So I've been giving a series of talks the last, oh, several, few months on a section of our lineage of the Soto Zen lineage of Zen ancestors from the sixth ancestor to Dong Shan, the founder of Soto Zen in China. So there's six of these. Ancestral teachers that I've been talking about, we're on the fifth one now, and I started just a couple of weeks ago talking about Yunyan Dongcheng, the teacher of Dongshan. His name means cloud, cliff, dim splendor. And one of the things he's famous for is having studied with the great teacher Baizhang of Kaohsiung for 20 years without getting it. So he was his personal attendant. So I'll start with, so I want to tell a number of stories about him, and we're not going to finish with him tonight. But I've been using this book on the transmission of light by one of the Japanese ancestors, Keizo.

[01:08]

So just to review what we talked about last time, it starts with a story saying how Yun Yan first studied with Baizhang for 20 years. And then he went to study with Yaoshan, who was a person in the lineage who eventually he became the disciple of. And it starts off with a kind of climax of the story. Yaoshan asked, what else did Baizhang teach you? What else did Baizhang teach? And Yuanyuan said, once when he went up in the hall to lecture and the assembly was standing there, he dispersed them with his staff. Then he called out. When they turned their heads, he said, what is it? When he heard this, Yaoshan said, why didn't you say so before? Today, through you, I have been able to see Brother Baizhang. At these words, Yunyan was finally greatly enlightened. So it goes into the background story. And again, just to say something about why we're talking about these stories.

[02:13]

All of these stories of these, he lived, in around the 800s in China, so it's a long, long time ago. But these stories have been studied ever since because they teach us something about ourselves and our own practice and our own situation. So this goes on to talk about the whole story of Yun Yan's interaction with Yaoshan, his eventual teacher, after he left Baizhou. And when Yaoshan asked where he'd come from, Yunyan, when he first arrived, said that he'd come from Baizhang. And Yaoshan asked, what does Baizhang say to the students? And Yunyan said, he often says, I have a saying that contains all flavors. Yaoshan responded, salt is salt. Salty, water is plain. What is neither salty nor plain is the constant flavor.

[03:15]

What is the saying that contains all flavors? And Yunyan could not reply. So, do you hear what is the saying that contains all flavors? Yasheng said, what can you do about the birth and death before your eyes? Yunyan said, there's no birth and death before my eyes. So that's, you know, that's maybe in some schools of Buddhism that would work, but in this lineage it's only half. Yaoshan said, how long were you with Baizhang? Yunyan said, 20 years. Yaoshan said, 20 years with Baizhang and your mundanity is still not gone. So this teacher, this ancestor in our lineage, he's kind of sweet and cute and encouraging to us because it took him a long time to get anywhere. And he was pretty stupid, I guess, from that point of view. So I kind of find him encouraging myself.

[04:18]

Then finally, it goes into the story at the end about, oh no, there's another one. Yuan Yan was the attendant to Yaoshan one day, and Yaoshan said, what other teachings does Baizhang expound? And Yuan Yan this time said, sometimes he says, understand beyond all formulations and propositions. And Yaoshan said, 3,000 miles away, there's no connection. And he asked again, what else does he teach? And that's when Yuanyuan told him the story about Baizhang raising his staff and dispersing the assembly and then asking, what is it? So anyway, this is his background. So one of the things about Yuanyuan, he had a brother named Daowu who was also a monk. and who had also studied with Bai Zhang all that time.

[05:22]

And there are many stories, and we're going to tell some of the stories about the two of them. Yun Yan, so I'm sorry for these funny Chinese names. Yun Yan and Da Wu, in Japanese their names are Un Gan and Dogo. But anyway, they were actually biological brothers, but they also were Zen monks together. And apparently, there's another story about them. Not only did they study together at Yaoshan, with Bai Zhang, and then eventually go to Yaoshan, who became their Dharma teacher, but in between they even went and studied with another great teacher named Nanchuan. Nanchuan is famous for many things. He was the teacher of Zhou Shu, or Zhaozhou, one of the great Zen masters of all time. The guy who, you may have heard of the story of killing a cat. So that's Nantuan. Nantuan also once said, the Buddhas of past, present, and future do not know what it is.

[06:27]

Cats and cows know what it is. So anyway, there's a story, though, apparently, according to this story, Daowu and Yunyan, the person we're talking about tonight, went from between Baijiang and Yaxuan, they stopped and visited Nanshuang, who was also a very great teacher. So this story starts with Daowu. Daowu went to Nanshuang and Nanshuang asked, what is your name? And Dao Wu said, zong shi, which is a second name, which means source knowledge. Nan Chuan said, where knowledge doesn't reach, how can you take it as source?

[07:27]

Dao Wu said, just don't speak of it. Nan Chuan said, clearly if you speak of it, then horns grow on the head. So this is an expression that some of the old Zen sayings use, horns growing on the head for kind of not being less than human, for being kind of an animal, for not understanding. Although, Nanchuan had also talked about cats and cows knowing it is more than Buddhas and ancestors. Three days later, as Dawu and Yunyan were in the back room mending, doing some sewing, where they're mending their robes, Nanshuang passed by and asked, the other day we said where knowledge doesn't reach, just don't speak of it. If you speak of it, horns grow in the head. How do you put it into practice? So Dawu immediately got up and went into the meditation hall. Nanshuang left. Later, Yunyan asked Dawu, little brother, why didn't you answer the teacher just then?

[08:31]

Dawu said, you are so sharp. Yunyan didn't get it and instead went to ask Nanshuang. Why didn't Dao answer that issue just then? Nanshuan said, he is acting with different kinds. Yunyan said, what is acting within different kinds? Nanshuan said, haven't you been told where knowledge doesn't reach, just don't speak? If you speak of it, did horns grow on the head? You must go act within different kinds. So this story is a little, I'll go over it, but it's a little complicated in many parts of it. at this point, it says Yun Yan still did not understand. Yun Yan still did not, Da Wu knew that Yun Yan didn't get it, so he said, this person's affinity is not here. So he went back together with Yun Yan to Yaoshan. So maybe they had been at Yaoshan, and Yun Yan still hadn't gotten it, so they visited Nanchuan. So Da Wu was kind of taking his brother around, trying to help him understand.

[09:35]

Anyway, Yun Yan subsequently related the foregoing story to Yaoshan, who said, how did you understand this time there that you have come back? Yunyan had no reply. Yaoshan then laughed. Yunyan then asked, what is acting within different kinds? Yaoshan said, I'm tired today. Come another time. Yunyan said, I have come back especially for this. Yaoshan said, go away for now. So Yunyan left. While this was going on, Da Wu was outside the Abbott's room, hearing Yun Yan's failure. Unconsciously, he bit his finger so hard it bled. He went down and asked his elder brother. I guess according to this story, Da Wu was the younger and Yun Yan was the older. Sometimes it's the other way around. He went down and asked his elder brother about what he had asked the teacher about. Yun Yan said, the teacher did not explain it to me. And Da Wu hung his head. When both men were standing in attendance, Yaoshan finally asked, where knowledge doesn't reach, don't speak of it.

[10:36]

If you speak of it, then horns grow on the head. Dawu immediately said goodbye and went out. Yunyan then asked Yaoshan, why didn't little brother Dawu answer you? Yaoshan said, today my back is sore. He understands. He should go ask him. Yunyan then asked Dawu, why didn't you answer the teacher just then? Dawu said, I have a headache today. He said, go ask the teacher. So these guys, Yashen and Dao, were trying to get Yun Yan to actually put his practice into action. So sometimes in these stories, there are responses with words, and sometimes there are complete responses with headaches and sore backs. Later, when Yun Yan passed away, he sent someone with a letter of farewell to Da Wu. After Da Wu read it, he said, Yun Yan did not know it is.

[11:38]

Too bad I didn't tell him at that time. Anyway, even so, actually, he was nonetheless a successor of the Aisha. So anyway, some of these stories seem to, I don't know, they don't seem to fit together so well. But this story is kind of so sweet that they were trying so hard. So I want to go back and just look at this story a little bit tonight, and then we'll go back to the Zenka Roku story maybe next week. So when Nanchuan first asked, what is your name? Dao said, Zhongshui, source knowledge. Then there's this basic question, where knowledge doesn't reach, how can you take the source? How can you take it as source? And Dao said, just don't speak of it. So this is the, all of this whole story, this whole set of dialogues is about how we speak without speaking. Anyone say something?

[12:41]

Nanchuan said, clearly if you speak of it, horns grow on the head. So three days later, Dao and Yunyan were in the back room mending their robes, and Nanchuan passed by and said, the other day we said, where knowledge doesn't reach, just don't speak. If you speak of it, horns grow on your head. This is a difficult story. But then he said, how do you put it into practice? Dao immediately got up and went into the meditation hall. Do you see how he responded completely? So they're talking about where Knowledge doesn't reach, just don't speak, and yet there is a way to put it into practice. If you speak of it, horns grow on the head. So here I am talking, telling the story again and again. Can you see my horns? So this is a story about actually putting understanding into practice.

[13:55]

This is a story that goes about how we cut through speech with speech. So all of these stories, there's a kind of language that's going on. And maybe you don't like studying foreign languages. I'm not very good at studying foreign languages either. And yet there's this language here that is pointing at something that is about our own experience or practice and how we express that. So just to take your seat, maybe just to get up, maybe just to fall asleep in zazen or start snoring, you know, might be it. I don't know. You'd have to see. But anyway, Dao immediately got up and went into the meditation hall. Longchuan left. At that point, Yunyan asked Daowu, brother, why didn't you answer the teacher just then? So he'd actually answered him completely, but Yunyan didn't get it. And Daowu said, you are so sharp.

[14:57]

Yunyan didn't get it and instead went to ask Nanchuan, why didn't Daowu answer that question just then? Nanchuan said, he is acting within different kinds. This acting within different kinds is an interesting phrase. How do we act within the differences, within the particularities of our own situation? How do we see the difference between this situation and a particular person we're meeting with and some other person we're meeting with? Each situation is a different kind. So this is actually, you know, they're actually talking about how to practice within as he says, different kinds, but within the difficulties of the world, too. Nanshuan just answered, so when Yunyan asked him back again, what is acting within different kinds, Nanshuan, this teacher, then said, haven't you been told where knowledge doesn't reach, just don't speak of it?

[16:00]

If you speak of it, dead horns grow in the head. You must go act within different kinds. So this is language about going beyond language. Then it goes on to tell the story about how Yun Yan didn't understand and Dao went back with him to Yaoshan. And Yaoshan asked him, how did you understand this time there that you have come back? So right at that point, he might have expressed something that would show that his coming back was actually understanding. His coming back was actually a way of acting within different kinds. At any moment, he could have acted that way. Again, this is the person that we're talking about who is our ancestor in the Sato lineage. And Yunyan had no reply, and Yaoshan laughed.

[17:02]

Yunyan asked, what is acting with different kinds? And Yaoshan said, I'm tired today. Come some other time. So there's a number of stories like this where there's a monk who's asking the other monks what's for some answer and some question. And the teacher says, oh, I have a headache today. Go and so-and-so. And he says, no, I'm sorry. I'm sleepy. And the point is that you have to see it for yourself, and yet these These stories and these dialogues are ways of pointing you to something that you have to see yourself. So there's a question about whether Yunya never actually got it in this story. And then there's this part where Dao was listening, you know, outside the Dousai room. He was listening to Yunya and Yaoshan. And he was so upset that his brother couldn't get it that he bit his finger so hard it bled.

[18:05]

He went to ask his brother Yun Yan what he had asked the teacher about, and Yun Yan said, the teacher didn't explain it to me. And meanwhile, Da Wu had been listening outside the door and heard how everything was very clear. Yaoshan asked, where knowledge doesn't reach, don't speak of. If you speak of it, then horns grow on the head. Da Wu immediately said goodbye and went out. He understood. Yun Yan then asked Yaoshan, why didn't Da Wu, my brother Da Wu, answer you? Niaosheng said, today my back is sore. He understands. Go ask him. Then Yunyan went and asked Dao Wuzud, why didn't you answer the teacher just then? Dao Wuzud, I have a headache today. Go ask the teacher. So this is the kind of stuff that went on back then. And that story, again, I wanted to throw in there. It's not in what Keizan says about Yunyan, but it's just an example of sometimes how long it takes to understand our own life and practice.

[19:15]

So I think Yen Yan is a good reminder to us of patience. Because he eventually, he didn't become famous like Bai Zhang or Yao Shan or Nan Chuang. But he was the teacher of, the founder of Soto Zen. So... So is anybody happening? Comments or questions about this or anything else? I can tell you most stories about Vignette. Some of them are not so stark. So I'll read some more of Kezon's comments about, which some of this we talked about last time, but Kezon says, talking about the story, the basic point of Zen study is to clarify the mind and awaken to reality.

[20:44]

Very straight statements. So even though Yun Yan studied with Baizhang for 20 years, since conditions weren't right, he did not realize awakening. After that, he called on Yaoshan. So you shouldn't think that long study is necessarily good. Only awakening the mind to what is fundamental is important. The meeting of right circumstances does not depend on whether one is a novice or experienced. Pre-existing conditions are what causes it to be so. It is not that Baizhang was not an enlightened teacher, it is simply that Yunyan did not meet the right conditions. This is an important point. How we understand ourselves, how we fully express ourselves, is the product of many causes and conditions. So each of you are here tonight because of many causes and conditions. In fact, everything that's ever happened to you has allowed you to be here tonight. It is right within causes and conditions, right within particular times and situations, that we are, we can be serene and illuminating.

[21:58]

So, right within the situations of our life, we see, or we express something that, and understanding isn't really the point, but that we can actually express something that comes from very deep. Something that, is about who we really are. And when we do that, everybody around us also may have the causes and conditions to feel that. So the people that inspire you, the stories that inspire you, the situations that inspire you, have something to do with you and your situation. And there's some response that comes from your own possibility of expressing something very deep or of seeing the way reality works for you.

[23:02]

So there's no one right way of expressing the truth. There's no one right version of enlightenment. There's no one right way to singing the Buddha's song. Each of us has our own particular causes and conditions, so we can't ignore those causes and conditions. We can't say that there is some ultimate truth, and if you just hear that, or if you just, you know, said the right words, then you would be free. Actually, it depends on our being present in our causes and conditions. So in the Song of the Grass Hut, which we chanted, which was by Yun Yan's teacher, Yao Shan's teacher. So he's related, he's the teacher of Yao Shan, the teacher in this story. He says, don't separate from the skin back here and now. You want to meet the person in the hut beyond life and death.

[24:08]

So we can't separate from, we can't ignore our causes and conditions for being here. And yet, thanks to those causes and conditions, we can actually see through life and death and express something that goes beyond life and death, right in life and death. That's what these stories are about. And it's not just that we see it one time or that we sing it one time or that we can be clear at one time or whatever, but that we then continue. So this case of the book, I've mentioned this also, this book emphasizes these stories of awakening between teachers and students, and yet it's a little bit of a problem if you get hung up on the particular situation of each

[25:14]

students awakening because the point is that then they continued so that they were available for the classes for somebody to meet them with their classes and conditions aligned in a way that it could continue. So it's not about being perfect. It's not about being right. It's about being present in the situation. It's not about making the world perfect or fixing everything or being the person you think you should be, or making the world the world you think it should be. It's also not about being passive and just accepting things as they are. But to actually be present in the causes and conditions. All of these stories are stories of that. Stories of being ready and willing to understand in a deeper way, to go beyond what we think we know about who we are and what the world is. It's not that what we think we know about who we are is wrong or bad or anything like that.

[26:24]

But in that story that I just read, Yun Yan was not yet ready to act with different kinds. His causal conditions weren't right. And yet, in this story, at some point he heard Yaoshan. When Yaoshan appreciated Baizhang saying, what is it? Then Yun Yan was able to finally see the expression that was going on, the interplay that was going on. So I went over some of this. Kazan goes over this story. There's one place here. Yaoshun asked Yunyan, what can you do about the birth and death before your eyes? Keizan, who's commenting on this, says, this is truly the most important thing for students, whether beginners or old timers.

[27:31]

Even if you have set off on travels and are robed and shaven as a monk, if you do not clarify the great matter of birth and death and do not attain the path of liberation, you won't know the secret within you. Therefore, you will not get out of the cage of the world and cannot escape the net of birth and death. So the point, again, is to see this reality within you, to see this possibility of expressing something that is always present, but that sometimes we have to be patient and wait until we can really see it and can really express it. So a lot of Zen practice is kind of boring, you know. And, you know, just sitting for 40 minutes or whatever, or just doing the same thing over and over again. So in monasteries a lot of what, or in residential practice places, a lot of what people do between sitting is just very repetitive actions.

[28:41]

Quick chopping carrots, or cleaning, sweeping. cleaning a monastery. But the point of that is just by being content to be really present in something, some very familiar action where you're not being entertained, but where you're actually doing the work of taking care of life and death, you can be open to seeing more clearly. So, if you have some boring activity that find tedious, you should actually be very grateful for that. That's a kind of situation where you can, you know, just washing the dishes or whatever it is, where you can actually practice being present and where who you really are can suddenly appear. If you're doing something exciting or, you know, very interesting or entertaining,

[29:46]

It's harder to see what's really going on. Not that all entertainment is not worthwhile. Sometimes we need to take a break from being ourselves and just hear something new or listen to some wonderful music or go to a movie. Sometimes those can be opportunities too. So anyway, it says after that, as Yashan questioned Yunyan in this way to settle the person and not allow him any idle time, Yunyan immediately answered, there is no birth and death before my eyes, saying what came to mind. So this is one stage where we might see he actually had accomplished something there in his practice. He'd seen beyond birth and death, he had seen emptiness maybe. But that's a very small part of practice.

[30:52]

Khe Sanh says, if you reach the point where you yourself are at peace and accomplish the original purpose of your study, there should not be any such views. So he was actually trying to get rid of birth and death. The point is to actually be right here in the middle of our lives and to be ready to take on whatever it is that we have to take on. So this is the acting within different kinds. So there's many more stories, at least a couple more stories about Yun-Yan that I want to talk about. So we'll talk about him more in coming weeks. But I wanted to take some time just for general discussion and for some announcements. But first, are there any questions about this or comments? or about anything else.

[31:53]

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