This morning I'm going to talk about Zen practice in terms of exploring the mystery. This is an ever-deepening practice and an ever-deepening mystery that is at the heart of, well I could say of Zen, but I could also just say of our life. So in part this is following up, some of you were here last Sunday when I spoke of the talk on Zen Karma by Dale Wright at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association meeting. He had a list of 11 strengths and 4 weaknesses and 6 challenges in the karma of Zen that we inherited from Japan.

[01:01]

And I want to follow up on one or two parts of that, and he listed this mystery as one of the weaknesses. I would say it's one of the challenges, so I'm not, maybe I didn't get completely what he was saying about it, but that's okay. So just to start, one way to talk about this mystery is in terms of bodhicitta is the word in Sanskrit, the mind of awakening, literally. This first, and it refers to the first thought of enlightenment, the first thought of awakening. Some impulse that brought you to spiritual practice, that brought you to zazen. And we have a very good mix of fairly new practitioners and people here who have been

[02:12]

today who have been doing this for quite a while. Either way, what is it that first thought, that first seeking that brought you to think about doing this funny practice of just sitting upright and paying attention to this body-mind as it is here today, facing the wall, facing the floor. So it is said traditionally in bodhisattva teachings that bodhicitta, that first thought of awakening, in some real way includes all of awakening in it. Of course, part of the mystery is that this is an endless exploration, that our awareness

[03:20]

and activity of awakening can expand and develop. And I guess maybe Dale was talking partly about our, as a weakness, the sense of reifying some idea of what that is, as opposed to actually exploring what it is. But there is some vision of what we are seeking, and that seeking itself is crucial, expresses the vision. But there is a kind of ever-expanding possibility. The Lotus Sutra, as Gene Reeves was saying when he was here, is the Dharma flowering sutra. So awakening cannot be diminished to one particular formula or one particular understanding.

[04:34]

Awakening is ever-awakening. It requires growth. We need to endlessly clarify or immerse ourselves in. Well, he also talked about one of the challenges as developing some worldview, some way to make sense of our life, of our world, with all of its cruelty and corruption and wars and so forth, and also its wonders and joys and kindness and singing and dancing. How do we see, how do we make sense, how do we find some way of expressing the wholeness

[05:35]

of what the world is from the perspective of awakening? So, it's an exploration, and it's not that we... What is it that Eliot says the end of all our exploration will be to return to where we started and see it for the first time? Maybe a little bit of a paraphrase, but I don't know that there's ever an end to exploration, because when we see it, then there's another cycle of exploring, opening, adjusting the practice to our situation, growing the practice, growing enlightenment itself. So, one of the strengths that Dale pointed out is the sense in Buddhism of going beyond.

[06:42]

And he, I think, particularly was talking about the idea of going beyond your teacher, that the succession of your teacher is the beginning of going beyond your teacher. The succession of ancestors who've kept this alive, who have kept alive this practice and teaching so that we can be keeping it alive here in Chicago this week, we're each going beyond their teacher, and that that's part of what Zen celebrates and expresses. There's also going beyond our present understanding. So, part of this mystery, one of the ways to talk about this mystery is the question of how do we make sense of things? How do we know anything? And also, the starting point for this mystery is just that anything we say misses the mark.

[07:46]

The meaning is not in the words, yet it responds. Our practice and our life is not meaningless, and yet anything we say to identify or signify what that meaning is, isn't quite it. Still, we talk about it. So, going beyond also includes going beyond Buddha, going beyond Buddha that Dogen talks about a lot. That is to say that Buddha, the awakened one, didn't have this experience of enlightenment and then he was finished. He continued to awaken and sit in samsara every day the rest of his life. So, it happens sometimes that we do have some good understanding.

[08:54]

It's possible to understand what this is about on some level, and it's possible to have some experience, whether we recognize the experience or not, or maybe it's this very flashy, unavoidable experience, again, going beyond. Buddha goes beyond Buddha. Buddha is alive and growing. Awakening is alive and growing. There's a mystery here. And one of the ways, how it is that it's alive and growing is this exploring the mystery. It's what we're doing on our cushion. What is it? Why am I here? What's going on here? Who am I? How is this? So, one of the other things, one of the weaknesses that I'll talk about, I think,

[10:08]

or maybe it was a strength. No, it was a weakness. That Zen has this, in Japan anyway, has this tendency towards being anti-intellectual and dismissing rationality. But actually, we have to rethink how we think when we open up to Zazen. So, how do we explore rationality? Part of that is to see that there is a limit to what we can know. Fundamentally, at the very heart of things, there's a limit to human rationality and human perception. It doesn't mean that we should ignore them or dismiss them or not explore them as part of the mystery. How do we know what we know?

[11:11]

So, there's an old saying about not knowing. An old Zen saying goes, not knowing is the most intimate. And Nanshuang said, it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is just some story we make up and not knowing is indifference and when we reach the true way beyond doubt, it's as vast and open as the sky. How will we continue exploring the sky? How do we see what it is we know and how we know it and to know that it's not all there is to know? So, there's a kind of knowing and another kind of knowing or many kinds of knowing that become available to us through zazen. We can know that our knees ache.

[12:14]

We can know things physically. Just the effort to sit upright and sit still and not move, not fidget. It's difficult sometimes. How can we be present and upright and still? And settle into the situation of this body and mind with all its limitations. With all its discomfort. The process of doing this opens up other kinds of knowing. So, our practice of zazen has to do with settling. Settling into just expressing this body and mind as it is and yet, without dwelling or holding on to anything. Without dwelling anywhere. So, the sixth ancestor said famously

[13:21]

that not a single thing exists and yet, how do we settle into that? There's a mystery here. And this isn't about some, you know, nonsensical or irrational, you know, contradiction or, you know, those ways of talking about Zen stories. There's a logic to this. There's some... There's a kind of knowing but also, it's about knowing what is unknown. Or, can we breathe into how we feel the temperature of the room and also feel that we can't know that completely. Can we sit and sometimes our mind is calm and clear

[14:22]

sometimes it may be very distracted sometimes you may be very sleepy and groggy. How can you settle into being that mystery? Here now. Anything we say misses the mark and yet, there is this continuous continuous, continual, ongoing exploration. There's a kind of, you know, we can see this as a kind of empirical even scientific study or exploration. What is it like? How does it feel? Can we open up to other ways of knowing without, you know, trying to hold on to them or get something from them?

[15:23]

And then again going back to that vision that brought us here in the first place some caring caring about the quality of your life or your mental states or the quality of the world or the reality of suffering or some loss or some something that some question, some problem some, maybe some joy maybe some sense of wonder brought you to practice. And practicing again is there some searching, some seeking without trying to hold on to any outcome without setting up some expectation of what it will be like if I get, if I finally get complete perfect enlightenment well

[16:31]

that's just the beginning. How do we not get frustrated by this mystery? How do we find a way to sustain a practice of paying attention taking another breath of exploring oh, what's what is it that brought me here? What is it that I care about? How is it that I can express my love, my heart here in this world? What is it that's important to me? What is it that I enjoy? What is it that I'm good at? All of those things are part of this exploration of what's going on here without trying to hold on to

[17:36]

some answer some resolution some way of explaining it away so you won't have the mystery anymore. That's not it. It's not something that you'll figure out and then it'll all be clear and of course we all have moments of clarity also and that's wonderful and we all have moments of distraction and that can be wonderful too How do we breathe into and settle into and sustain an exploration of what is it? What is this that thus comes? How shall I take care of my world this week? This lifetime?

[18:36]

So as examples of exploring the mystery I thought I'd share a couple stories or images from our founder in China Dongshan who lived in the 800's for our midday service we'll chant the Jewel Mary Samadhi that is attributed to him Precious Mary Samadhi and there are many stories and I'm working on a book about his stories and the more I get into them the more mysterious they are but one of the one of them has to do with this image that he used to describe our practice he said to follow the bird's path and once a monk came to him and said

[19:44]

well what is the bird's path? and Dongshan said it's to not encounter a single person now that's a little funny because I've been reading a little bit about birds and migration and actually birds fly faster and more efficiently in a flock if there's a group of birds some of you know much more about the natural world than I but anyway they actually can fly more effectively in a group than a single solitary bird but anyway Dongshan uses this image of the bird's path for our practice leaving no trace and that's also a mystery because we can't see we might see birds fly by but we can't see a trail they leave some jets we can sometimes see a trail

[20:44]

and yet the birds follow these migratory paths many many some of them up to 14,000 miles they migrate and they follow the same path for centuries maybe there's some trace that they leave that we can't sense just like we can't sense all the smells that dogs sense or the sounds that dogs sense anyway Dongshan said that the bird's path is to not encounter a single person and I think this has to do with the teaching of no self there's no single person we're all in this together actually and your idea of who you are sitting on your cushion now that's fine but that's also you don't know

[21:45]

a whole lot about who you are any of us and who what is the body mind sitting on your cushion here now is a function of so many beings people we've met in our lifetime and your great great grandmother on your father's side and so forth for those of you who believe in genetics anyway don't encounter a single person and the monk asked Dongshan after that well how do we do that and he said there's two different versions of the story one is there's no self underfoot there isn't we take a step and then we take another step

[22:48]

so you might explore this this mystery during walking meditation today see if there's some self under your foot hopefully there's a floor under your foot and you won't fall through we kind of believe that and I think we're taking good enough care of this space that that's likely to be the case throughout the day today that you won't fall through the floor in another version of the story when asked by the monk how do you not encounter a single person he says there's nothing that binds your feet there's no binder there's no binder of women there's no binder of fear there's nothing that's stopping you from taking another step so this bird

[23:52]

this image of the bird's path is kind of mysterious and the whole idea of the path is a mystery we talk about the 8 fold path the various systems of paths but anyway what is it what is this bird's path that Dongxiang, our founder in China said we should follow and again from my very limited reading, scientists speculate birds recognize the traditional migration paths due to things like solar position maybe or electromagnetic cues or heredity or just being trained by their parents where to fly when it's time to head south for the winter and so forth is there some trail or trace visible to birds that we can't see

[24:54]

the part of the image of the bird's path reminds me to leave a place cleaner than when you found it so we do temple cleaning here to try and take care of the space and of course as human beings unlike bird's path we're leaving lots of traces miles of plastic in the pacific and so on there's a mystery here what is it to follow the bird's path what is it to follow our breathing inhale after exhale so there's another story about the path from Dongxiang one of Dongxiang's main disciples was named we say in Japanese he's the disciple of Dongxiang from whom

[26:01]

most of the Soto tradition Japanese Soto we descend and one time Yanju returned to the monastery and Dongxiang asked him where he'd been and Yanju said oh I've been walking in the mountains so sometimes the mountains walk and sometimes we walk in the mountains Dongxiang asked if Yanju had found a mountain to reside on and Yanju said there are no mountains suitable for residing at least not for him Dongxiang asked if Yanju had visited all the mountains in the country and Yanju said no that he hadn't then Dongxiang commented that Yanju must have found an entry path and Yanju proclaimed no

[27:06]

there's no path Dongxiang said if there's no path then a mountain would stand between us how could we ever meet but Yanju said oh wait a second I skipped a couple of lines Yanju said there's no path Dongxiang said if there's no path I wonder how you have come to lay eyes on this old monk how did you get here if there's no path and Yanju replied if there were a path then a mountain would stand between us Yanju said if there was a path then I couldn't be here then I'd be somewhere back on the path and Dongxiang was very happy at this response if there was a path then a mountain would stand between us Yanju said so the idea of the bird's path

[28:09]

or any path is another mystery we are on the path and process of going beyond Buddha and yet if we think that there's somewhere else we have to get if we think the path is a matter of some destination or some outcome or some awakening somewhere else in the future or someplace else we can never be here we can never be ourselves if there was a path then there's some separation some distance in space or time that needs to be traversed to get to some destination so Yanju disdains any path and affirms oh yeah, here we are here he is in communion with Dongxiang so part of this mystery

[29:12]

is that there's no need to travel to some meeting place somewhere else you're not going to meet enlightenment somewhere some other time it's right here any sequential path of progress implies separation from some goal thus never being fully present in the current situation there are many people who have great achievements in this room who've overcome obstacles and reached some some accomplishment I think there's eight people

[30:17]

with advanced degrees in this room and that's fine it's not that you should avoid rationality and avoid doing things in the world that express your caring and work and so forth but in terms of this mystery of what you were seeking and how you were seeking when you first came to practice it's not somewhere else getting lay ordained or priest ordained or even dharma transmission doesn't mean that you've gotten to the end of the path or the end of your practice we're all just beginning actually so Suzuki Roshi talked about beginner's mind which means that right now there is this possibility of

[31:21]

appreciating without getting to the end of it the rawness and tenderness and freshness of not knowing that is here right now now of course being here right now doesn't mean that we don't that there's not transformation involved in Zazen of course there is opening, flowering, expanding, developing and we need to become familiar with our tendencies and the three karmic poisons of grasping and hatred and confusion so that's part of our exploration too that's part of the mystery how do we become intimate enough with ourselves to not be controlled by our own habits of greed and anger this is also part of the bird's path

[32:23]

but what is the bird's path? Bob Dylan ended one of his songs by saying my friends from the prison they say unto me how good does it feel to be free and I answer them most mysteriously our bird's free from the chains of the skyway so our bird's free from the chains of the sky are we free from the chains of practice? well we follow these forms and try and sit still and when the bell rings we get up and we walk and so forth so we are willing to take on the form by which we can explore this mystery Dogen says in Genjo Koan

[33:24]

if birds leave the sky they die at once so this bird's path is pretty mysterious how do we follow the bird's path? Dogen also says in Genjo Koan if their need is large their range is large so as we open up to our capacity and as we open up to the suffering of the world the range of our migration may be large or it may be small that's not important even a puddle an inch wide fully reflects the round room how will we take on the bird's path? right here, right now so this is just one image

[34:28]

one way of exploring how it is that we can express the insight and compassion and caring on your cushion right now here today just doing the next thing in the schedule and in our life in the world when we get up and go out so I was going to tell another story about Dongshan but I think I think I'll save that for another time for those of us who are sitting here all day we'll have a discussion period over tea this afternoon we can explore the mystery

[35:30]

together more but I appreciate those of you who have joined us for the talk this morning so I'll take a few minutes if anyone has any comments or questions or explorations or responses about exploring the mystery generally or about the bird's path please feel free Catherine, hi thank you I know this fits but I don't know exactly how I've been reading Pima Children's one of her books that I have in the library with you she talks about Tongling practice and it has to do with when we find ourselves angry with someone or getting stuck in anger with a particular person that that's an opportunity to recognize that that's us not them and I was

[36:32]

so I'm dealing with that right now but it makes me think about you know birds fly as a flock and they change who's in the lead they work as a body almost and you know I think in this way it's maybe true about humans too you know I work out my stuff with that particular person who makes me angry you know it's like all part of the same organism sort of so if anybody else has a comment about how that fits I welcome well I think that's an important part of the mystery that we need to explore how do we deal with how do we respond to others when we're angry but also how do we recognize that we own we're the ones who are angry and there are practices for responding to that

[37:33]

but yes it's a mystery other comments about anger or the birds path or mysteries yes Nathan one way that I can actually comment about anger and mystery is just like the anger that we experience is our anger the mystery is our mystery too I feel like it's not like there's some mystery out there yes the mystery is our own mental process and for me there's always been some ambiguity in the word mystery because I also associate it with mystification which is like making things more mysterious than they need to be making things less clear than they could be so I think there's an ambiguity in the word mystery who is it that's making things mysterious good

[38:34]

so this is saying by Jatro about that when somebody was asking about the mystery anyone else would have been mystified by this mystery or something like that so yeah we don't need to try and create mystery and sometimes things are clear but still what is it hey Tom is some of mysticism essentially ideas that are thought to be true but that have just not been proven scientifically well yeah there is that side of it that science does has a method of working with things and coming up with hypotheses and theories and evidence but it transitions from

[39:35]

once somebody says they've got you know one of the variants of analysis says it should be it could be transitioning from mysticism to something that's no longer deep as mysticism it's the same thing it's just the perspective that I had the analysis of variants working on some data here at this point in time but I didn't have it at that point in time it's the same object that's true right and even in our own lives in our own spiritual work you know things that were mysterious to us may become clear that's possible we may let go of some obstruction to our seeing and yet part of what I'm trying to get at today is that without trying to add mysteries or mystify anybody that there's some mystery at the heart of things or near the heart of things in terms of how we can

[40:35]

so you know I don't know science holds out the the I was going to call it a myth but whatever the idea that everything can be figured out if we just get enough data and you know I don't know I feel like everything is pretty optimistic yeah Kevin I guess talking about facts and mysticism I always worry about getting too attached to facts it might be one's opinion a lot of people say this is a fact and it's really not a fact it's an opinion sometimes the mysticism is a much more comfortable place to be because you have more latitude in your perspective I guess yeah the part that I was talking about knowing that there are things we don't know it's very important knowing the limitation of

[41:36]

what we know or can know and these are just limits to our human perceptual faculties and I would say our intellectual faculties too so to be open to grow actually we need to be open to that we don't know it all well when I was 18 I knew everything things happened yes Bill I I think the Greek root of the word mystery is mystos which refers I believe correctly if I'm wrong to silence and that about which nothing can be said so it would be best to remain silent about it and I think you know linking that to other Buddhist and Zen themes such as

[42:37]

the question of causality and karma there's a lot that we can know about it all so to speak which is still remains kind of a strange way of speaking when you think about it because what is it all but then where we run up against something is where out of the silence it all somehow seems to be here and swirling around and I think too just a basic question of philosophy that Immanuel Kant addressed very well is that you can't simply go from physics to metaphysics because there still remains the question of well why is it that way you know why is why do fundamental particles work the way they do

[43:40]

figure that out by getting to something even more fundamental but then back of that is a silence underneath that and so to me that's the level at which it remains the mystery and then just one last thing there's some point I think where someone would ask and I think John Cage is very good about that well then why disturb it so to speak empty pages why write on them mhm yeah yeah good we can't know all of it turtles all the way down ah so you know sometimes it's said that Shakyamuni Buddha his way of teaching was to teach by silence naturally

[44:40]

our Buddha Buddha of our age teaches by way of silence and there are branches of modern Zen where they don't you know during sessions they don't give Dharma talks they don't have monks on in practice they just sit silently they don't chant or anything and you know that's I think that has its value ah so most of what we're going to do here today is be silent ah on the other hand there's some Buddhas who teach it's said in some of the sutras by in other ways than silence there's a Buddha who teaches by fragrance ah and the various teachings would come to the disciples through fragrances now I don't know that we're equipped in terms of our human ah perceptual apparatus to do that maybe that's a world of dog Buddhas I don't know anyway

[45:41]

there are many ways to get this and Kategori Roshi wrote a book remaining in silence about this silence but then he also wrote another book you have to say something so it's my job to sit up here and babble I was just thinking about the you know there are other Buddha realms where the Buddhas teach by fragrance or whatever and there's our particular realm the Saha realm and I was thinking about this idea of the path of birds because you can and throughout there's this sort of unsteady quality to the words even with this you know when you refer to Elliot this thing about the end of our travels and I was thinking well is that a destination that's sort of the organizing or whatever and the path of birds which you know you can

[46:43]

think about okay follow the path of birds like do you know go from point A to point B to point C or I could refer to following the practice you know the path you know follow the practice of a bird which is to be itself to you know as you pointed out if the bird was to fall you know to leave the sky it would die immediately in a very close passage he sort of says the bird can fly forever and it will never come to the end of its realm the fish can swim forever and it will never come to its range will be big or small but whatever it is there's actually no end to that process and you know just to sort of seal that little lump of thought thought your talk revoked I mean it seems like well actually I lost it

[47:46]

never mind I had it here for a second good that's a good way to end so

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