Good morning. Today I'm going to talk about a writing from one of the ancestors in our Soto Zen lineage. And his writings present and evoke the experience of our meditation and our meditative awareness. His practice is called Silent or Serene Illumination and his name is Hongzhe and he talks about how to express this in our daily lives. And today is also at Green Gulch the monthly children's lecture. So the first part of what I'm going to say is for the people up front, the young people up front, and I want to read part of what Hongzhe says. This is a Chinese person who lived a long time ago in the 12th century and he talks

[01:04]

about how meditation is just natural. He talks about nature and how what the Buddha sees is just nature. So I'm going to read a little bit and then say something and this part is particularly for the kids. So Hongzhe says, The field of bright spirit is an ancient wilderness that does not change. With boundless eagerness, wander around this immaculate wide plain. The drifting clouds embrace the mountain. The family wind is relaxed and simple. The autumn waters display the moon in pure brightness. Directly arriving here, you will be able to recognize the mind ground Dharma field that is the root source of the 10,000 forms germinating with unwithered fertility. These flowers and leaves are the whole world.

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So we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower. So he says that these flowers and leaves are the whole world and that from a single seed is an uncultivated field. So I was told that some of you, young people, planted some sunflower seeds last spring. And today you're going to go back down to the garden and there's a surprise. And what Hongzhe says is that every seed is a whole field, is an uncultivated field because from every seed, flowers come up and flowers make seeds. And so one seed can make a flower and from the flower comes more seeds.

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And if you let all of the seeds come up, then you'll have a whole field of flowers. So when you go down to the garden, you'll see some flowers and you'll see some seeds. And what this old Chinese guy is saying is that from one seed, a whole field can come. From a handful of seeds, many, many flowers. And they can keep growing. And this is like our meditation practice. So we talk about nature and we talk about Buddha nature. And from every seed of kindness, from every seed of friendliness that you share with each other, whole fields of Buddhas can come. So we study the seeds and we enjoy the seeds and we are amazed at all of the flowers that come from the seeds. So each of you can plant seeds and make flowers and can plant seeds of kindness and friendliness.

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And from those seeds come Buddhas everywhere. So when you go down to the garden today, look at the flowers and see how many there are. And you will see some seeds too. And each of those flowers makes many, many seeds. So in your own playing, in your own talking together, in your games and in your study if you're in school, you have a chance to make seeds of Buddhas. And each of you is a seed of Buddha. So Hongzhe talks about cultivating the empty field. He talks about the fields being empty. But that they are empty means they're filled with flowers and they're filled with seeds. So please enjoy yourself down in the garden today. Thank you. So the young people can go now if you want or stay. So I'm here today to talk about our practice of cultivating the empty field, which is the

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name of a book which actually was published a little while ago. I was in Japan then so I didn't get a chance to talk about it when the first edition came out and it went out of print and now there's a new expanded edition. So I'm here today to talk about this book and to talk about the practice that Hongzhe Zhangshui, the writer of this book that I translated, talks about. So he lived in the 1100s in China. He was before, a century before Dogen, the great Japanese monk who brought Soto Zen, this lineage of Soto Zen, to Japan. And he talks about how this meditative awareness that we practice here in this room, what it really is, how it is, and how we express it in the world. So in the introduction to the book I go into some of the Soto Zen philosophy and dialectics

[06:58]

and the balance between our realization of, you could say, ultimate reality or total openness or Buddha nature or oneness. Our realization of that is balanced with how we integrate that awareness into our everyday activity. So the goal of Buddhism is not enlightenment. The goal of Buddhism is to bring that awareness, that awakened awareness, into everything, into our activity, into our difficult lives in the world. Anyway, there's a background philosophy about this which has to do with how these two sides of our life and of our practice integrate. So as background to Hongzhi, in the appendix of the new edition I have a few of the old great teaching poems of Chinese Soto Zen. The Song of the Grasshood and the Harmony of Difference and Equality and the Song of

[08:04]

the Precious Mare Samadhi, which go back to the 700s and 800s. Sekito Kisen and the Harmony of Difference and Equality says, The spiritual source shines clear in the light, the branching streams flow on in the dark. Grasping at things is surely delusion, according with sameness is still not enlightenment. So we do get a sense of, a taste of oneness when we are willing to just sit upright and enjoy our breathing and be present in our life and with this body and mind right now, right here. But this matching with oneness, this realization of unity is still not the whole story. How do we find a way to express that in our lives? This is the point of Soto Zen. So there's a balance between seeing how we're all the same and seeing how we are each a

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wonderful, unique, totally unique expression of that wholeness. And our practice is kind of finding that balance, seeing when we're off balance, seeing when we're leaning to the left or leaning to the right. And maybe we're always a little off balance. So Suzuki Roshi, the founder of Zen Center, said that we are always finding our balance against this background of perfect balance. So just to find this center in our own lives, just to find this calm, open uprightness is the point of our practice. But I want to focus today on Hongzhi's expression of that, on his writing and his images and how he talks about this. So he talks about a shining, bright, empty field.

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And we have lots of empty fields here at Green Gulch. Some of our empty fields are filled with flowers and vegetables. But this is a way of talking about what we sometimes call Buddha nature, this fundamental presence right here, right now. And we are all seeds of this Buddha nature and flowers of this Buddha nature. So I want to read some sections because I think Hongzhi's writing is just wonderful. Anyway, he says, Patchwork monks make their thinking dry and cool. Oops, this is the wrong section. Much later. Yeah, this one. The amazing living beings are happy. Their house is a single field, clean, vast, and lustrous, clearly self-illuminated.

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When the spirit is vacant, without conditions, when awareness is serene, without cogitation, then Buddhas and ancestors appear and disappear, transforming the world. Amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. In darkness, unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. So this empty field, this possibility of awakening is so close that we usually don't see it. And we have all these obstructions to seeing it. We have all this foolishness that we have learned for years and years and lifetimes and lifetimes. But then he says, One remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of Kalpas. Radiant and clear, the single field cannot be diverted or altered in the three times.

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The four elements cannot modify it. Solitary glory is deeply preserved, enduring throughout ancient and present times as the merging of sameness and difference becomes the entire creation's mother. He also says about this field of emptiness, 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,

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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 phenomena emerge and harmonize. So what he's talking about is the awareness that we taste, that we start to become familiar with in our Zazen practice, this field of boundless emptiness. And as we connect to it, we can respond and we can express it. We can see and hear without getting caught up in colors and sounds, without getting attached to objects, but just to be present right now with whatever is in front of us. This is this basic practice of serene illumination. And it exists from the very beginning.

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But he also says that we must purify, cure, grind down, brush away all of the tendencies that you have fabricated into apparent habits. So this is what is difficult about this practice. It's not difficult to get your legs into some funny position and sit still for 20 minutes or 40 minutes. What's difficult is that when we do this, in addition to seeing, getting taste of this possibility of openness, which is always right here, in addition to that, we do see our own tendencies, we do see our own habits, we do see the ways in which we've been conditioned to not let the seeds flower. So part of our practice is turning within. As Token says, to practice the way is to study the self. So in this yogic study of self, we have to do the work of acknowledging and looking at

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and taking responsibility for all of our confusion and craving and frustration and rage and all of the ways in which we think that we aren't Buddha and that the world is not a Buddha field, and we all have this. And yet, always, right in the middle of this world, right in the middle of who you are, this lifetime, this body, this mind, this place and time, there is this radiant, empty field. This is what Hongxue is saying. So our practice is to sit upright and noble, right in the middle of being who we are. And this is something we can do, but it kind of hurts sometimes.

[16:26]

But it's also very natural. It's no other than the flowers and the trees and the birds and the wind and the waves on your beach. So what I particularly love about Hongxue is the way he uses nature metaphors. He talks about this field of emptiness, this possibility of openness, in terms of the natural world. And I get a feeling from the way he talks about it of how natural really our zazen is. It seems very artificial, you know, this whole room with all of the funny things in it and the cushions and all the funny ways of moving around, and it seems maybe like something artificial. But actually, the forms that we use are just ways of expressing something that's very natural and very deep. Deeply natural.

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So Hongxue says about this. People of the way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. This is how perfected people behave. Then they must presume their travels and follow the ancestors, walking ahead with steadiness and letting go of themselves with innocence. So I think the children are a great example for us because they are closer anyway to this innocence, to this rawness, to just being natural and playing

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and enjoying the flowers and the seeds. Of course, grown-ups can play too. But this playing that we can do is just like the movements of nature. So we all have busy lives and work very hard and get caught up in that and forget to rest. And in some ways, this meditation is just a way to rest, a way to get out of it. A way to settle into being who you are and enjoy your breathing and let go a little bit of all of the responsibilities and busyness. And then take them up again, refreshed. So Hongzhe's metaphor from nature for that is just resting is like the great ocean, accepting hundreds of streams all absorbed into one flavor.

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Freely going ahead is like the great surging tides riding on the wind, all coming onto this shore together. How could they not reach into the genuine source? How could they not realize the great function that appears before us? A practitioner follows movements and responds to changes in total harmony. Moreover, haven't you yourself established the mind that thinks up all the illusory conditions? This insight must be perfectly incorporated. So we do have lots of conditions in our lives and we keep creating them. And when we take responsibility for just being who we are, we can rest and be like the streams flowing into the ocean, like the stream down here at near beach and like the tides coming back. So the point is

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to uncover this Buddha nature that we all are, that is working in us in some way. And I know that's true just because you're here. So how many of you are here for the first time? I always like to ask. Great, congratulations. So just the fact that you're here means that you are connected to this Buddha nature. You couldn't be here otherwise. So uncovering this Buddha nature just means becoming one's true Self, becoming this deep Self that is connected to everything, that in our own unique way expresses everything. Again, Hongshu talks about this in terms of nature. A person of the way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere. The white clouds are fascinated with the green mountain's foundation. The bright moon

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cherishes being carried along with the flowing water. The clouds part and the mountain appears. The moon sets and the water is cool. Each bit of autumn contains vast interpenetration without bounds. So we're just moving into autumn. Each bit contains vast interpenetration without bounds. Even here in northern California where the seasons are not as dramatic as other places. Every dust is whole without reaching me. The 10,000 changes are stilled without shaking me. If you can sit here with stability then you can freely step across and engage the world with energy. So part of the practice is turning within and connecting with the flow of this Buddha nature and being willing to sit still in the middle of who we are and all of the conditions

[22:48]

that sometimes get in the way of seeing this possibility of openness. But then the other side is that we go out of the Zen Do, we go back into the world, we get up from our cushions, we go out and take care of our families and jobs and this is the other side of this practice. So how do we express this when we get up from our cushion? How does the surging tide come back onto the shore as well as the stream flowing into the ocean? So I'll read one more, I know I'm reading a lot, but I just want to share some of this with you. Empty and desireless, cold and thin, simple and genuine, this is how to strike down and fold up the remaining habits

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of many lives. When the stains from old habits are exhausted, the original light appears. Blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters. Vast and spacious like sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color. This field is without boundary, beyond direction. Magnificently one entity without edge or seam. Further, when you turn within and drop off everything completely, realization occurs. Right at the time of entirely dropping off, deliberation and discussion are 1,000 or 10,000 miles away. Still, no principle is discernible, so what could there be to point to or explain? People with the bottom of the bucket fallen out immediately find total trust. So we are told simply to realize mutual response and explore mutual response, then turn around and enter the world.

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Roam and play in samadhi. Every detail clearly appears before you. Sound and form, echo and shadow happen instantly without leaving traces. The outside and myself do not dominate each other, only because no objects come between us. So this way of being in the world, again, this is so simple, so simple that it's very hard to do. But just to respond to the world as it is without imposing our ideas of ourselves or the world, but just meeting each person, each thing, each flower, each seed. And he says, roam and play in samadhi. So samadhi is a way of talking about this meditative awareness. And the practice is not to be strict and try and beat ourselves up for being something less than Buddha, but actually

[25:56]

just to play and roam in this world of awareness. So I've been thinking about this idea of the natural and connecting with nature. And the way Hongxue talks about it is these beautiful images of mountains and clouds and flowing water and flowers and seeds. I've been reading a book that's about insects and she says that 10% of all the species of animals in the world are parasitic insects. And some of them live because they are parasites of other insects that are parasites of other insects

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that are parasites of other insects. So there's a side of the world of nature that is kind of cruel, or it seems like that to us, that is harsh. And more and more I feel like all of us, maybe the children aren't yet, but the rest of us, by living in this natural world, in some way, we're all kind of scarred. We're all a little wounded or damaged. This is our situation. So it's not, the practice is not about getting rid of that. The practice is seeing how right in the middle of the difficulties of our lives, right in the middle of our scars and our pain and frailty and failings, that there is this open field, this possibility of just meeting our lives

[27:59]

today, every day, here and now, just as we are. There's another problem with this natural, this word nature. So natural means the world down in the gardens and fields, but also we think that natural is something that happens automatically. Just naturally you will eventually become a Buddha. We can say that, but then when we hear that we think that this means that it's kind of automatic. I don't have to do anything. It's just let nature take care of herself. And this idea of natural, it's funny, it's in both English and in Chinese and Japanese, that things happen naturally we think means that things sort of happen automatically. But what Hongshu is talking about is that we have to actually

[29:00]

take on being this empty field. So it's not being passive, it's not just accepting that the natural world is great and Buddha nature is great. So our zazen is not passive either. It may look like just sitting contemplating our navels or something. But actually we need to roam and play. We need to be wild on our cushions. This is part of our practice. It's an essential part of our practice. We have to experience and connect and meet this empty field, this possibility of radiant openness. We have to actually experience this. It's not just some idea. I mean it's a nice idea and you can read wonderful texts about it and feel the poetry of it. But what Hongshu is talking about is how do we actually practice that.

[30:00]

So I wanted to do a little meditation exercise with you. Most of what I'm reading is from the main section of the book which is called Practice Instructions. So in a way this prose poetry talking about nature and awareness seems like just some idea but there's actually each of them I think of as a practice. So I wanted to do a little exercise with you and I'll read the section first and then we'll do this meditation. He says the matter of oneness cannot be learned at all. The essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. Naturally in the entire territory all is satisfied. This strong spirit cannot be deterred. In event after event it cannot be confused. The moon accompanies the flowing water. The rain pursues the drifting clouds.

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Settled without a grasping mind such intensity may be accomplished. Only do not let yourself interfere with things and certainly nothing will interfere with you. So this is a kind of meditation on space and that's one way to read it. And I actually want to try this with you today, this morning. So please just sit comfortably and if you want to close your eyes, we don't usually close our eyes in Zazen, but you're welcome to close your eyes. And we're going to do this meditation. The essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. So settle into your sitting wherever you are and feel the space around you. Feel the people in front of you, behind you. Now let your awareness

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gently fill the space of this old Zendo arm. All the way up here to Jizo, all the way back to the door, both sides. Just feel the space of this room. And enjoy your breathing as you breathe in the air that is in this room, and exhale it together. And as you feel your awareness filling this whole wide space, let's stretch a little. Feel the space of the

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lawn out to my right where you came in. And let the space extend a little to my left to where we'll go later for tea. And again breathing in and feeling this space. Feel the space back down towards the pond behind me. And in the direction in front of me, out to the dining room. So feel all that space around this Zendo. Let's stretch a little more. Feel the space

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extending all the way down to the garden and the fields behind me. And in the other direction, all the way up to the top of the road and turn off to Mount Tam. And if you're still with me, maybe let's feel the space all the way down to Muir Beach. From the top of the road all the way down to Muir Beach. Feel that space. And enjoy inhaling and exhaling into that space.

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And if some of you want to come a little further with me, let's feel the space all the way down to the Golden Gate Bridge. And in the other direction, all the way up to San Rafael. Let's just feel that whole space and sit and breathe in and out with all of us here in Marin County. And

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the essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. Naturally, in the entire territory, all is satisfied. So let's bring our awareness back into this room, in the space of this room. And back onto our cushions and to our being here this morning. So this is an example of kind of meditation in a way on nature, on the empty field and on the space around us. So one of the ways to talk about this

[38:00]

meditation is that it is objectless meditation. And that means whatever comes up to our awareness is what we meet as we sit. And yet that can include all objects. That can include our breath and our posture and your beach and the sound of the person next to you breathing and the itch in your knee or whatever. So in this serene illumination meditation, we don't try and get rid of thoughts or feelings or objects. We breathe with them and let them go. And through being present in this way, we start to get this taste of just meeting the world around us and in us. So this

[39:03]

turning the light within, this turning and looking at ourselves is kind of a basic technique, we could say, of this objectless meditation. And it's the way we find this space of meditative awareness, this empty field of Buddha nature. But again, that's only half of the practice. So we connect with the possibility of openness and then we express it. We roam and play in samadhi. So I'm going to read just a little bit more. Hongzhe says, in the great rest and great halting, the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. That might happen if you come and sit here for a day or a week in this room. Moving straight ahead beyond the state, totally let go.

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Washed clean and ground to a fine polish. Respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. Even if you do not recognize your face still, nothing can hide it. This is penetrating from the topmost all the way down to the bottom. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, a thousand or ten thousand stages are no more than footprints on the trail. In wonder, return to the journey. Avail yourself of the path and walk ahead. In light there is darkness. Where it operates, no traces remain. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors

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while you transcend listening and surpass watching, just meeting each sound, each color. We come back from our communion with this empty field and go out into the busy marketplace and graciously share ourselves. So it's not about doing something special, it's about being an expression of this openness, this possibility of the empty field. We talk about this in Buddhism in terms of one way of talking about this is in terms of bodhisattvas or beings who are dedicated to awakening everyone. And sometimes we think of bodhisattvas as very hardworking and diligent and yet there's something very natural and straightforward about just connecting with this fundamental openness and then graciously sharing it with our life. So I want to read a couple of the poems that are in the new expanded edition of this book.

[42:08]

One is a poem to universal enlightenment, bodhisattva. Medicine and sickness oppose each other, a pair difficult to separate. The mind flower opens and radiates its own house of Zen. Naturally real and lustrous, without practice or enlightenment, its daily use is magnificent, granting transmission. Stepping high from red earth to the clouds, its knowledge can be fathomed. Stopping cries of children with golden leaves provisionally produces faith. When the bottom is filled with rubbish, just walk through the sludge. Do not laugh at the snail meandering in its own slime. So when you're in the sludge, just walk through the sludge. Just be in the life you're in, allowing this seed of Buddha nature to flower. Then he has a poem to complete enlightenment, bodhisattva.

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Return to the seat at hand and hold the guiding orb throughout long ages. Enter the earth spirit's flow. After awakening, continuity is the function of self-dropped away. Enlightenment comes in private, and many difficulties gather. The ten directions satisfy grasses on snowy mountains. The single color totally fulfills oxen in dewy fields. Winds sweep over the waters of heaven and worldly dusts disperse. Reed flowers gleam together in the bright autumn moon. So I like this. After awakening, continuity is the function of self-dropped away. So just to do this continuously is what's difficult, to keep at it, to sustain this. Then he says enlightenment comes in private, and many difficulties gather. So even in this slime and sludge of many difficulties, there is a way to proceed.

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And just to close, I would say that one way to succeed is to see your life as celebration and expression. Whatever is happening in your life, you are expressing this empty field. So how can we actually celebrate this? How can we intentionally take on being a seed of Buddha, being Buddha's children, being a flowering of this possibility of radiant openness, which is always right in front of us. This is the question that Hongshu gives us. This is our practice. And to see, even when we see the difficulties of nature, even when we see

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the ways in which things don't happen the way we want them to, that there still is something wonderful, something amazing, some wonderful possibility in our life. So the last thing I'm going to read. The moon mind with its cloud body is revealed straightforwardly in every direction without resorting to signs or symbols. Radiating light everywhere, it responds appropriately

[46:15]

to beings and enters the sense dusts without confusion. Overcoming every obstruction, it shines through every empty Dharma. Leave discriminating conditioning, enter clean, clear wisdom and romp and play in samadhi. What could... This is how one must genuinely investigate the essence. So Hongshu's expression is kind of lofty and poetic, but I feel like there's something practical there for us in terms of how we can find a way to express the deepest self that we all share. So how to enjoy the situation you're in, how to express the possibilities of openness. This is what Hongshu offers us.

[47:16]

So thank you all for listening and all of this reading. I'm going to be during tea period out here signing books for people who are interested of the new edition and of my other books and then later we'll have some time for discussion. So I hope like the children we will all go out and enjoy the seeds and the flowers that we need today and all days and take care of these seeds and let the flowers bloom. Thank you. Tension [...]

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