisting on I and you is called the vow of not praising yourself at the expense of others.
Ddogen: Buddhas and Ancestors realize the vast sky and the great earth. When they appear in their noble body, their vastness has no inside or outside. When they appear in their true body, there is not even a bit of earth on the ground.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to gossip maliciously
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is flawless, not dissecting mistakes is called the Vow of Not Gossiping Maliciously.Dogen: In the Buddha Way, the path, the teaching, the realization, and the practice are one. Don't allow fault-finding. Don't allow careless talk.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to misuse drugs
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is naturally pure, not surrendering to delusions is called the Vow of Not Misusing Drugs.
Dogen: Drugs are not brought in yet. Don't bring them in. That is the great light.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to lie
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is inexplicable, not preaching a single word is called the Vow of Not Lying.
Dogen: The Dharma Wheel turns from the beginning. There is never too much or too little. Everything is wet with dew and the truth is ready to harvest.
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to misuse sex
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is unadorned, not manufacturing a veneer of attachment is called the Vow of Not Misusing Sex.
Dogen: The Three Wheels of yourself, others, and your actions are pure. When you desire nothing, you follow the Buddha’s way.
Support the show
While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to steal
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is unattainable, not having thoughts about gaining is called the Vow of Not Stealing.
Dogen: Just as they are, you and the things of the world are one. The gate to freedom is open.
Support the show
While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_______
I vow not to kill
Bodhidharma: The way things are is mysterious and hard to see. In a world where the Dharma is eternal, not having thoughts of taking life is called the Vow of Not Killing.
Dogen: The Buddha's seed grows when you don’t take life. Pass on the Buddha's life and do not kill.
Support the show
While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way (the complete liturgy for the ceremony can be found here).
_____
The Three Root Vows
(with Dogen's commentaries)
I vow not to do harm
This is the cave where the teachings of all the Buddhas have their source
I vow to do good
This is the way of perfect enlightenment, and the path that everyone walks
I vow to do good for others
This is going beyond any distinction between ordinary and awakened people, freeing yourself and others
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way.
_____
The Three Refuge Vows
I take refuge in Awakening
I take refuge in the Way
I take refuge in My Companions
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While I am taking a bit of a break from teaching and offering Dharma Talks, I'll be posting a series of talks I offered in 2018 and 2019 connected to The Open Source tradition's Ceremony of Taking Refuge in the Bodhisattva Way. When people intend to participate in this ceremony, we undergo a period of study of the vows and precepts, taking up and exploring them one-by-one. This first talk speaks to the overall spirit of taking refuge, whereas the talks to come will focus more on individual vows and precepts.
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If you truly appreciate a single thread your eye can suitably meet the world and its changes. Seeing clearly, do not be fooled, and the ten thousand situations cannot shroud you. Moonlight falls on the water; wind blows over the pines. Light and shadow do not confuse us; sounds or voices do not block us. The whistling wind can resonate, pervading without impediment through the various structures. Flowing along with things, harmonizing without deviation, thoroughly abandoning webs of dust, still one does not yet arrive in the original home. Put to rest the remnants of your conditioning. Sit empty of worldly anxiety, silent and bright, clear and illuminating, blank and accepting, far-reaching and responsive. Without encountering external dusts, fulfilled in your own spirit, arrive at this field and immediately recognize your ancestors.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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The way wanders in the empty middle of the circle, reaching the vacancy where appearances are forgotten. The pure ultimate self blazes, brilliant simply from inherent illumination. Facing the boundary of the object world without yet creating the sense gates, realize the subtlety of how to eliminate the effects of the swirling flow of arising and extinction! Rely only on the source of creation. If you feel a shadow of a hair's gap, nothing will be received. Just experience and respond appropriately. From this singular impact many thousands of roads open, and all things are preeminent. With this unification I radiantly speak the dharma. The self divides into ten billion distinct illuminating spirits. Distinguish these without falling into names and classifications and accord fully without effort. The mirror is clear and magnanimous. The valley is empty, but echoes. From the beginning unbound by seeing or hearing, the genuine self romps and plays in samadhi without obstruction. When enacted like this, how could it not be beneficial?
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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All dharmas are innately amazing beyond description. Perfect vision has no gap. In mountain groves, grasslands, and woods the truth has always been exhibited. Discern and comprehend the broad long tongue [of Buddha's teaching] , which cannot be muted anywhere. The spoken is instantly heard; what is heard is instantly spoken. Senses and objects merge; principle and wisdom are united. When self and other are the same, mind and dharmas are one. When you face what you have excluded and see how it appears, you must quickly gather it together and integrate with it. Make it work within your house, then establish stable sitting.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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All buddhas and every ancestor without exception testify that they all arrive at this refuge where the three times [past, present, and future] cease and the ten thousand changes are silenced. Straight ahead, unopposed by the smallest atom, the inherently illumined buddha spirit subtly penetrates the original source. When recognized and realized exhaustively, [this spirit] shares itself and responds to situations. The gates sparkle and all beings behold the gleaming. Then they understand that from within this place fulfilled self flows out. The hundreds of grass-tips all around never are imposed as my causes and conditioning. The whole body from head to foot proceeds smoothly.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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A patch-robed monk's authentic task is to practice the essence, in each minute event carefully discerning the shining source, radiant without discrimination, one color unstained. You must keep turning inwards, then [the source] is apprehended. This is called being able to continue the family business. Do not wear the changing fashions, transcend the duality of light and shadow. Accordingly the ancestors' single trail is marvelously enacted. The residual debris of the world departs, its influence ended. This worldly knowledge does not compare to returning to the primary and obtaining confirmation. Observing beyond your skull, the core finally can be fulfilled and you can emerge from the transitory. The reeds blossom under the bright moon; the ancient ferryboat begins its passage; the jade thread fits into the golden needle. Then the opportunity arises to turn around, enter the world, and respond to conditions. All the dusts are entirely yours; all the dharmas are not someone else's. Follow the current and paddle along, naturally unobstructed!
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Silently dwell in the self, in true suchness abandon conditioning. Open-minded and bright without defilement, simply penetrate and drop off everything. Today is not your first arrival here. Since the ancient home before the empty kalpa, clearly nothing has been obscured. Although you are inherently spirited and splendid, still you must go ahead and enact it. When doing so, immediately display every atom without hiding a speck of dirt. Dry and cool in deep repose, profoundly understand. If your rest is not satisfying and you yearn to go beyond birth and death, there can be no such place. Just burst through and you will discern without thought-dusts, pure without reasons for anxiety. Stepping back with open hands, [giving up everything] , is thoroughly comprehending life and death. Immediately you can sparkle and respond to the world. Merge together with all things. Everywhere is just right. Accordingly we are told that from ancient to modern times all dharmas are not concealed, always apparent and exposed.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Patch-robed monks practice thoroughly without carrying a single thread. Open-mindedly sparkling and pure, they are like a mirror reflecting a mirror, with nothing regarded as outside, without capacity for accumulating dust. They illuminate everything fully, perceiving nothing [as an object] . This is called taking up the burden from inside and is how to shoulder responsibility. Wisdom illuminates the darkness without confusion. The Way integrates with the body and does not get stuck. From this unstuck place, engaging and transforming at the appropriate opportunity, the wisdom does not leak out. Clearly the Way does not get stained. The valley spirit echoes the sound. The wind master walks in the sky. Unobstructed and free, beyond restraints, they do not depend on even subtle indicators and their essential spirit cannot be eclipsed. Fulfilled, wander around and arrive at such a field. The entire place secure, the entire place at leisure, the open field of the white ox is plain and simple, of one color. If you chase the ox, still it will not go away. You must intimately experience and arrive here.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha—
stars fall, thunder rolls,
the mirror faces forms without subjectivity;
the pearl in a bowl rolls of itself.
Don’t you see, before the hammer, gold refined a hundred times;
under the scissors, silk from one loom.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Verse from Book of Serenity, Case 36
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Cast off completely your head and skin. Thoroughly withdraw from distinctions of light and shadow. Where the ten thousand changes do not reach is the foundation that even a thousand sages cannot transmit. Simply by yourself illuminate and deeply experience it with intimate accord. The original light flashes through confusion. True illumination reflects into the distance. Deliberations about being and nonbeing are entirely abandoned. The wonder appears before you, its benefit transferred out for kalpas. Immediately you follow conditions and accord with awakening without obstruction from any defilements. The mind does not attach to things, and your footsteps are not visible on the road. Then you are called to continue the family business. Even if you thoroughly understand, still please practice until it is familiar.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Separate yourself from disturbance and face whatever appears before you. Not one iota seeps through from outside. The two forms [yin and yang] have the same root, and the ten thousand images have one substance. Following change and going along with transformation, the whole is not clouded over by previous conditions. Then you reach the foundation of the great freedom. Wind blows and moon shines, and beings do not obstruct each other. Afterwards, settle back within and take responsibility. Wisdom returns and the principle is consummated. When you forget about merit your position is fulfilled. Do not fall for occupying honorable stations, but enter the current of the world and join with the delusion. Transcendent, solitary, and glorious, directly know that transmitting is merit, but having transmitted is not your own merit.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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[The empty field] cannot be cultivated or proven. From the beginning it is altogether complete, undefiled and clear down to the bottom. Where everything is correct and totally sufficient, attain the pure eye that illuminates thoroughly, fulfilling liberation. Enlightenment involves enacting this; stability develops from practicing it. Birth and death originally have no root or stem, appearing and disappearing originally have no defining signs or traces. The primal light, empty and effective, illumines the head top. The primal wisdom, silent but also glorious, responds to conditions. When you reach the truth without middle or edge, cutting off before and after, then you realize one wholeness. Everywhere sense faculties and objects both just happen. The one who sticks out his broad long tongue transmits the inexhaustible lamp, radiates the great light, and performs the great buddha work, from the first not borrowing from others one atom from outside the dharma. Clearly this affair occurs within your own house.
-Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Patch-robed monks make their thinking dry and cool and rest from the remnants of conditioning. Persistently brush up and sharpen this bit of the field. Directly cut through all the overgrown grass. Reach the limit in all directions without defiling even one atom. Spiritual and bright, vast and lustrous, illuminating fully what is before you, directly attain the shining light and clarity that cannot attach to a single defilement. Immediately tug and pull back the ox's nose. Of course his horns are imposing and he stomps around like a beast, yet he never damages people's sprouts or grain. Wandering around, accept how it goes. Accepting how it goes, wander around. Do not be bounded by or settle into any place. Then the plough will break open the ground in the field of the empty kalpa. Proceeding in this manner, each event will be unobscured, each realm will appear complete. One contemplation of the ten thousand years is beginning not to dwell in appearances. Thus it is said that the mind-ground contains every seed and the universal rain makes them all sprout. When awakening blossoms, desires fade, and Bodhi's fruit is perfected self.
-Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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Vast and far-reaching without boundary, secluded and pure, manifesting light, this spirit is without obstruction. Its brightness does not shine out but can be called empty and inherently radiant. Its brightness, inherently purifying, transcends causal conditions beyond subject and object. Subtle but preserved, illumined and vast, also it cannot be spoken of as being or non being, or discussed with images or calculations. Right in here the central pivot turns, the gateway opens. You accord and respond without laboring and accomplish without hindrance. Everywhere turn around freely, not following conditions, not falling into classifications. Facing everything, let go and attain stability. Stay with that just as that. Stay with this just as this. That and this are mixed together with no discriminations as to their places. So it is said that the earth lifts up the mountain without knowing the mountain's stark steepness. A rock contains jade without knowing the jade's flawlessness. This is how truly to leave home, how home-leaving* must be enacted.
Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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The practice of true reality is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. When you have fathomed this you cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions. This empty, wide open mind is subtly and correctly illuminating. Spacious and content, without confusion from inner thoughts of grasping, effectively overcome habitual behavior and realize the self that is not possessed by emotions. You must be broad-minded, whole without relying on others. Such upright independent spirit can begin not to pursue degrading situations. Here you can rest and become clean, pure, and lucid. Bright and penetrating, you can immediately return, accord, and respond to deal with events. Everything is unhindered, clouds gracefully floating up to the peaks, the moonlight glitteringly flowing down mountain streams. The entire place is brightly illumined and spiritually transformed, totally unobstructed and clearly manifesting responsive interaction like box and lid or arrowpoints [meeting]. Continuing, cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability. If you accord everywhere with thorough clarity and cut off sharp corners without dependence on doctrines, like the white bull or wildcat [helping to arouse wonder], you can be called a complete person. So we hear that this is how one on the way of non-mind acts, but before realizing non-mind we still have great hardship.
-Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. Utter emptiness has no image, upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. In this field birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. The whole affair functions without leaving traces, and mirrors without obscurations. Very naturally mind and dharmas emerge and harmonize. An Ancient said that non-mind enacts and fulfills the way of non-mind. Enacting and fulfilling the way of non-mind, finally you can rest. Proceeding you are able to guide the assembly. With thoughts clear, sitting silently, wander into the center of the circle of wonder. This is how you must penetrate and study.
-Hongzhi Zhengjue, Cultivating the Empty Field
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His students gathered in the hall to hear the great Fayan give a talk before the midday meal. He pointed to the bamboo blinds, and two students went and rolled them up in the same way. Fayan said, “One wins, one loses.”
Wumen’s Verse:
With the blinds rolled up, the vast sky is bright and clear,
but even the vast sky doesn’t match our Way.
Why don’t you throw away that sky completely?
Then not a breath of wind will come through.
The Gateless Gateway, Case 26
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Year after year
it's a monkey
in a monkey mask
-Basho
The old calendar
fills me with gratitude
like a song
-Buson
New Year's Day—
sunlight on every field
beloved
-Basho
New Year's Day—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average
-Issa
Another year—
hat in hand
sandals on my feet
-Basho
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Budai always strolled around the streets, carrying a cloth sack and a torn carpet. The cloth sack was filled with pots, bowls, wooden clogs, fish, rice, vegetables, meat, tiles, rocks, clay, wood, the sadnesses of the world, and all kinds of things. Sometimes, in a crowded place, he would open the sack, empty it onto the carpet, and say, "Have a look, have a look."
Then he would pick the objects up one-by-one in amazement and wonder, asking "What is this called? What is this for? How do you use this?"
The people were dumbfounded.
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Once Xuefeng and Yantou were traveling on Tortoise Mountain when they got snowed in at an inn. Yantou spent the entire time sleeping, while Xuefeng spent each day sitting in meditation.
One day, Xuefeng called out, “Elder Brother! Elder Brother! Get up!”
Yantou asked, “What is it?”
Xuefeng said, “Don’t be lazy. As pilgrims, profound knowledge is our companion and should accompany us at all times. But all you do is sleep.”
Yantou yelled back, “Just eat your fill and sleep! Sitting there in meditation all the time, you’re like a clay bodhisattva statue in someone’s hut. You’re just going to spook the villagers.”
Xuefeng pointed to his chest and said, “I feel uneasy here, and I’m afraid of cheating myself.”
Yantou said, “I’ve always said that someday you’ll build a cottage on a lonely mountaintop and convey a great teaching, and yet you talk like this!”
“I’m truly anxious.”
“If that’s really so, share your understanding with me, and where it’s true I’ll confirm it for you; where it’s not true we’ll root it out.”
Xuefeng told Yantou of three incidents when he felt he had an opening through listening to what someone else said.
Yantou responded, “Haven’t you heard that what comes in through the front gate isn’t the family treasure?”
“Then what should I do?”
Yantou said, “If you want to convey a great teaching, it has to flow out from your own breast to cover heaven and earth.”
When Xuefeng heard this he experienced a profound awakening. He bowed and said, “Elder Brother, today on Tortoise Mountain I’ve finally attained the Way!”
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During the second quarter of the night of awakening, the Buddha remembered his previous
lives. First one, then two, then five. Soon he stopped counting. Names appeared—and he would say: “That was me.” He saw places—and said: “That was me.” He saw passions flare and fade. He saw people dying—and said: “That was me.” A throng of faces, clothes, towns, animals, merchandise, roads. He went on watching. He had stopped repeating “That was me.” And suddenly he realized he was watching the lives of others. He didn’t notice any fundamental difference. He pressed on, amazed, but amazement was a constant in these migrations through time. True, he could no longer say: “That was me.” But was that really so important? He could still recognize the joy—and above all the suffering. The scenes he had lived through and those he had not lay side by side, each attracting the other, like leaves in a pond. The light they emanated fused into one. As soon as the eye retreated, they became a thread of beads, each with a slightly different color, and here and there a small chip.
-excerpt from Ka, by Roberto Calasso
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The great Way is a single Absence-gate
here on a thousand roads of Presence
Once through this gateway, you wander
all heaven and earth in a single stride
Boundless wind and moon – the eye within eyes,
inexhaustible heaven and earth – the light beyond light.
The willow dark, the flower bright – ten thousand houses;
knock on any door – someone will answer.
Introductory verses of The Gateless Gateway and The Blue Cliff Record (respectively), by Wumen and Yuanwu (respectively), using the translations of David Hinton and Joan Sutherland/John Tarrant (respectively)
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From the beginning
the crooked tree
was no good for a lordly dwelling
how could anyone
expect the nobles
to use it for their gates
Now it's been thrown out
onto the shore
of this harbor village
handy for the fishermen
to sit on
while they're fishing
-Muso Soseki
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It’s as fleeting as a cloud
It’s as still as a valley
It’s the salt in the water
It’s the dye in color
It’s the mist that soaks your clothes unseen
It’s the flower that falls to the earth unheard
-Stonehouse
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One day the Tibetan yogi Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, finding it had been completely taken over by demons while he was gone. They were everywhere! Eating his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. “I have got to get rid of them!” he thought, lunging toward them, chasing after them, trying forcefully to get them out of his cave. But the demons were entirely unfazed. In fact, the more he chased them, the more comfortable and settled they seemed to be.
Realizing his efforts to run them out had failed miserably, Milarepa opted for a new approach and decided he would try teaching them the dharma. If chasing them out didn’t work, then maybe hearing such teachings would change their minds and get them to go. So, he took his seat and began speaking about existence and nonexistence, compassion and kindness, the nature of impermanence, and other essential matters of the Way. After speaking for a while he paused and looked around, only to see that all the demons were still there, simply staring at him with their huge, bulging eyes. Not a single one had gone away. A long, heavy sigh came out of Milarepa as he realized these demons could not be forced or manipulated into leaving, and it suddenly occurred to him: perhaps he could learn something from them.
Milarepa stood up and walked slowly around the room, looking deeply into the eyes of each demon and bowing. He eventually made his way back to his seat and said, with all sincerity, “It looks like we’re going to be here together for a while. I open myself to whatever you have to teach me.” At that moment, all of the demons disappeared.
Well, almost all.
One huge and especially fierce demon remained, eyes aflame, nostrils flaring, fangs dripping. They gazed at one another for a time, then Milarepa walked over to this demon and offered himself completely, holding nothing back, placing his head in the demon’s mouth and saying, “Eat me if you wish.” At this, the fierce demon stood up and made a deep bow, vanishing into the air.
_________
The night before his enlightenment, the Buddha engaged in the utmost struggle with the Demon God Mara, who attacked Siddhartha with everything he had: lust, greed, anger, doubt, and more.. But Siddhartha did not succumb, and Mara was defeated. Having failed, on the morning of the Buddha’s enlightenment, Mara left, distraught and in disarray.
Yet, it seems Mara was only temporarily discouraged, and he continued to show up in the Buddha’s life as time went on, always keeping a safe distance, near enough to be noticed but not apprehended.
One day, however, he came upon a cave in which the Buddha was meditating and headed directly toward it, only to be stopped by Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant. Ananda had made a vow to protect the Buddha, so he was quite fierce as he engaged with Mara, stomping and yelling and demanding that he leave and never return.
Hearing all the commotion, the Buddha called out, “Ananda, what’s going on out there?”
“It’s Mara, the Evil One. He has returned and is intent on causing you harm, so I am driving him away.”
The Buddha walked to the opening of the cave, smiling, and said, “Mara, my old friend, so good to see you. Please, come have some tea.”
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I don’t know where the temple is,
lost many miles among cloudy peaks.
In the ancient forest there is no human path.
A bell in the deep mountain—where is it from?
A brook hiccups through the steep rocks
and sunlight chills the green pines.
In faint twilight, where an empty pond curves,
meditation, taming poisonous dragons.
-Wang Wei, Passing Hidden Fragrance Temple
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Recently the world has been in confusion and dispersion, and there is little one can do about it. In times like this, there is only the effort of meditation and investigation that is the most skillful thing to do, since there is nothing else that one can do; one can still achieve a mindset that is open, and there one can see clearly one’s original face and achieve a great inner ease. When others are like the waves hitting up against the heavens, we can remain profound and imperturbable.
-Qiyuan Xinggang (an excerpt from a letter to her aunt)
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Panshan addressed the assembly, saying, "The moon of mind is solitary and perfect, its light swallowing the myriad forms. Its light does not illuminate realms, for realms do not exist. But when light and realms are both gone, what is it that remains?"
Baofu brought up for consideration Panshan’s statement, "When all illuminated realms are gone, what is it that remains?" and Dongshan’s statement, "When all illuminated realms are undiminished, what else is there?"
He then said, "According to what was expounded by these two worthies, there is something left over that isn’t annihilated."
He then asked Changqing, "What would you say now to exterminate it?"
Changqing was silent for a long time.
Baofu said, "You are seeking speaking strategies in a mountain spirit's cave."
Changqing asked, "Then what would you say?"
Baofu said, "Both hands on the plow, water above the knees."
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Baofu brought up for consideration Panshan’s statement, "When all illuminated realms are gone, what is it that remains?" and Dongshan’s statement, "When all illuminated realms are undiminished, what else is there?"
He then said, "According to what was expounded by these two worthies, there is something left over that isn’t annihilated."
He then asked Changqing, "What would you say now to exterminate it?"
Changqing was silent for a long time.
Baofu said, "You are seeking speaking strategies in a mountain spirit's cave."
Changqing asked, "Then what would you say?"
Baofu said, "Both hands on the plow, water above the knees."
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Here's a talk from June 2017, during which the koan below is explored, including its connection with an experience we had with a thief, resulting in a strangely genuine sense of gratitude and appreciation:
Hoshan taught, "Studying—we call that 'hearing'; completing study is called 'getting nearer'. Going beyond both of these is what we mean by 'truly going beyond'."
A student stepped out of the assembly and asked, "What is truly going beyond?"
Hoshan replied, "Knowing how to beat the drum."
The student asked again, "What is true inquiry?"
"Knowing how to beat the drum."
The student asked, "I'm not asking about 'just mind, just buddha'. What is 'not mind, not buddha'?"
"Knowing how to beat the drum."
The student again asked, "When it comes from the ancients, how do we welcome it?"
"Knowing how to beat the drum."
Blue Cliff Record, Case 44
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The ogre outside shoves the door
the ogre inside holds it fast
dripping sweat from head to tail
battling for their lives
they keep it up throughout the night
until at last when the dawn appears
their laughter fills the early light —
they were friends from the first
-Hakuin Ekaku
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A high-ranking samurai was also a serious Zen student. Fighting broke out all over Japan and he was wounded in battle; in spite of the pain he galloped to a temple to see the teacher there. A tea ceremony was going on, and the teacher put a cup in front of him, asking, “How are things?”
The warrior immediately crushed the cup under his foot and said, “Heaven and earth completely broken up.”
The teacher asked, “When heaven and earth are broken up, what’s that like?”
The warrior stood with his hands crossed over his chest. The teacher hit him, and he involuntarily cried out from the pain of his wounds.
The teacher said, “Heaven and earth not quite broken up yet.”
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One day, when Nanquan was living in a little hut in the mountains, a traveling monk visited him just as he was preparing to go to his work in the fields. Nanquan welcomed him, saying, "Please make yourself at home. Cook anything you’d like for your lunch, then bring some of the leftover food to me along the path that leads directly to where I’m working."
Nanquan worked hard until the evening but the monk never showed, so he returned to his hut very tired and hungry. The monk had cooked and enjoyed a good meal by himself, then thrown away all the leftovers and broken all the bowls and utensils. Nanquan found the monk sleeping peacefully in the empty hut. He laid down his tired body nearby, whereupon the monk got up and left.
Years later, Nanquan shared this story with his students and commented, “He was such a good monk, I miss him even now.”
Commenting on this koan, Hakuin quoted a poem:
“Two streams of tears run down a lady’s jeweled pillow,
partly because she loves him, partly because she resents him.”
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A student asked, "What is buddha?"
Touzi answered, "Buddha."
"What is the way?"
Touzi said, "The Way."
"What is Chan?"
Touzi said, "Chan."
The student then asked, "What about when the moon isn’t yet full?"
Touzi said, "I swallow three or four-tenths."
"What about when the moon is full?"
Touzi replied, "I spit out seven or eight-tenths."
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The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment says:
At each moment, don't raise delusive thoughts.
And don't suppress your delusive states of mind.
When you find yourself in a realm of delusive thought, don't add knowledge.
When you don't know, don't think that's the truth.
Book of Serenity, Case 45
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Someone asked Zhaozhou, "What is meditation?"
Zhaozhou replied, "It isn't meditation."
"Why isn't it meditation?"
"It's alive!"
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This talk is from the summer of 2019, when Open Source Zen teachers and communities gathered together for a week-long meditation retreat. Here's the koan that accompanied us throughout the retreat:
Mujaku was widowed at thirty-two. She couldn’t get over her grief and became a nun. She came to the teacher Bukko and asked, “What is Zen?”
Bukko replied, “The heart of the one who asks is Zen; you can’t get it from someone else’s words.”
At that moment a deer at a nearby stream gave a cry. The teacher asked, “Where is that deer?”
The nun listened. The teacher shouted and asked, “Who hears?”
At these words Mujaku had a flash of understanding and left. At the water pipe from the stream she picked up a lacquered wooden bucket that was full of water. She saw the moon’s reflection in it and composed a poem, which she presented to the teacher:
The bucket catches the stream,
and the pure moon behind pines
appears in the water.
Bukko glanced at the poem and said, “Take the Heart Sutra and go.”
After that, she had interviews with the teacher, coming and being sent away, until in the end the bottom fell out of the bucket, and she presented another poem of this realization:
The bottom fell out of my bucket,
and now there’s no water,
no moon.
After Mujaku’s death, the nun Nyozen of Tokeiji meditated on this poem. When she grasped the essence of Zen, she presented her own poem to her teacher:
The bottom fell out of that humble woman’s bucket,
the pale dawn moon caught in the rain puddles.
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This is the final in a series of Dharma Talks being posted here, from a retreat held in 2017 entitled Realizing the Way with the Great Woods Zen community in North Carolina, working with portions of Song of Realizing the Way by YongJia Xuanjue. Here is an excerpt:
One Nature pervades all natures;
one way encompasses all individual ways.
One moon is reflected in many waters;
all the reflected moons are that one moon.
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This is the third in a series of Dharma Talks being posted here, from a retreat held in 2017 entitled Realizing the Way with the Great Woods Zen community in North Carolina, working with/from the first chapter of the Daodejing:
The way that becomes a way
is not the Immortal Way
the name that becomes a name
is not the Immortal Name
no-name is the maiden of Heaven and Earth
name is the mother of all things
thus in innocence we see the beginning
in passion we see the end
two different names
for one and the same
the one we call dark
the dark beyond dark
the door to all beginnings
(Red Pine, trans)
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This is the second in a series of Dharma Talks being posted here, from a retreat held in 2017 entitled Realizing the Way with the Great Woods Zen community in North Carolina. Case 19 of The Gateless Gateway is the koan this talk is centered around:
Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the Dao?"
Nanquan said, "Ordinary heart-mind is the Dao."
Zhaozhou asked, "Should I try to direct myself toward it?"
Nanquan said, "If you try to turn toward it, you go away from it."
Zhaozhou asked, "How can I know the Dao if I don't turn toward it?"
Nanquan said, "The Dao isn't subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the Dao, you'll find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can we talk about this at the level of right and wrong?"
With these words, Zhaozhou had sudden realization.
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This is the first in a series of Dharma Talks being posted here, from a retreat held in 2017 entitled Realizing the Way with the Great Woods Zen community in North Carolina. This is the talk from the first evening, working with one of Baling Haojian's Three Turning Words koans:
What is the Way?
A clear-sighted person falls into a well.
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A monk said to Dasui, "When the thousands of universes are utterly destroyed in the kalpa fire at the end of this aeon—I wonder whether this* perishes or not."
"This perishes," said Dasui.
"If so," persisted the monk, "does it follow the other?”
"It follows the other," said Dasui.
The same monk later asked Longji, “When the thousands of universes are utterly destroyed in the kalpa fire at the end of this aeon—I wonder whether this perishes or not."
Longji said, “This does not perish.”
The monk asked, “Why does it not perish?"
Longji said, “Because it is the same as the universes.
Book of Serenity, Case 30
*A kalpa is an inconceivably long age. In Chan cosmology, the universe undergoes endless cycles of emptiness, formation, existence, and destruction, called great kalpas, each of which ends in an all-consuming fire.
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The two previous talks I offered were connected to Taoism and explored the territory of wu wei to a certain extent. This brought to mind a talk I offered several years ago about wu wei, coming at it from a different angle, a different approach. I didn’t offer a fresh talk this week, so I thought I’d send this older one along. Might be a fitting companion to the other two - have a listen and find out for yourself:
Thirty spokes converge on a hub
but it's the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it's the hollow
that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house
but it's the spaces
that make a house work
existence makes a thing useful
but nonexistence makes it work
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11 (Red Pine, trans)
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Lofty nobility is like water.
Water's nobility is to enrich the ten thousand things
and yet never strive:
it just settles through places people everywhere loathe.
Therefore, it’s nearly Way.
Dwelling's nobility is earth,
mind's nobility is empty depth,
giving's nobility is Humanity*,
word's nobility is sincerity,
government's nobility is accord,
endeavor's nobility is ability,
action's nobility is timing.
When you never strive
you never go wrong.
*Humanity is the touchstone of Confucian virtue. Simply stated, it means to act with a selfless and reverent concern for the well-being of others.
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8 (David Hinton, trans)
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Not doing, not being a corpse presiding over your good name;
Not doing, not being a repository of plans and schemes;
Not doing, not being the one in charge of what happens;
Not doing, not being ruled by your own understanding.
In this way, embody the endlessness and roam where there is no sign, fully living through whatever is received from Heaven without thinking anything has been gained, thus remaining a vacuity, nothing more. The Utmost Person uses the mind like a mirror, rejecting nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing. And thus can overcome all things without harm.
-from Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, Chapter 7 (Brook Ziporyn, trans)
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A student asked Zhaozhou, "Does a newborn baby have consciousness?"
Zhaozhou said, "Tossing a ball on rushing waters."
The student went on to ask Touzi, "What does 'tossing a ball on rushing waters' mean?"
Touzi said, "Moment after moment, it never stops flowing."
Blue Cliff Record, Case 80
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Someone asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have buddha nature or not?"
"Yes," replied Zhaozhou.
"Then why did it jump into that bag of fur?"
"Because it knew what it was doing and that's why it transgressed."
Another time someone asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have buddha nature or not?"
"No."
"All beings have buddha nature. Why doesn't a dog have it?"
"Because it's only beginning to awaken in the world of ignorance."
Book of Serenity, Case 18
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A student said, "I have not yet arrived at the source. I ask for your expedient guidance."
Jingqing said, "What source is that?"
The student said, "The source."
Jingqing said, "If it’s that source, how could you get any expedient guidance?"
The student bowed in thanks and went away.
Jingqing’s attendant said, "Just now did you give that student support or not?"
Jingqing said, "No."
The attendant said, "Then you didn’t answer his question?"
Jingqing said, "No."
The attendant said, "I don’t understand your meaning."
Jingqing said, "One drop is just black ink. Two drops and a dragon is born."
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One day a monk came to visit Guizong as he was weeding the garden with a hoe. Suddenly, a snake appeared. Guizong took the hoe and chopped it in two.
The monk said, "Long have I heard that Guizong was a crude-mannered teacher."
Guizong said, "Are you crude or am I crude?"
The monk then asked, "What is ‘crude’?"
Guizong held the hoe upright in the air.
The monk said, "What is ‘refined’?"
Guizong then assumed a posture to chop the snake.
The monk said, "If you let it, it will go away by itself."
Guizong said, "If I let it go away, how could you see me chop the snake?"
The monk was silent.
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Someone asked, "How can I be free?"
Shitou replied, "Who has put you in bondage?"
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Great Ancestor Ma was sick. The superintendent of the monastery asked him, "How have you been feeling lately?"
The Great Ancestor replied, "Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha."
Blue Cliff Record, Case 3
From Tenkei's commentary:
In the Buddha Names Sutra it says that Sun Face Buddha lives for 1800 years, while Moon Face Buddha enters extinction after a day and a night. But what about your own Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha? Is it something long or something short? How do you understand it? Set your eyes on the absolutely inextricable within yourself.
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A mud buddha can't cross through water
A gold buddha can't cross through a furnace
A wooden buddha can't cross through fire
The real buddha sits within
Blue Cliff Record, Case 96
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Minister Luxuan was having a conversation with Nanquan and said, "Sengzhao said, 'The universe and I have the same root. The ten thousand things and I have one body.' How very strange and wonderful!"
Nanquan pointed to a flower in the courtyard; he called out to the minister and said, "These days people see this flower as though it's a dream."
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This talk is from a recent Open Source meditation retreat called "The Secret of the Stream Bed," during which we kept company with and explored the territory of this poem by Muso Soseki:
Old Creek
Since before anyone remembers
it has been clear
shining like silver
though the moonlight penetrates it
and the wind ruffles it
no trace of either remains
Today I would not dare
to expound the secret
of the stream bed
But I can tell you
that a blue dragon
is coiled there
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Yunmen said, "Sickness and medicine accord with one another. The whole world is medicine. What are you?"
Blue Cliff Record, Case 87
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With empty hands,
I pick up the hoe.
As I walk,
I ride the water buffalo.
As I cross the bridge, the bridge flows,
the water is still.
-Mahasattva Fu
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Zhaozhou entered the hall and said, “It’s like a lustrous pearl in your hand. If a foreigner comes a foreigner reveals it. If a native person comes a native person reveals it.
“This old monk uses a blade of grass as a sixty-foot golden statue. I also use a sixty-foot golden statue as a blade of grass.
“Buddha is affliction. Affliction is Buddha.”
A student said, “I don’t understand who is afflicted by Buddha.”
Zhaozhou said, “All people are afflicted by Buddha.”
The student asked, “How can affliction be avoided?”
Zhaozhou replied, “Why avoid it?”
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A student asked, "What is the Way?"
The teacher replied, "Dragon murmurings in a dried up tree."
"What is a person of the Way?"
"Eyes in a skull."
Later, this student asked another teacher, "What is 'dragon murmurings in a dried up tree?"
This teacher replied, "I still have joy."
"What is "eyes in a skull?"
"I still have consciousness."
And later still, this student asked another teacher, "Who can hear these dragon murmurings?"
"There is no one who isn't hearing them."
"What book is 'dragon murmurings in a dried up tree' from?"
"I don't know what book it's from, but everyone who hears it dies."
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Yunmen said, “In the center of the cosmos, inside heaven and earth, there is one treasure, hidden in the body. It picks up a lantern and walks into the meditation hall. It brings the entrance gate and puts it on top of the lantern.”
Blue Cliff Record, Case 62
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**A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.
In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions,
you dwell in the ordinary.
This is called illumination.
Understanding that abides in the unknowable is realization.
And never understanding where it all comes from –
that is called inward radiance.
-Zhuangzi**
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After Xuefeng assumed the abbacy at Snow Peak, a monk asked him, “When you were at Deshan’s place, what was it you attained that allowed you to stop looking further?”
Xuefeng said, “I went with empty hands and returned with empty hands.”
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The whole world is clear and open
throughout the ten directions
There is no endpoint
And yet when we
look carefully
there is one after all
You fly out of this world
looking backward
riding the giant roc
into the hollow of a lotus thread
to live where heaven and earth
were never divided
-Muso Soseki
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Being captured by something you see, and snapping a picture to capture it in return. A mirror placed in front of you, placing yourself in front of a mirror. Encountering others in silence, in conversation, face-to-face, across the way. Mixing and mingling with the things of the world, outer and inner. Mirrors all. Reflecting and being reflected. Seeing and being seen. And in this seeing lies the spark of liberation, the spark of awakening.
"Once you know your mind and see your nature, you understand what is truly important." -Huineng
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A student asked Baizhang, "What is the most wonderful thing in the world?"
Baizhang answered, "Sitting alone on Great Courage Peak."
The student bowed, and Baizhang immediately hit him.
(Blue Cliff Record, Case 26)
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This talk is the second of series of talks being offered by Open Source Zen Teachers Sarah Bender, Roshi; Tenney Nathanson, Sensei; Megan Rundel, Sensei; and myself. The series, Dancing with Dark-Enigma, is still happening, and when all the talks have been finished and posted for listening I'll provide a link here, so please check back. For now, I am posting the talk that I offered, which focuses on the dancing aspect of Dark-Enigma, the primal and primordial movement and activity at its core, at the heart of it all. It's the activity and movement of the Dao itself, dancing along in its own way while giving form and life to many dancers and many ways of dancing. We are always intimate with it, regardless. And all the more intimate still, when we fall deeply into the ever-abiding rhythm, and just dance.
(Please note - the images referred to in this talk can be found here: http://www.bowandroar.com/dde-images.html)
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Here, at the turning of the year, we reflect, take stock, release what has been and welcome what is to come. And with a year such as 2020 has been (and continues to be), we might find ourselves more eager to than ever for the new year to be here, to hit the restart button and clear things out, with so that much that has been heavy and dark and gloomy to put behind us. But there has also been brightness amidst this dark, aspects of life within and around us newly discovered and realized that we might not have encountered otherwise. As is always the case, there's not just one way about it, the perennial rhythms of things rising and falling, coming and going, bursting forth and fading away still very much at play, alive and well. And beneath and through it all there is something that flows and abides, around us and within us, holding and being held, never departing. not separate from the beings and doings of our day-to-day, yet not confined by or limited to them, either. Touching into and anchoring ourselves in it, joining with its abiding, we find ourselves being carried along and carried through, despite and because of it all.
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Encountering the vast freedom that abides deeply in and as the core of our being is our birthright, what each and every one one of us is here for and made for, regardless of our makeup, which path we walk, or the traditions and practices we engage in. This talk explores ways of encountering such freedom while journeying along the Zen path, via practices and experiences connected to the Koan Way. Ultimately, however, the way to know this inherent freedom isn’t contained in or limited to a specific path; it is encountered through what is readily at hand and always underfoot, via the unique path each of us walks in our own unique way. Where else could such freedom be found?
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Our lives are naturally flowing along, on the move, in a continual state of change and transformation. On top of this natural process we often impose our own, commonly taking the form of imagining and reaching for a life we want to have, setting our sights beyond and even rejecting where we have been and where we are now. It seems we get so caught up in this project and so impatient with our lives that we stop noticing and even forget entirely that this very process is already underway of itself, with an invitation extended to join with it rather than control or dominate. And a first step for joining in the journey is stopping.
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Zen is essentially a deconstructive practice. Rather than building up and fortifying a different way of being to replace our current state, it is a path of dismantling and undoing the habitual, unhelpful patterns that lead us away and astray from the fullness of our lives and our being right where we are. To support our journeying along more deeply and authentically from right where we are, we become aware of and put a stop to the wayward journeys we engage in that block, stifle, and hinder us. In short, we stop, and this opens the way for us to truly begin.
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Upon his awakening, looking up at the morning star, Siddhartha said, “All things and I awaken together.” Our Guanyin Sutra says we are born with awakening and we grow with awakening. We take up a koan and find shining forth in our very lives now, intimately, the awakening experience of the person in the original koan encounter. Again and again, this awakening, stretching across millennia, one seamless thread. So, whose awakening is it? And who is awakening?
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When someone or something doesn't show up or come forth in ways that are familiar and expected, it can seem like something's missing and we might find ourselves at a loss. And yet a powerful opportunity is at hand here. Not limited by expectations and ideas of the way things should be allows us and others to discover more of what we have to offer, venture into new territories and abilities, and to step more fully into life, beyond the confines of our identities and labels and standard ways of being. Holding more loosely the ideas of who we are and what we're capable of, the possibilities are boundless, waiting to be discovered and embraced.
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"The greatest way is not difficult if you just don't pick and choose." This phrase begins the well-known poem Trust in Mind by the third Zen ancestor, Sengcan. This is the third of a series of talks offered at a multi-day meditation retreat with this phrase and related material as a theme.
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"The greatest way is not difficult if you just don't pick and choose." This phrase begins the well-known poem Trust in Mind by the third Zen ancestor, Sengcan. This is the second of a series of talks offered at a multi-day meditation retreat with this phrase and related material as a theme.
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"The greatest way is not difficult if you just don't pick and choose." This phrase begins the well-known poem Trust in Mind by the third Zen ancestor, Sengcan. This is the first of a series of talks offered at a multi-day meditation retreat with this phrase and related material as a theme.
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When Huangbo first met Baizhang, Baizhang exclaimed, "Magnificent! Imposing! Where have you come from?”
“Magnificent and imposing, I’ve come from the mountains,” replied Huangbo.
“What have you come for?”
“ Not for anything else.”
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Happiness. Elusive, fleeting, widely sought after. And a seemingly endless supply of ideas, paths, recipes, formulas, bits of advice and more about how to reach it and how to keep it. Testing out and exploring these to discover what results is certainly worthwhile. And it’s equally worthwhile bearing in mind these may oftentimes be the very obstacles and limitations to reaching that which we seek. What if there’s no reaching involved at all? What if that which is sought after is already here, simply waiting to show up in beautifully unexpected and unreasonable ways, given the opportunity?
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Great Ancestor Ma said: To advance from where you can no longer advance and to do what can no longer be done, you must make yourself into raft or ferryboat for others.
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Information is streaming toward us nearly continuously, incessantly, from all sorts of directions. What’s more, this information is passing through all sorts of gates, windows, lenses, filters – internally and externally – which color, tilt, twist, spin the information in all sorts of ways. Under such conditions, how can one even begin to surmount the daunting task of getting to the bottom of things, of connecting with the bare, vivid reality of what is? Well, a helpful start is to acknowledge that what is is: information is streaming toward us nearly continuously, incessantly, from all sorts of directions. What’s more, this information is passing through all sorts of gates, windows, lenses, filters…
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We humans crave structure and the beneficial, supportive container it provides. When it comes to navigating life, then, we are inclined to look for the recipe, the formula, the trustworthy and reliable way we can follow that will carry us along and through it all. But life is inherently wild and unpredictable, so trying to meet and journey through it via a set recipe or formula is a path that will inherently and necessarily fall short. There’s a beauty in that falling short. It seems as though our ideas about these paths carrying us through life are replaced by the actuality of them carrying us more deeply into life again and again, further and further into the midst of its wild and unpredictable ways, with an increasingly greater capacity for being right there, right here. Along with this comes the freedom of no particular way to go, fully, and no particular way to be, fully – the possibilities of meeting and engaging with life unfold, open and endless, calling to us, calling for us. And we respond, capably and fully.
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When we are seeking something - something such as "the light" - there are two primary hindrances inherent in our search: having an idea of what we're seeking looks like, and having an idea of where we need to go and what we need to do to find it. Ironically, having such ideas is necessary for our seeking. For one, they provide motivation. And they provide us with something to work with, wear down, break through, until we meet the field of all around us without such obstructions, and discover the light shining in ways well beyond and well before our ideas of it. What's more, we discover what we perceived as obstructions were actually gateways and the light was right there in the midst of them all along, and it remains, shining on through.
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There is always something at work within us, working upon us. We sense this at various times in our lives, again. It is often what inspires one to take up a spiritual journey, in hopes of knowing it more intimately and connecting with it more deeply. As we journey along, there are times when we are in touch with it directly, but it doesn't last, fades away, leading us to seek it out once again, reaching back for when it was and/or moving onward and reaching forward for when it will come around again. And there are times along the journey when we are in touch with it directly and fully, so much so that words can't adequately express it and understanding can't encompass it fully, and it remains, abiding, deepening. However it is met and experienced, it is always right here, functioning fully, effortlessly, endlessly. Yes, as the workings within us and upon us, and as the workings of us: in all we do and all we are, we are the working itself.
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There is something always at work within us, working upon us, beneath and beyond our usual ways of working with and upon things. These workings in the deeper and darker places are not in opposition to those usual ways, nor are they dependent upon them; they benefit, nourish and encourage one another mutually and equally, enlivened and enriched through the connection they share. This connection expands throughout and beyond our particular workings to all things, each and every one, without exception, conspiring with us and on our behalf, for the sake of our awakening. Listen. Listen.
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When we don't reject our experience for what it is, or reach for something beyond it because of what it isn't, what is discovered? When we look through, beyond, beneath our ideas of what should and shouldn't be, what we think is required to be fulfilled, at peace, happy, allowing our sight so expand beyond such limitations, what do we see? When settled deeply into the journeying itself - with all its ups and downs, ins and outs, forwards and backwards - what is illuminated, and what shines forth in and of itself?
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In one version of the story about the historical Buddha, the Middle Way is spoken of using an analogy of tuning a string: if it is too tight, it will snap; if it is too slack, it cannot be played at all. Fortunately, though we may believe or be told otherwise, there is not a specific note to which the tune must be tuned; in between the extremes of too tight and too slack, there is a vast and varied range of playability, beyond the limits and confines of a single note. The same is true of our lives: there are extremes we can go to which are ultimately unhelpful, yet in between these there is a vast and varied territory of life and the living of it, calling for continual adjusting and adapting and re-tuning. Thus, there is not just one way of being or one way to be, for just as life itself is in constant flux, so are we.
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In Zen it is said there are 108 delusions of the mind, thus at the New Year a bell is struck 108 times to ring these delusions out and away. Throughout Buddhism there is also the well-known figure Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, who wields a diamond sword that cuts through delusions. Yet, despite the ringing of bells and swinging of swords, delusions come rolling back in and springing up once again, endlessly, it seems, making 108 seem like a vastly conservative estimate. However, I propose that there is only one delusion, serving as the root and source of all delusions: a mistaken belief, perspective and understanding that pops up again and again when we meet our experiences, our lives, ourselves: this isn't it. It's a delusion that motivates us to discard and reject what is right in front of and within us, setting off on countless journeys and wanderings, seeking and searching, searching, searching. Understanding and exploring this one delusion can aid us in setting all delusions to rest. But make no mistake: its territory is tricky and the business therein as risky as ever, for though it is only one, it is still delusion after all, through and through.
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The roads and pathways of our minds are varied and endless, as is the traveling among them. In meditation, the traveling a can be like rolling along an empty highway through a spacious, open landscape; as we go about our daily doings and beings, it can be like driving and navigating the familiar streets and avenues of one's hometown; and when encountering people, events, and situations with particular charges of energy, it can be like getting swept up in rush hour, stuck in a traffic jam, redirected by construction, or delayed by an accident. The quality of our experience changes in accord with the situation we find ourselves in, relentlessly so at times. Yet there is single ground running beneath all these roads - a ground of awareness - with which we can always be in touch, regardless of circumstances, and that can make all the difference as we journey endlessly along.
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Sometimes, after many years of sincere effort, diligence and determination, we finally reach a place and state of being we have longed for, with a deep sense of having arrived, at long last. Along the way, we develop skills and ways of being that support and fortify us, coming forth more and more naturally, effortlessly, accompanied by a similar feeling of having figured ourselves out, at long last. It's good to come to such places and develop such ways of being, and it's good to be able to lean and rest upon them, to be sustained and encouraged by them, and to continue to nourish them. And it's also good to notice that, in time, the power, vitality and relevance they hold changes and fades, and thus the time for setting out and moving on comes about once more. Though tempting, there's no need to find fault here - with the place, with the skills, with ourselves - nor to analyze the situation to figure out what went wrong and attempt to amend it, in hopes of recapturing what was. What's called for is noticing, acknowledging, and responding to and in accord with the situation at hand. Bearing this in mind as we journey through and among the endless comings and goings of life, we come to see more clearly, abundantly, and simply this: when it's time to stay, stay; when it's time to go, go.
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Ah, the perennial entangled and entangling territory of identity and self. Zen practice is good at helping us release and get untangled from such territories for a time, as well as noticing our habits of grabbing onto and entering once more into them. But then there’s the issue of breaking those habits completely, which is indeed no simple undertaking. Much of the time, we get more caught up in the process of exchanging a bad habit for a good one – the self-improvement project; other times we attempt to eschew identity and self altogether, but that’s just the same old habit in reverse – taking on the identity of non-identity. But there is a way to break the identity-and-self habit and encounter a spacious, lasting freedom, within and among it all, through meeting rather than avoiding, welcoming rather than rejecting, and being oneself truly and completely, more so than ever before.
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When engaging with an ancient tradition such as Buddhism in our contemporary times, we can find ourselves in a "terminology minefield." We're often presented with a succinct translation of teachings and concepts, even though a single word from the language of the original text often has multiple, varying meanings. Therefore, if we land solidly and firmly on any one of those meanings - BOOM! Game over. And can you imagine how humongous the texts would be if scholars attempted to include the various meanings? Providing a succinct translation is practical and helpful, and it is equally practical and helpful for us to be aware of the greater field from which that translation comes, taking it all in and becoming aware of how much is actually there, making it what it is. Doing so benefits the tradition, freeing it from the constraints narrow definitions and limited understandings, opening it up, expanding it, keeping it fresh, relevant, alive. The talk at hand is in service of that.
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When we want to achieve or reach something such as happiness, peace, stability or even enlightenment and freedom in the deepest sense, the very thing we are seeking turns out to be the largest obstacle to our achieving it. This is because we have ideas of what it is, what it looks like, how it is to function from such a place, who and how and what we will be once we have it, once we're there. Along with these ideas come lists of requirements, of what we must do and who we must be and become in order to reach this place, to deserve such a thing. Combining all of this, what we end up with is something that is conditional. It's easy to see this conditionality when we look at the path we've constructed to lead us along; and it's important to recognize and acknowledge that, should we achieve the very thing we're seeking, its conditionality remains. In light of this, it's good to recall words from the historical Buddha: all conditioned existence is marked by suffering and dissatisfaction. Thus, by extension, anything we achieve through a conditional path will be marked by suffering and dissatisfaction. Fortunately, there is happiness, peace, stability, enlightenment and freedom that exist unconditionally. Right here, right now, naturally, intrinsically, undeniably. All beyond anything one could ever imagine, which is precisely the point.
(Please note: this talk features a surprise cameo by Siri around the halfway point, and she is right on point and sublime - if you listen for nothing else than that, it'll be worth it.)
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A little while back there was a request that I talk about acceptance and activism, the requester speaking from the common position that the two are in opposition to each other. This is because of the connotation that acceptance means something is okay, alright, copacetic just as it is. However, taking it on a basic level, acceptance simply means allowing that something is, that things are the way they are at present and they are here, no qualifiers of "good," "bad," or anything else added in. This allowing is a way of freeing up one's energy from struggling against, denying, or even justifying and fortifying the reality of the existence of something, allowing space for it to be more fully and clearly what it is. And this is a crucial first step in activism: it allows one to more fully see and acknowledge what is, to more clearly notice how its being affects the being of other things, and then to respond more fully, directly and in appropriate measure. In other words, it's about meeting, engaging, challenging and transforming the things we encounter within and around us, as we continually co-create, nourish, and endeavor to maintain a healthy and vibrant ecology of existence throughout the vast landscape of the ten thousand things.
So, acceptance and activism? Yes, please!
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"A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt." - Zhuangzi
Ah, how good to hear this, given the abundance of confusion and doubt these days. And yet, the abundance of confusion and doubt is not because the world has fundamentally changed, but because the usually reliable and dependable ways of perceiving, organizing and understanding our world are being challenged, losing their relevance, falling apart, revealing more fully the ever present, chaotic nature of reality itself. These templates we develop and stories we perpetuate are helpful to have as we navigate through life, but the more we solidify, fortify and insist upon their validity, the more removed we become from the reality we're navigating, so much so that when we meet this reality more directly, we call it chaos and are filled with confusion and doubt. Fortunately, as Zhuangzi mentions above, this very chaos, confusion and doubt itself provides the light by which we can steer and make our way through, and supports us in bending ever more and more toward reality as we journey along.
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In this time of COVID and quarantine and shutdown, with what we took to be normal being turned on its head and flipped inside out and all about, the heightened quality and experience of existence in this in-between bardo realm is alive and present for many. A common feature seem to be seemingly insignificant people and events from the past showing up in people's dreams - not necessarily with anything of import to offer or reveal, simply showing up, as if some portals from other times and realms have been opened as a result of all that is happening. This certainly adds to the dreamlike quality of life itself these days, the boundaries and edges of the frameworks that used to hold us up and provide steady orientation softening, blurring, fading away, leading us to drift and amble along in this dreamland bardo of our world. And there's no need - and no point, really - in trying to make sense of it all, pin it down and figure it out. Instead, we can settle, lean in, and listen, listen...
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Strangely wondrous and wondrously strange times we’re living in. An in-between bardo quality and nature to it all – which is fundamentally how it is at all times, but these days it’s all so utterly vivid, palpable, in our faces and our doing and our beings. The mixing and blending of so many things: sorrows and joys, clarity and confusion, loss and renewal, grief and hope, old wounds never healed and the growth of new life sparking. Trying to sort through it all, to choose one thing over another and land anywhere in particular seems a fruitless endeavor. And that's because, truly, it is. Fortunately, that not the invitation, that’s not the task being asked of us, that's not the way through. The invitation is to meet it as it is, as it comes, each thing, all things, whether they arrive individually on their own terms or show up mixed together as they dance along together or appear as one enormous, uninterpretable, confounding lump. Let us acknowledge it all, meet it all, and enter with it all, here.
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In this episode, we explore the territory of this perennial conundrum: since the teachings say again and again that you are inherently a buddha, awakened, and that you just as you are is it, then why is it necessary to engage in practice? A short, to-the-point response: it is effective, and it helps. And yet, a bit of a non-explanation and catch-22 of sorts: in order to understand why it is necessary to practice, and to discover for yourself how it is effective and helpful, you must practice. And it is indeed paradoxical: engaging in practice that may seem somewhat foreign compared to what you're used to, breaking up your usual routines and habits, developing a structure and discipline as a means of replacing naturally-developed ways of beings with different ways of being that don't come so naturally, all in the service of getting more directly and intimately in touch with your authentic, genuine being - the being that has been there all along, from the beginning, regardless. So yeah, strange and mysterious and wondrous for sure. And worth looking into, investigating, and discovering for yourself. So please, dive on in!
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A practice journey is often fueled by attempting to reach or attain a certain something, an “it” that we’ve heard described by others and/or imagined for ourselves. At the same time, again and again the teachings say you already have it, you are inherently it, and there is actually nothing to attain. These can be equally frustrating and confusing. The idea that there is something to attain serves as a motivation for practice, yet that very idea can be a significant obstacle to realizing we already have it. Likewise, it can be reassuring and encouraging to hear again and again that we already have and are all that is needed – but if so, why is it so difficult to feel this, know this, see this for ourselves? Perhaps the way through this is a sideways move, stepping out of the dichotomy of having and not having, releasing the ideas of what it is, how it looks, and what it will be like/is like when we realize we have it, wandering along more freely and openly, no need for measuring and gauging and comparing and judging, simply noticing this, this, this as we make our way along in the dark, unimpeded by the light of all those knowings.
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This week our meditation group has been hanging out with poems, koans and stories, the result of a delightfully unexpected journey that kept unfolding on its own, one thing naturally leading to and connecting with another, and another, and another. And there's more to come - specifically, a dharma talk that has been inspired by all of this and is still brewing, which will be offered in the coming days and posted as the next episode. For now, you are invited to join in our journeying by listening to the poems and stories here, in your meditation. And please be sure to check back next week for Part 2, as the journeying continues.
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Uncertainty abounds. And despite how much effort we and others put forth getting hold of things, and no matter how sound and reasonable and convincing the arguments supporting such are, the mark will continually be missed. For one, it's impossible to see and know the totality of things - there are too many facets, too many variables, too many happenings to take in completely. Additionally, things are always changing, so even if we do get a fairly good grasp on them, in due time our understanding becomes outdated and slips away. It's frustrating and unsettling, and in the face of this we can find ourselves doubling down on our certainties and solidifying our arguments further. This may help soothe us for a time, but in the end is more harmful than helpful. What if instead, when faced with uncertainty, we acknowledge and partner with it, welcome it as our constant companion? It seems a more realistic and even practical approach, given that "the way things are is mysterious and hard to see," as the Zen ancestor Bodhidharma says. And strangely enough, we might find this leads to a deeper sense of knowing and connection with the way things are, joining with the mystery at the heart of things rather than trying to solve it.
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Life sometimes - perhaps more often than we'd care for - brings us to moments and circumstances in which the things we regularly rely upon are gone, and we're completely in the dark. Holding onto or reaching for our usual ways of navigating through might help some, but, because we're in a place we've not known before, mostly they fall short, leaving us lost, uncertain, and frustrated. Perhaps what's called for in such times is meeting the unknown with the unknown, releasing whatever we're holding onto so that we can more fully settle into where we are, and as a result more fully meet what has come to meet us. What becomes possible then? What opportunities open?
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Sometimes koans present us with images and descriptions that are strange and mysterious while at the same time seeming familiar and personal. Keeping company with and exploring these resonances, we can find many facets touching into and speaking to our lives and experiences, unlocking and releasing a deep wisdom and freedom that has always been. As we kept company with the koan below, one person found a troubling tangle from her day suddenly gone, resolved, and a sense of ease opening up; another found a long-forgotten memory from childhood arising, reconnecting him with an inherent sense of sufficiency and abundance; and someone else noticed how she seems to be continually buoyed along somehow, with all that she needs always readily at hand, available and accessible whenever reached for.
So meet the koan for yourself, let the episode here nourish and encourage you as you journey along together, and see what you discover being unlocked, opened, and freed.
In a well no one dug
water ripples from a spring that doesn't flow.
Someone with no shadow or form
is drawing the water.
-Ikkyu
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This episode is of a Zoom Meditation held recently, during which we kept company with a verse from the Tao Te Ching, noticing what arose to meet and accompany it in response. So please get comfy, settle in, join in the meditation yourself and notice what comes to meet and accompany you.
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Zen is a deconstructive practice. It's not about importing something or becoming someone else, but about allowing that which isn't you to fall away, your true being emerging and being revealed more and more fully in the process. This true being is utterly sufficient and infinitely capable, inherently possessing and able to access all that is needed - from the beginning, awakened, a buddha. And perhaps the most significant and startling discovery is that, despite everything that tells you otherwise, this has always been so.
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This past weekend, my fellow teachers in The Open Source Zen tradition and I, along with a great gathering of members from the communities we serve, shared in a full-day online meditation retreat - a first, coming about in response to these particular times we are in. We kept company with the koan "Which was the true Chien?" (which can be found here), a story about lives unexpectedly being detoured and split and rearranged, parting and becoming whole, along with the questioning of which was, which is the true life. This curiosity and wonder seems a most promising place to be, as it is an open one - much truer than one limited and confined by certainty and knowing - more open to meeting the dynamic unknown of what is, then leaning and journeying more readily into the ambiguity and uncertainty of it all.
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Damei asked Ancestor Ma, "What is Buddha?"
Ancestor Ma said, "This very heart-mind is Buddha."
Awakening. Just as you are. Now. Here. That's it. Whatever your state of being, state of mind, experience being experienced - not dressing it up, not dressing it down; not dismissing it, not thrusting it forth; not minimizing, not exaggerating. Letting it be, and being it fully, just as it is. Awakening. Where else could it be other than here? What else could it be other than this?
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Over the past several weeks, the world we have have known - collectively and individually - has changed and transformed in significant, drastic and irreversible ways. Throughout the course of time, sudden and unexpected changes such as these have come again and again, similar in their shock and devastation while being particular to their times and circumstances. Throughout it all, as the poet Tu Fu states in the poem below concerning a devastation of his own particular time, rivers and mountains continue; that which was before endures, remains, and continues on afterward. Certainly not in the exact same way, and certainly not unchanged, but continuing on nevertheless.
What rivers and mountains of our time, what rivers and mountains of your very life, are still flowing and standing tall now, in the midst of this all, and how will they continue on?
Spring Landscape
The country in ruins, rives and mountains
continue. The city grows lush with spring.
Blossoms scatter tears for us, and all these
separations in a bird's cry startle the heart.
Beacon fires three-months ablaze: by now
a mere letter's worth ten thousand in gold,
and worry's thinned my hear to such white
confusion I can't even keep this hairpin in.
-Tu Fu
taken from Awakened Cosmos by David Hinton
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Clouded waters become transparent, the bottom of the waterway can clearly be seen along with fish swimming about, and a dolphin is spotted for the first time in decades; satellite images show smog in industrial areas that was densely present just weeks ago has nearly disappeared; the steady hum and roar of traffic has faded significantly, bright birdsong and silence now fill the air; all as a result of human activity being curtailed, restricted and altogether stopped, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. A powerful lesson to be learned here: we humans are just one part of the vast ecology of existence. When we find, honor and settle into our place alongside everything else, inhabiting our role fully and in appropriate measure - not holding back while also not wantonly overstepping our bounds - we deeply support, nourish and sustain that vast ecology, to the benefit of each of the 10,000 things.
--
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While driving my son to a get together with his friends one day, we were talking about Star Wars - a regular happening in our world. This particular conversation was part of the inspiration for this talk; specifically, Anakin confusing non-attachment and detachment. It's an easy mistake to make, and if we remain unaware of our own doing so, might it lead us to the Dark Side?
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My colleagues and I visited the Asian Art Museum some years back, and a particular piece in an exhibition called Seduction: Japan's Floating World drew me in, inspiring this talk. At the heart, it's about how the passions of life - those that ignite us, those that confound us, those that plague us - are not inherently hindrances and obstacles, but rather the very medicine needed to fuel and make possible our awakening.
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On the occasion of the Tibetan New Year, a brief talk about the intersection of Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism, followed by a meditation flowing along with words from teachers of the Nyingma tradition, past and present. Happy Year of the Iron Mouse! Losar Tashi Delek!
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In Zen, we take up practices that have come to us from other cultures, other continents, other times, all in order to connect with our inherent, true nature, that way of being that has always been with us and is already ours. Engaging with something that is foreign and unnatural as a way of realizing that which is already here, naturally, intimately - how can that be so?
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A student came to see Fayan and said, "Reverend, I am Huichao. What is Buddha?"
Fayan replied, "You are Huichao!"
Often we can be living our lives from the perspective of stories we generate about ourselves and the world. Those stories come out of a place that is fluid, dynamic and alive, boundless, always accessible, always here. It's a place where we and all things are continually abiding and continually emerging from, and to which we can continually return and once again emerge, refreshed and renewed.
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This talk includes information about the origins of the Koan Way, as well as an exploration of a koan by the 9th Century Chan/Zen teacher Linji Yixuan:
"There is a True Person of no rank constantly coming in and out through the gates of your face."
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This talk is from a meditation retreat, during which we kept company with a phrase by the 8th Century Chan/Zen teacher Shitou Xiqian:
"Walking the Way, you are never near or far from it;
deluded, you are cut off from it by mountains and rivers."
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