Good evening. Welcome. This week is honored throughout the world as the week of Rohatsu Sashin, the week leading up to Enlightenment Day, which is honored traditionally in East Asia as December 8th. It happens to be next Sunday. And traditionally, there's a seven-day Sashin in many places, in large temples. We're actually having our first five-day Sashin at Ancient Dragons' End Gate, starting early Wednesday morning. And quite a few people will be here. But in some sense, since it's traditionally seven days, This is the first evening of our Rohatsu Sashin.

[01:01]

So I want to begin talking about what I will be talking about through the five days, which is a few stories about one of the great traditional Zen masters, Zhao Zhou, or Joshu in Japanese. So I'm going to be talking about a few stories about him. And I thought I'd just start out tonight. So, there's a picture in honor of the occasion this week. I have a picture of Zhao Zhou on the altar. He lived, died in 897. So you can go look at the picture later. He lived to be 120 years old, according to the historical records. Now, we don't know how much of There's many, many, many, many, many stories about him. If anybody could be described as the greatest Zen master of all times, it's probably Zhao Zhao.

[02:06]

There's just all these wonderful stories. And in some ways, the stories are all pretty simple. And in some ways, they're all very deep. So I'm just going to focus on three stories this week. Actually, we'll see if we get to all three of them this week, but anyway. So I'm focusing on three stories from the Book of Serenity. Actually, he was such a great master that his lineage kind of died out pretty quickly after his life. There was nobody in his lineage who could surpass him, but he's kind of part of all Zen lineages. Anyway, this is a very simple story. And this is a story about a monk who came to Jiaozhuo's monastery to study with him.

[03:14]

I actually visited this monastery the first year I moved to Chicago in 2007. We were practicing at the Cynical down on Fullerton. We were renting a space at the Catholic Retreat Center, and we were there for a couple of years. And that summer, I went with Andy Ferguson and a number of people to a tour of sites in northern China. And we visited Zhaozhou's temple. And it was huge. And they really have rebuilt it. And there were, I think, 116 monks practicing there. And it was really built up. And there was a stupa, a huge stupa for Zhaozhou. And of course, when Zhaozhou lived there, it was a very simple, small temple. And there's stories about the rain coming into the meditation hall. the main altar broke and he refused to fix anything.

[04:16]

He just said, no, it's okay, get wet. And he just said, keep sitting. Anyway, very simple, very determined practice. But anyway, this story, a monk came to study with Zhaozhou and came to him for instruction, very naturally. It's traditional when one enters a temple to go and talk to the teacher and ask for guidance or instruction. So the monk asked Zhaozhou, I've just entered the monastery, please give me some guidance. And Zhaozhou said, have you had breakfast yet? And the monk said, yes, I've eaten. So he, Zhaozhou provided food for his monks. Zhaozhou said, then go wash your bowl. So that's the whole story. And yet, there's a lot there.

[05:18]

Have you had breakfast yet? Yes, I've eaten. Go wash your bowl. Well, many levels to this. Of course, part of this story is, that we take care of things. We take, you know, on Sunday mornings, we have meditation, Dharma talk, and then we do temple cleaning. And Roy is our work leader, and he assigns tasks for people to do, and we take care of that. And during the session, we will also have periods of temple cleaning. And also during the meals, which we'll have, The first four days, lunch and dinner, and the last day, lunch, in the meditation hall. For those of us who have the oriyokis, the wrap bowls, the traditional meals, where there's a way of eating meals served in a zendo, we wash our bowls in the meditation hall.

[06:23]

Other people will wash bowls in the kitchen. But after breakfast, we wash our bowls. Very simple. After partaking of nourishment, we take care of the implements. We take care of the bowls and utensils. We wash up after ourselves. And there's one Zen instruction when you enter a place to leave it, in better shape than when you found it. So clean up even so that it's cleaner than when you found it. So the comments, so the way these cases are arranged in this this koan collection, the Book of Serenity, which is a traditional Soto koan collection, although it's patterned after the more Renzai-style bluecliff record.

[07:34]

There's an introduction, there's commentaries, and there's a verse commentary by Hongzhe, who picked the cases. So there's various different aspects of commentary around the main story, all of which become part of the teaching of this story. So I'll go into some of this. So the introduction says, when food comes, you open your mouth. When sleep comes, you close your eyes. As you wash your face, you find your nose. When you take off your shoes, you feel your feet. At that time, if you miss what's being said, take a torch and make a special search deep in the night. How can you attain union? How do we meet the affairs of our life?

[08:37]

How do we meet our mouth, and our eyes, and our face? When we take off our shoes outside of the entryway, we feel our feet. When we step on the ground during walking meditation, we feel our feet. Janjo is saying, have you had breakfast yet? Then go wash your bowl. And Wansong, who's the commentator, says, if you miss what's being said, take a torch and make a special search deep in the night. So in some ways, this is our practice. We search deep in the night, because we do miss some of what is said. And he asks this question, how can we attain union? How do we find the wholeness just in ordinary things? This is not about some special exotic, you know, monasteries and even this temple, we have altars and we have cushions and we have special ways of walking around and so forth.

[09:48]

And it seems very exotic and religious and mystical or whatever, or just, you know, I don't know. It's strange when we first come to such a place. But the point of all of these forms and our bowing and chanting and the way we walk around the meditation hall and even more all the forms in a large monastery is just to see how we actually find our way of uniting with our mouth and eyes and face and nose. My first sashin, after I'd been practicing for quite a long time, when I was in Japan, I did my first sashin at a traditional monk's hall patterned after a heiji. It was with a teacher named Tanaka Shinkai Roshi in a monk's hall west of Kyoto.

[10:55]

And this is where you sleep in a meditation hall as well as taking food and sitting there. And in the morning, the teacher instructed the monk who was in the place next to me to give me instruction on how to wash my face. So there's a special way to wash your face, and there's a special, there's a, one of the implements that you have at your seat is this towel that you, it's this long, thin towel that you use to wrap up your robe sleeves, but also you use it to wash your face, and there's a special form for that. So, you know, I had to learn how to wash my face first morning I was in this place. So in the monastery, there are many more forms. But really, this is something very simple. Have you had breakfast yet? Yes, I've eaten. Go wash your bowl. So, the point of all of this is, again, it's very simple, but it's about something also very deep.

[12:00]

So, Hange's verse says, breakfast over, the direction is to wash the bowl. Opened up, the mind ground meets of itself. And now, a guest of the monastery, having studied to the full, was there enlightenment in there or not? So when Zhao Zhou asks this monk, this is not just any monk, this is a particular monk. We don't have his name, so that probably means he didn't become a great famous teacher. But this is... a monk that Zhaozhou honored and that is remembered, and even though we don't know his name, we're telling a story about him more than a thousand years later. Zhaozhou said, have you had breakfast yet? And the monk said, yes, I've eaten.

[13:01]

They're not just talking about breakfast. Or they're not just talking about gruel and pickles or whatever it was they had for breakfast. In Tassajara they have cereal and I don't know. Anyway, there are various things that you have traditionally for breakfast. We start our sessions here after breakfast, so we don't serve breakfast here because we don't sleep over here since it's a non-residential temple. He's talking about something deeper than this. Have you had breakfast yet? Yes, I've eaten. He's talking about, well, that Hongsha asked, was there enlightenment in there or not? Has he really studied to the full? He says, yes, I've eaten. Yes, I've taken nourishment. Yes, I've experienced the Buddha way. Yes, I've entered the Buddha realm.

[14:03]

Here I am at the monastery. I've given up ordinary pursuits. I'm willing to Siddhāsa, I'm willing to be present in body and mind. Opened up, Pañca says, the mind ground meets of itself. So this mind ground, where is it? What is it? How is it? We sit on this mind ground, or maybe it's our mind ground sitting on the cushion ground. I don't know. If something opens up, when we're willing to just sit and be upright and face ourselves, whether we're doing it for a day or five days or just for 30 minutes, the mind ground needs of itself. So we've just done this practice of opening up and the mind ground needing of itself.

[15:09]

So it's not a matter of practicing for five days or many years, although numbers of you have practiced for many years. But Hongzhi says, a guest of the monastery having studied to the full. So this is someone who's come to meet Zhaozhou, the great Zhaozhou. And he says, yes, I've had breakfast. The address says, then go wash your bowl. So the commentary to this verse, so there's a lot of interesting things in the commentary of the case too, and I'm not going to get into all of this tonight. I'll talk more about this during the five-day sitting, but... I want to say a little bit about the commentary to this verse, and then maybe we'll have some time for some discussions or responses.

[16:13]

In one song, the commentator commenting on this verse about the guests of the monastery, I think, studied to the full, was there enlightenment in there or not? Wansong comments on a famous Zen student named Ling Yun, a Chinese Zen student, and he says, Ling Yun awakened to the way upon seeing peach blossoms. So there's a famous story about this monk, Ling Yun, who left the monastery kind of feeling like he would never get it. He left the monastery feeling he had practiced and maybe he had seen something, but he just felt like he didn't really Hadn't really gotten it. And he came over the crest of the hill and looked down into a valley and saw this field of peach trees with blossoms opening and had a great realization. We're still talking about it. So, Guangzong says, Lingyuan awakened to the way upon seeing peach blossoms.

[17:16]

And then he went back to his teacher, Guishan, one of the great teachers of classical Chan, and Guishan said, Those who enter by way of conditions never regress. So this is very important. We're talking about breakfast, you know, on one level. So these stories often, they mean, they're literal in a sense. They're talking about, you know, we can take them very literally, but in another way, they're talking about something very deep, both at the same time. And we're talking, and so, you know, eating breakfast, very simple thing. Can you eat breakfast or lunch and just enjoy the flavor of each spoonful? Guixiang said, those who enter into awakening by way of conditions, never regress. So, you know, there are stories about people awakening by entering into very kind of ethereal realms.

[18:22]

But, you know, and there are people who awaken in the middle of Zazen, just sitting facing the wall. But most, a lot of the stories are like this. Going over the crest of a hill, I'm suddenly seeing a bunch of peach blossoms. Maybe you saw peach blossoms, too. But my way of conditions. Sounds or sights or physical sensations. Phenomenal. Phenomenal conditions. So then another great teacher, Xuansha, heard of this and said, Lingyuan's quite correct indeed, but I dare say the old brother's not through yet. Lingyuan, the one who awakened seeing the peach blossoms, heard about this, and then he went to Xuansha and said, are you through yet? Xuansha said, now you've got it. So we need to wash our bowls.

[19:26]

No matter how fully you appreciated your breakfast, you need to wash your bowls. No matter how fully you've seen, still we have to wash our bowls. We need to keep practicing. This opening up, this mind ground meeting of itself is wonderful, and this happens. And some of you may think that this has happened to you, and some of you may think this hasn't happened to you. Part of the style of our tradition is, whether or not you think that your mind ground has opened up, here you are. Even if you've just started practicing this recently, something's happened. You may or may not Feel it, or see it, or you may not have appreciated your breakfast yet.

[20:32]

Either way, please wash your bowl. Either way, please continue. I'm not through yet. My teacher's not through yet. Suzuki Roshi's not through yet. Dogen's not through yet. It's an old saying that Shakyamuni only got 50%. So in the commentary, Wang Song, talking about Hongzhe, who wrote the verse and picked the case, it says that Hongzhe eulogizes this monk's attaining enlightenment, the meeting of the mind ground. The monk, having just entered the monastery, is extolled for his great enlightenment and great penetration, a guest of the monastery who has studied to the full. So this is Hongzhe's commentary on this monk who said he's eaten breakfast.

[21:39]

But is there enlightenment in there or not, Hongzhe asks. Here, this is called a searching question. Schwerdo said, fundamentally, there's no delusion or enlightenment. Such are numerous as flaxseed. I admit only Lingyun as an adept. Schwanzo said he was not through yet. Schwerdo admits him only as an adept, carrying a board across the shoulder. Each sees only one side. This is an old-fashioned image of somebody working in the monastery and carrying a board on their shoulder like this. So I can't see Ben now. The monk carrying it on his side, I can't see Adam. So this is how we work often. We only see one side. One son goes on, tell me, was your goal, did the monk have enlightenment or not? Then he says this interesting thing, peace is original, and by peace he means great peace, wonderful peace, the full peace of completely abiding in Buddha's realm.

[22:52]

This is originally the accomplishment of the general, but the general is not allowed to see peace. In our tradition, the great Bodhisattva maybe accomplishes such a Buddha realm, but it's not true yet. So, let's just a little bit about what's going on in this story. Again, the main story. The monk comes to see the Buddha. Jaojo's monastery says, I've just entered the monastery. Please, teacher, give me some guidance. Please give me some instruction. This is a very fine monk. And Jaojo said, have you had breakfast yet? And the monk said, yes, I've eaten. Jaojo said, please go wash your bowl.

[23:48]

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