Good morning. So I'm speaking this weekend from some of the stories or koans about Dongshan, the founder of Shouzhen in China, or Xiaodong as it's called in Chinese. And I'll be continuing to speak about this in the Thursday night classes. And really, the two issues that I'm feeling most strongly, as I said yesterday, are in the first line of his Dongshan's Song of the Jewel Mara Samadhi, the teaching of thusness. has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. So one issue is the teaching or dharma or reality of suchness, this engagement with

[01:05]

just this, this reality. And more than just the teaching or reality of suchness, also I want to explore what is the practice of suchness, how do we actually in our practice engage this reality that goes beyond our ideas and our usual human conceptions of what is, although it of course includes all of those. And then the other issue I want to get to and maybe I'll touch on today is how is this conveyed? How does the teaching work? How do we meet and receive the teaching of suchness and its practice? So I want to go back to one of the things I talked about yesterday.

[02:17]

About half of you were here. for yesterday's talk and I wanted to go back to one of those stories and it has to do with how we meet suchness in terms of the phenomenal world. How do we engage our senses? How are we aware of this world of phenomena, this world of causes and conditions, the ordinary world, which of course is where we meet suchness, or is one way we can meet reality. So particularly in the context of Sashin, where we have a chance to sit longer than usual, how is it that we hold our posture, not just in terms of our physical posture, although it includes that, it includes our uprightness, and our mudra, and our leg position, and paying attention to back of the neck straight, chin tucked, and eyes down.

[03:52]

eyes open or sometimes it's called half open. Anyway, how do we hold our posture, but also how do we then engage with the shapes and colors on the wall in front of us or on the floor in front of us? How do we engage with the sound of the air conditioner or other sounds of rustling in the sandow, which might happen. How do we see and hear the senses, including our thoughts? So the story I talked about yesterday is part of the story of Dongshan's meeting his first teacher, or meeting his teacher, Yunyan.

[04:54]

Actually, he was sent to him by another great teacher, Guishan. But I'll just read the part that Dogen talks about in his collection of koans. Dogen's extensive record, Dongshan visited Yunnan and asked, who can hear non-Sentient beings expounding the Dharma? So as we talked about more yesterday, one of the issues then in Chinese Buddhism was, where is the Dharma? Is it only through listening to the teacher? How do we appreciate the world? This is a teaching that's very relevant to us as we see how the environment actually is not separate from us and what happens in the environment floods and fire and so forth uh... is uh... what happens in the world is not separate from us what is the teaching from what we think of as non sentient beings and part of this is to see how our idea our usual idea of what it means to be aware to be sentient

[05:59]

uh... is limited and how we can open that up so there's many aspects to this question but anyway it was an issue that was a question for Dongshan and he'd asked a previous teacher sent him to Yunnan and when he visited Yunnan again he asked who can hear non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma and Yunnan said non-sentient beings can hear non-sentient beings expound the Dharma and Dongshan said master can you hear them And Yunyan said, if I could hear them, you would not hear my expounding the Dharma. And Dongshan said, if so, then I do not hear the master expounding the Dharma. And Yunyan said, you still do not hear me expound the Dharma. How could you expect to hear non-Sentient Beings expound the Dharma? And as Tom suggested yesterday, maybe Yunyan was being sarcastic. And of course, Dongshan must have heard the Dharma in the world around him, he wouldn't have had this question. So how do we meet reality?

[07:04]

How do we meet suchness? Anyway, after that exchange, Dongshan composed a verse and presented it to Yunyan. So let me just say the exchange again, for those of you who weren't here yesterday. Dongshan visited Yunyan and asked, who can hear non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma? Yunyan said, non-sentient beings can hear non-sentient beings expound the Dharma. Of course, He doesn't say that sentient beings cannot hear non-sentient beings. But then Dongshan said, Master, can you hear them? And Yongyan said, if I could hear them, you would not hear my expounding the Dharma. This is tricky. And there's an edge and a trickiness to how Dongshan talks about how we receive this information, this reality. So, again, Yongyan said, if I could hear them, you would not hear my expounding the Dharma. And Dongshan said, if so, then I do not hear the Master expounding the Dharma.

[08:05]

Of course, Dongshan does hear the Dharma everywhere. He thinks that's a problem. And Yongyan said, you still do not hear me expound the Dharma. How could you expect to hear non-Sentient Beings expound the Dharma? And Dongshan heard this, so he wrote a verse, how marvelous, how marvelous non-sentient beings inconceivably expound Dharma. Listening with your ears, no sound. Hearing with your eyes, you directly understand. So I talked about this yesterday in terms of how we, in our sitting, in our samadhi, how we can not separate our sense of our senses. Just being upright and present. Inhaling and exhaling, returning to awareness. Can you taste the sound of the air conditioning?

[09:06]

Can you hear the sense of cool or warmth in your body? Maybe not in some literal way, but how do we open ourselves up to receive all of reality with all of our senses without having to have this idea of opening our eyes means just looking at the wall. We look at the wall, we hear the wall, we feel the wall with our body. All of our senses are part of one instrument for receiving and engaging and practicing suchness. Dogen quotes, comments in his own verse about, about Yunyan's verse, maybe I'll read Yunyan's verse again. How wonderful, how wonderful, non-sentient beings inconceivably expound Dharma.

[10:15]

Listening with your ears, No sound. Hearing with your eyes. Directly you understand. And Dogen says, the Dharma expounded by non-sentient beings, the non-sentient understand. Fences and walls do not create spring for the grass and trees. This is a curious line. Dogen talks in one of his earliest writings about meditation about how fences and walls and grass and trees receive the benefit of our zazen and extend that back to us, that we are in mutual relationship. So this is a kind of ecological consciousness that was there in 9th century China and 13th century Japan, and which might be helpful for us to learn more deeply in 21st century Chicago and the world.

[11:17]

But Dogen says here, fences and walls do not create spring for the grass and trees. Well, what is it that creates spring for the grass and trees? What allows the energy and the vitality of spring to come forth? How is it that a dragon howls at a withered tree? This is a good question. We can't totally rely on fences and walls to take care of the world for us, even though we are in deep, interconnection with fences and walls and cushions and candles and flowers and chairs and many things. Anyway, Dogen goes on, nor is the business of sentient beings, whether common or sage, mountains and rivers, sun, moon, or stars. So this is a very interesting verse. In some ways, mountains and rivers are not our business.

[12:25]

Of course, when the rivers overflow, when the mountains get eroded, and anyway, and when the mountains, like the fire at Tassajara now, threatens our home monastery, of course, this is our business. But we don't create them. How do we take care of this situation? This situation also totally including just this presence being upright on our cushion or chair, with this inhale, with this exhale, period after period through the day, how do we attend to this? What is our responsibility for this? So again, this has to do with what is our relationship to suchness? How do we practice suchness? you know this is an open question this is something we need to we can't just read Dogen or Dongshan or Gary Snyder and get some answer we have to explore this ourselves each of us and together as a sangha as a species how is it that human beings will take care of the world and the environment and vice versa it's not up to us to

[13:48]

We can't control reality. And yet, we're not separate from reality. So, this business about... Well, I was going to read another story from Dongshan, which somehow is related. and also related to this issue of how we receive this awareness, this suchness teaching. Dongshan instructed his assembly saying, experiencing the matter of going beyond Buddhas, finally capable, you can speak a little. Experiencing the matter of going beyond Buddhas, finally capable, you can speak a little. A monk immediately asked, what is speaking? I guess Dongshan has some good students. Dongshan said, at the time of speaking, you do not hear. The monk said, Master, do you hear or not?

[14:54]

And Dongshan said, just when I do not speak, then I hear. So maybe I need to shut up to hear how you are hearing. It sounds like Dong Xuan is saying not to hear with your tongue, even though he recommends hearing with your eyes. This is kind of funny. Just when I do not speak, then I hear. And of course our main practice is silence. And the expounding of the Dharma, all of these words from these great ancient masters and whatever I might have to add and comment. It's just commentary on silence. But how do we hear the silence?

[15:55]

Dogen says, seeing words we know the person like seeing his face. Three direct pointers are tongue, sharp wit, and writing. fulfilling the way wings naturally appear on the body. Since meeting myself, I deeply respect him. So here, I think Dogen is talking about Dongshan. But since meeting myself, I deeply respect him. We might say that it's since meeting myself, I deeply respect others. Since meeting myself, I deeply respect the teaching and the teachers. So there's, in the teachings and stories from Dongshan, there's numbers of stories about how to convey this silence or this hearing with the eyes, this engagement with and practice of suchness, this way of taking responsibility for our world.

[17:11]

And they're pretty subtle. And so again, I'm looking forward to exploring this. How do we meet this dharma of suchness? How do we hear it, taste it? How do we enjoy its fragrance? And then, how do we engage it? How do we speak a little? As Dongshan says. So part of this, I feel, is a kind of samadhi instruction, to be present, to be upright, to inhale and exhale, and, of course, to be aware of the world around us, even though it feels restricted, even though

[18:32]

It seems like this particular posture and form and sitting still feels, it may feel restrictive. Actually, it's an opportunity to open up to meeting the world in this, I don't want to make judgments, in this other way, in this maybe more inclusive way. And the world may just be the wall in front of you as you're sitting. But the world is there, the whole world is there. It includes your thoughts and feelings, it includes the sounds around you. How do we pay attention to this? And really the practice is all about just seeing, finding awareness. So each one of these is an awareness. Seeing is awareness, hearing is awareness, smelling is awareness, feeling hot or cold or pressure. or some tingling or whatever in our body as an awareness.

[19:47]

Thoughts is another kind of awareness, to just be aware of the thoughts and feelings around us. How do we meet that and fully engage that? So one last story, related story, from Dong Shan, and this is actually the story of his leaving his teacher Yuan Yang. We heard a little bit about their meeting, and I'll be going into these stories more again on Thursday nights, but this story, is that just before he was going to leave Yunnan and go off and wander around and test his understanding, Dongshan asked, if after many years someone should ask me if I'm able to portray the master's likeness, how should I respond? Or that could be read in different ways. Or someone just asked, what was the teaching or the reality, the dharma of my teacher? How should I respond? And after remaining quiet for a while, Yunnan said, just this is it.

[20:49]

There's a kind of issue in Chinese that the pronoun could be read as either just this is it or just this person. So he could be talking about either the matter of suchness or his relationship to his teacher. But let's take just this is it for now. So Yunyan said just this is it after remaining quiet for a while. Dongsheng was lost in thought. And then Yunyan said, now you have it, please keep it well, take good care of this. Dongshan was still unclear about what Yunyan had said and later as he was walking along, he crossed a river and he saw his image reflected And it says, in his record, he experienced a great awakening to the meaning of this exchange with Ginyin. And he wrote another verse, earnestly avoid seeking without, lest it recede far from you.

[21:56]

He doesn't say don't engage the senses, he just said don't seek from out there. Today I walk alone, yet everywhere I meet it, It now is no other than me, but I am not it. It must be understood in this way in order to fully engage suchness. So I am not it, but it actually is me. This is another kind of expression of this relationship of what is it like to be this person sitting here with just this, this suchness, which of course includes all of the causes and conditions that brought us here and the sounds and smells and fragrance and so forth, that is the sensory reality of this suchness. I'm not it, but it actually is me. You are not the wall, but the wall is not separate from you.

[23:03]

The sounds are not separate from you. How do we take on this engagement with reality? Again, I talked about, you talked yesterday about how, you know, this is a level of reality that's not merely anthropocentric. This is about non-sentient beings and sentient beings and what do we mean by that anyway? How do we see the world as alive? Is the world non-sentient? Is the Mississippi River as it is going over various levees now, is that non-sentient or sentient? Well, maybe that's just a theoretical discussion. How do we see our full engagement with the world? How do we take responsibility for our practice of suchness? This business of seeing reality engaging reality in away that's not caught by our usual sense of the census you know that's been experienced in the west to service a french symbolist poems of you poet so you may know but to rambo had his own way of expressing this she was a very skillful poet he uh... sad to say gave up

[24:26]

His poetry, I think at age 19 maybe, he was a teenage poet and then went into other things. He talks in one of his writings about seeing the color of vowels. So he was a writer. His practice was writing, at least for a little while before he gave up his practice. He says, I invented the color of the vowels. A, black. E, white. I, red. O, blue. U, green. I regulated the form and movement of each consonant, and with instinctive rhythms, I prided myself on inventing a poetic language accessible someday to all the senses. I reserved translation rights. It was at first a study.

[25:28]

I wrote out silences and the nights. I recorded the inexpressible. So somehow I feel this is related to what Dongshan is saying about hearing with the eyes. Here this poet Rambo, this great writer, is seeing the sound of the vowels and the consonants of his own writing as colors. Very interesting. This is called technically synesthesia, where the senses merge. So, and this also, you know, this is a footnote, but in some ways this is related to what dharani are, which we sometimes chant these, we could say incantations in Sanskrit or Sino-Japanese transliterations of the Sanskrit, that are supposed, that according to great ancient Indian yogis, had some particular effect.

[26:33]

Particular sounds have a particular spiritual effect. For Ambo, particular sounds had a particular color. Somehow he saw it that way. Now the difference is that for Rimbaud, this was written in a work he wrote called A Season in Hell. And his experience of this, you know, I believe what he says here, that he actually saw the colors of what he was writing. But for him, this was a kind of derangement, and he puts it in that context. So I didn't read the, you know, if I read the part before, you see he talks about this as the story of one of my follies. For a long time I had boasted of having every possible landscape and found laughable the celebrated names of painting and modern poetry. He goes on. I liked stupid paintings, door panels, stage sets, backdrops for acrobats, signs, popular engraving, old-fashioned literature, church Latin.

[27:34]

erotic books with bad spelling, novels of our grandmothers, fairy tales, little books from childhood, old operas, ridiculous refrains, naive rhythms. For him, this kind of awareness came in a context of derangement. So this is important to note that, you know, and one aspect of this is He didn't have a practice container for this. He had this experience of seeing the colors of the sounds of his poems, but for him this was part of this season in hell, which he described as a kind of derangement, and maybe that's why he gave up poetry. So I don't want to denigrate the kinds of spiritual practices that might have been available for him as a Westerner in France in the 19th century.

[28:44]

But when Dongshan talks about hearing with your eyes, he's talking about it in a particular context. We have a particular practice. We have a particular practice structure. We have a particular form. So part of what this is all about is letting go of control of how we think we should experience the reality of suchness, allowing other possibilities. This relates to the basic Buddhist teaching of non-self and what is this self anyway? So some of us may think we have particularly good eyesight, or we were talking yesterday about people who are wine tasters who have a particularly excellent sense of taste, or palate they call it. We may, mostly for human beings, Vision is very important.

[29:51]

Sound is very important in terms of music. We don't usually think in terms of smells. I'm sure, Miyoshi, when you're walking Bailey, that he's aware of suchness in terms of smells, that that's a very vivid reality, that he focuses more on smell than on sound or sight, as opposed to us. Dogs have wonderful sense of smells, other animals too. But what this is about is allowing some flexibility, allowing some possibility beyond the constructed self. So I think when Dongshan talks about this practice or dharma of suchness, of meeting reality. He's talking about expanding the possibility of this person.

[30:55]

Rambo didn't have a context for that. He didn't have a place that was safe in which to experiment on that. Maybe in terms of his writing and his poetry, that was a kind of form and a kind of context. But it wasn't enough to contain a structure for that. For us, we have the meditation hall. We have the form of our zazen. So the Inna's job is to take care of the structure of the zendo. Actually, it's all of our jobs. We all do that together. We all take care of our seat and our place in the zendo and try and keep it neat and so forth. All of the guidelines and suggestions about how to take care of the practice context is exactly a container and a structure for allowing us to let go of our constructed self a little bit. To see through our constructed self.

[32:04]

All of us have a constructed identity. All of us have some construction about how we do think of suchness. and it has to do with how we have engaged our senses and it has to do with this elaborate chain of causes and conditions that we cannot possibly track or trace. And yet, in that context, here we are. We have come to a place where we can inhale and exhale and sit upright and pay attention and let go of our sense of this constructed self. This does not mean getting rid of the ego. That's a terrible misunderstanding of what Buddha's non-self means. So, it's not, we have a particular constructed self that allows us to function in the world, and we need that. As Dzogchen says, Dzogchen talks about babies who don't have an ego yet.

[33:07]

I mean, blah, blah, blah, blah, is anything said or not? We'll chant later. It's almost like infants have this openness to reality, but actually it has to be done in the context of having a self. Non-self is about seeing through the self, not getting rid of the self. So how do we take care of this person on our cushion and chair and be open to seeing sounds? hearing colors, letting go a little bit of the way in which we have constructed a self, seeing how that works, studying the self. So Dogen says that Buddhas are enlightened about their delusions. How do we see the way in which we are caught by our habits of sensing, our habits of thinking, our habits of engaging suchness? We all have some way in which we relate to the world.

[34:09]

It's not that that's wrong, it's that it's limited. And our practice is about giving us this container of sashim, this container of the zendo, in which to get lost a little bit, in which to not know completely who we are, in which to try out different ways of, what is this wall in front of me? What is this? how can you appreciate your breathing in some way? So how can you hear your breathing and smell your exhale and taste your inhale? And so again, Dongshun says to, in this very important story about just this is it, that he hears from his teacher, He is now no other than myself, but I am now not him, about his teacher, or it is no other than me, but I am not it.

[35:21]

It must be understood in this way in order to merge with suchness, in order to fully engage suchness. How do we taste the wall in front of us? how do we appreciate the possibilities of this person? Without, you know, it's not a matter of getting rid of anything, or when you've thoroughly examined, you know, how your habitual thinking works, you know, some parts of that, you may decide, I don't wanna do that anymore. And that happens too. But it's through this openness, to seeing through our usual sense of self. So, in the second story I read from Dongshan, he talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha.

[36:28]

experiencing the matter of going beyond Buddhas, finally capable, you can speak a little. So, it's possible, it happens in the course of sitting. In the safety of the structure of the guidelines for Sarshen, of the form of the Zendo, you may see something in a new way. Suchness may just come up and kiss you on the cheek. We may feel that. We may feel, oh yes, Buddha nature underlying all of this. But don't get stuck there. And by the way, sometimes during periods of zazen, as I did this morning, I may go around and make postural suggestions.

[37:40]

These are not corrections. It's not that there's anything wrong with how you're sitting now, but the practice, again, is to bring awareness to our senses, to our posture. to our presence. So if I remind you of your back or your shoulders, it's just a suggestion and then you can see how you want to sit based on that suggestions. We used to go around in Zen and hit people on the shoulders with big sticks and rubbing shoulders and just, you know, adjusting your head a little bit as a way of just, again, it's about awareness, bringing awareness to the structure of this situation. So I may do that occasionally. I've asked Orinomiyoshi to, when I'm not here in the Zen Dojo, if he feels like it, to go around and do the same. So again, it's not some correction of how you're sitting. It's just, oh, feel that place in your back. Try shifting your head position a little bit.

[38:42]

See what that's like. It's up to each of you to find your way of engaging with suchness. Again, it's not about getting rid of your identity. It's about seeing through it. So Rambo also said somewhere, I is an other. So part of Buddhist teaching is to see through this, I've sometimes called it the Buddhist original sin of separation of self and other, subject and object. We think of the world as out there. We think we're not connected to the Mississippi River. We think we're not connected to each other. fences and walls, grasses and trees, cushions and so forth into dead objects. This is our usual human way of thinking and seeing and engaging suchness. There's a self-verbing others, or we are being verbed by others out there.

[39:48]

This is so deep in our language and way of thinking, this sense of separation. In one of the early Buddhist psychology systems, one of the eight levels of consciousness is about this sense of separation. But Rambo is saying something very interesting here when he says, I am not an other. Or actually, I am another, is what he says. Our I is another. I is another. When we make up this constructed self, which is what we all do as, you know, to survive adolescence, we make this ego, but this I is another, just as any other others are others. As soon as you have, when you are not fully engaging the body and mind of suchness, including all the senses, then we have bunches of others, including this I. So just as we see fences and walls, grasses and trees as another, we can see I as another. In fact, I is another when we construct an I. So the point again is to see through that.

[40:53]

Again, not to get rid of, we don't have to destroy anything. We do this gently and kindly and we have the container of the schedule and our assigned place in the zendo and, you know, But the point of that is to see all of this a little differently. And this I is an other. So we may have a very strong sense of ego, or we may have a very weak sense of ego that we're holding on to very well. Either way, this I is an other. And it's not that we should get rid of the I. But see that by holding on to it, by trying to define and limit it and see it in some very rigid way, we're shutting off the possibility of fully engaging the body and mind of self and other and of all things and of this precious world.

[41:59]

So partly this, I've been talking about this in terms of meeting suchness, practicing suchness. Part of that is meeting ourselves. As Dogen says, studying the way is studying the self. So what is this I, this other that we have constructed as a self? This sense of identity. Again, it's not about getting rid of it, but how can we open up to other possibilities? How can we become more flexible? This quote, I is another by Rambo, is a movie called I'm Not There, sort of about Bob Dylan, and it maybe helps to know Dylan's work a little to appreciate it, but it's a very interesting movie because there are seven different and sort of aspects of Bob Dylan's changing career that are played by different actors.

[43:12]

Richard Gere is one, and Cate Blanchett is one, and Heath Ledger, and Christian Bales. Anyway, this sense of identity. There's a Dylan song, I'm Not There, a somewhat obscure song, but a great song. There is no real I here. I is another. And yet we function based on this sense of identity. How do we take care of that in view of this reality of suchness, this rich reality of this world that we are totally, totally part of? The whole world depends on each one of us. The Sashin would not be the Sashin if any one of us was not here. And yet, this I that we've constructed, I'm not there.

[44:13]

So Dylan's career is just an example of that by way of all the different forms he's taken of expressing himself and changing it and totally changing his what he does counter to the wishes of his fans who want him to stay and be some certain I. So Rambo said, I is another. This is really starting to open up to this teaching of non-self. I is another. How do I take care of this body-mind? with all of the aspects of the life we have. How do we do that? So please enjoy and use this opportunity to just be present and upright, follow the schedule and enjoy the forms of sasheen.

[45:17]

I am not it, it actually is me. The world in many ways that we all know is a mess. The climates are changing, there's war and torture and corruption. And yet there is underlying that this amazing richness of this suchness, this wholeness of reality that goes beyond all the other eyes and others. It's hard to talk about this. And yet, our job is to just take care of it. You are not it, but it actually is you. So we'll have time to discuss this a little more this afternoon, is there, but if anyone has a comment or question you'd like to offer now, we can do that briefly.

[46:44]

Yes, Renee. I'm going to go back to the very first part when Dongsheng was asking his teacher about, do you hear, do you hear, he says, I can't, something about of them you would not hear me. Right. So is he saying that you can't do both? In other words, you can't be expounding and be in suchness and be experiencing at the same time? Yeah, that's one way to read it, yeah. There are many levels of what, and the face value of these kinds of koan statements isn't necessarily all that's going on, but yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Meeting one thing is meeting it completely. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. I can't hear when I'm speaking, Yun Yan said. So it's not that you have to include all of suchness at once.

[47:50]

This is suchness. So if you're hearing, just hear. If you're seeing, just see. If you're smelling, just smell. And at the same time, they're not separate. In reality, there's no separation. I is another. So is suchness full experience? Can we ever fully experience suchness? Is it full experience? Is it a sense of being just very present wherever you are? Yeah, fully experiencing just this. And also knowing that we can never fully experience just this. That just this is beyond. So the Buddha going beyond Buddha is to see that the Buddha... So Buddha, when he had his great awakening, he didn't stop practicing. In some sense, that was the beginning of his practice. And he continued sitting every day the rest of his life. And each day, I'm quite sure, he continued awakening again and again and again.

[48:55]

How do we wake up to suchness, this suchness, today? Tomorrow there'll be some other problem. So, thank you for your question. We'll talk about this more this afternoon. Please enjoy your engagement with Seshnas. Please enjoy your hearing and seeing and tasting, thinking and touching.

[49:18]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v005
@Score_92.09