I want to speak this evening about some teachings from Great Master Linji Rinzai. And I want to preface that by repeating a little bit of what I talked about yesterday morning, a few of you were here. So I just got back a couple of days ago from a week in England visiting my stepdaughter. and spent one day in London and had the opportunity to go to the British Library, which is this huge institution. But I went primarily to see one thing in the Treasure Hall, which is an amazing large room, which includes in it the earliest printed book from 868.

[01:09]

It's a copy of the Diamond Sutra. So it was printed in China long before the Gutenberg Bible. So 868 was the year before Dong Shan, the Chinese founder of Shaodong or Shouzhou Zen, passed away, who I've talked about a lot, the author of the Precious Mary Samadhi, but also the same year that Linji, or Rinzai, passed away. He's a great contemporary teacher in China. So the Diamond Sutra is a wonderful text. There are a lot of other wonderful things in that room. An 8th century, not printed, but calligraphed Chinese copy of the Lotus Sutra, sign letters from Elizabeth I and Henry VIII and Charles Darwin, and a copy of the Magna Carta,

[02:23]

that the first document that enshrined the quaint notion of the rule of law, that the rule of law applied equally to rulers as well as everyone else, a kind of relic now. Anyway, also from the 20th century, as I mentioned yesterday, the one object from the 20th century, a selection of original lyrics from the Beatles, including the first written down version of A Hard Day's Night on the back of a postcard from John to his son Julian. Anyway, but this Diamond Sutra was quite impressive. Diamond Sutra has wonderful, it's kind of an expanded version of the Heart Sutra, or maybe the Heart Sutra is a distilled version of the Diamond Sutra. There are many different versions of the Perfection of Wisdom, this great teaching of emptiness that we just chanted, some of them in 8,000, some in 50,000, some in 100,000 lines.

[03:34]

The Diamond Sutra talks about the mind that does not abide anywhere, or that there's not a single thing that exists. This great teaching of letting go, of there being nothing to hold on to. And as I talked about yesterday, in some ways this is the heart of our teaching, just letting go. There's nothing to hold on to. So this is this wisdom teaching, the compassion side of it is that letting go and nothing to hold on to means that everything is connected, that we are connected with everything. And so, of course, we have the teachings of Sangha, the teachings of the Bodhisattva precepts and the Bodhisattva practices, that because there is this great letting go and nothing, not a single thing to hold on to, we take care of everything.

[04:38]

So we follow the Bodhisattva precepts and the Bodhisattva practices of great generosity and miraculous patience and this wisdom beyond wisdom that is open to letting go of everything and still hearing the suffering of the world. So I mention all this as a kind of introduction to the great teacher, Renji, on the graduate online course I'm teaching now. This week we're reading Renji, or Rinzai is his Japanese name. You know, on the window in front of our little Sofon Temple, it says that this is a Soto Zen Buddhist meditation center. But, you know, we shouldn't imagine that Soto Zen is separate from Rinzai Zen, or that Zen is separate from other forms of Buddhism, or that this is actually Buddhism at all.

[05:45]

We just practice awakening here. and letting go, and great compassion. So actually, technically, historical footnote, our branch of Soto Zen from Suzuki Roshi includes Rinzai. So Rinzai is one of our ancestors too. Dogen, before he went to China and then received the Soto Zen lineage, also received the precept lineage from Myozen, who was the student of Eisai, who's considered the founder of Rinzai Zen in China. So we actually have both lineages. And in our Getshin-Yaku lineage papers, it includes both lineages. So, you know, Rinzai is our Linji. His Chinese name is our ancestor, too. And I've been enjoying reading some of his discourses. Now, the stories about Linji, there's lots of yelling and slapping, and it's kind of slapstick.

[06:47]

The stories are kind of funny, but once you get the joke, it's... Anyway... I don't find him as interesting as his contemporary, the stories of his contemporary, Dongshan. But Linji's discourses are very rich, so I just thought I'd read a little bit of some of them, some bits of them, and say a little bit, and we could have some time for discussing some of them. It's reading them again, and I'm reading them from this wonderful new translation by Tom Kirchner, who's actually a friend of mine who lives in Kyoto. Wonderful, really, really nice fellow who lives in one of the sub-temples of Tenryu-ji. And this is, it's a recent translation and it's really, it's based on the older translation by Ruth Fuller Sasaki, but it's really the authoritative translation with amazing notes and it's just wonderful.

[07:57]

Anyway, but Tom uses the, translates this word faith. I've talked about this before. I was talking recently about devotion, and in some ways, in the context, especially in this context of Linji talking about this faith, I think the word confidence, maybe, or trust is maybe more appropriate, but actually, technically, it's the word it does mean faith. It's interesting in the context of Linji to hear him talking about this. So I'll start with this line. Students today can't get anywhere. What ails you? Lack of faith in yourself is what ails you. If you lack faith in yourself, you'll keep on tumbling along, following in bewilderment after all kinds of circumstances and being taken by them through transformation after transformation without ever attaining freedom. So it's interesting that Linji, who's famous for this kind of wild kind of teaching, with lots of yelling and smacking and all this stuff, talks about lack of faith.

[09:09]

You know, we don't think of Rinzai-Zen, you know, according to the stereotypes of Soto Rinzai, we don't think of Rinzai-Zen as a faith practice. But he talks about lack of faith and maybe, you know, we could read it as lack of confidence, but I think also lack of faith. He says, what ails you? You know, so if you think you have some problem, what ails you? Lack of faith in yourself is what ails you. He's saying, trust yourself. If you lack confidence, if you lack faith in yourself, you'll keep on tumbling along, following in bewilderment after all kinds of circumstances, being taken by them through transformation after transformation without ever attaining freedom. So he's encouraging his students to trust themselves, to not be caught up in the karma and fluctuations of the world. I think this is a very good teaching.

[10:17]

He says, lower down, and you know, his style of teaching is kind of very forthright and vigorous. He says, well, he says, make no mistake, worthy Chan men, or worthy Zen students, if you don't find it here and now, you'll go on transmigrating through the three realms for myriads of kalpas and thousands of lives. So it's right here. It's right now. It's not about some other time, as I say, in other ways, in other contexts. So I'm just going to read little bits of one longer section. And I'm going to also read a few little bits of what he says in his discourses, which are, I think, really interesting. So in another one. He says, a true follower of the way conforms with circumstances as they are and exhausts his past karma.

[11:25]

Accepting things as they are, he puts on his clothes. When he wants to walk, he walks. When he wants to sit, he sits. He never has a single thought of seeking Buddhahood. Why is this so? The man of old said, if you seek Buddha through karma-creating activities, Buddha becomes the great portent of birth and death, or of karma. And then he says, good students, just be ordinary, don't put on airs. So, well this is a lot like Dogen saying, don't seek for Buddhahood somewhere else, just practice itself, just be ordinary. So really, we can see the style may be different, but really the teaching is not so different from the teaching in our tradition. It's not a separate tradition, really. Further along, he says, what is dharma?

[12:32]

Dharma is the dharma of mind. Mind is without form. It pervades the ten directions and is manifesting its activity right before your very eyes. But because people lack sufficient faith in this, they turn to names and phrases attempting to grasp the Buddhadharma through written words. They're as far away as heaven from earth. So this is the Zen style of not trying to figure this out, not getting caught up in philosophy. But again, he says, people lack sufficient faith or we could say sufficient trust in just what is manifesting right before our very eyes. So, Dong Shan talks about it as just this is it, or yin yang. I think it's the same teaching. Just what is right before your very eyes. We don't need to have some complicated explanation.

[13:34]

Just the ordinary, as he says. This dharma is the dharma of mind without form, pervading everywhere, manifesting its activity right before your very eyes. So what is right in front of us? How do we make that? So there's a longer discourse that I wanted to read and talk about. Linji says, in my view, there is no Buddha, no sentient beings, no past, no present. Anything attained was already attained. No time is needed. So again, this is that there is nothing to attain that is not already here.

[14:43]

There is nothing to practice, nothing to realize, nothing to gain. Nothing to lose. No attainment and nothing to obtain, as the Heart Sutra just said. Throughout all time, there is no other dharma than this. If one claims there is a dharma surpassing this, I say it's like a dream, like a phantasm. This is all I have to teach. And elsewhere he says, I don't have a single dharma to teach. You know, all these words of the teaching, and many of the great teachers say something like this, and Linji has his own way of saying it. It's just what's right in front of us. There's no special, secret, fancy philosophical teaching. It's just in front of us. It's very simple. Followers of the Way, one who at this very moment shines alone before my eyes and is clearly listening to my discourse,

[15:47]

This person tarries nowhere. He traverses the ten directions and is freely himself in all three realms. So this could be the three times or the formless realm, the form realm, and the desire realm. He traverses the ten directions and is freely himself in all three realms. Though he enters all types of situations with their various differentiations, none can confuse him. In an instant of time, he penetrates the Dharma realms. On meeting a Buddha, he teaches the Buddha. On meeting an ancestor, he teaches the ancestor. On meeting an arhat, he teaches the arhat. On meeting a hungry ghost, he teaches the hungry ghost. He travels throughout all lands, bringing enlightenment to sentient beings, yet is never separate from his present mind. Just to be present with your mind as it is, with your awareness as it is. Everywhere is pure. Light illumines the ten directions and all darkness are a single suchness. All dharmas are this single suchness.

[16:50]

Continuous, continuous. Followers of the way. Right now, the resolute man knows full well that from the beginning there is nothing to do. This is difficult. This is a difficult teaching. From the beginning there is nothing to do. Maybe it's especially difficult for us, but I think it was difficult for people in, you know, 9th century China too, from the beginning there's nothing to do. We think we have to, you know, go around and fix things and take care of things and on some level maybe we have to do that. But Renzi says from the beginning there's nothing to do. And you may disagree with him. And of course, you know, there's great suffering in the world. How do we respond to that? Anyway, he says, from the beginning there's nothing to do. Only because your faith is insufficient do you ceaselessly chase about.

[17:52]

Having thrown away your head, you go on and on looking for it, unable to stop yourself. You're like the bodhisattva of complete and immediate enlightenment who manifests his body in any dharma realm, but within the pure land detests the secular and aspires for the sacred. So being already within the pure land. detesting the secular and aspiring to the sacred. It's possible to feel that way, to think we have to reach some special sacred place. Such ones have not yet left off accepting and rejecting. Ideas of purity and defilement still remain. So, in lots of subtle ways, we have those ideas. For the Chan school, understanding is not thus. It is instantaneous, now, not a matter of time. It's not about, you know, sometime later on, we're gonna reach purity, we're gonna reach something, some sacred state. It's right now. And all those great Chan masters, Linji and Dongsheng and Dogen, they all say that.

[18:58]

All that I teach is just provisional medicine, treatment for a disease. In fact, no real dharma exists. Those who understand this are true renouncers of home and may spend a million gold coins a day. Followers of the way, don't have your face stamped with a seal of sanction by any old master anywhere, then go around saying, I understand Zen, I understand the way. Though your eloquence is like a rushing torrent, it is nothing but hell creating karma. The true student of the way does not reach out, does not search out the faults of the world, but eagerly seeks true insight. If you can attain true insight, clear and complete, then indeed, that is all. So I think this is a pretty challenging teaching, and yet there's something about it that, well, it's unavoidable.

[20:00]

So, you know, to say from the beginning there's nothing to do, it's pretty radical. This guy is, you know, before he starts shouting and punching people, he's pretty fierce. So that's kind of an introduction to the single line that I talked about yesterday that just has grabbed me. He says in another talk, from my point of view, there is not a thing to be disliked. From my point of view, there is not a thing to be disliked. So I'm sure each of you can think of something that you dislike. Or maybe not.

[21:05]

Maybe some of you, you know. I mean, I might ask, how many of you like vanilla? How many of you like chocolate? And some of you might dislike one or the other. But it's interesting to me, coming from this attitude of there's nothing to do, just see, just trust this reality that Linji is talking about, of the wholeness of right now, to put it a different way. There's not a single thing to be disliked. I would say this doesn't mean that we don't take care of the situation of this world. So this is a wisdom teaching. This is a Buddha teaching, maybe. And what we do here is Bodhisattva practice.

[22:05]

So of course, there's suffering in the world. And of course, we're living in a time of great calamity. And I was just reading this afternoon about the polar ice caps, and within really just a few years, there's going to be no Arctic ice at all in the summer. It's a tremendous calamity. for the planet, it's really, the implications of that are horrendous. Tsunamis on the Atlantic coast, and anyway, it's just, and food shortages and climate refugees. Anyway, we're, even the most conservative scientific predictions are gonna be, well, are predicting something pretty wild coming very soon. So we're living in this very difficult time.

[23:10]

So, you know, I could dislike the Koch brothers and the people who are sponsoring all of this for profit, but, you know, that's kind of extra. Why dislike someone? You know, I can say, okay, I want this to be changed, I want to take care of the world as best we can. I want to take care of the Sangha as best we can. We say, may all beings be happy. I feel that. But, you know, dislike. Is there any reason to add dislike to it? I don't think that helps. You know, I think Linji's on to something here. We can still act with compassion in the world without disliking anything. Maybe that's, you know, maybe that's too radical.

[24:16]

Maybe we have to choose, you know, Soto or Rinzai or, you know, I don't know, Buddhism or Christianity or... Ukraine or Crimea or I don't know, you know, we can make all these distinctions. But anyway, this old guy Lindsey said, from my point of view, there's not a thing to be disliked. I don't think he was necessarily saying, don't take care of, you know, your body and mind whatever. I don't know if he was saying you should ignore the suffering of the world. I don't think he was saying that. Anyway, I wouldn't say that. But what about this? There's not a thing to be disliked.

[25:18]

Do we have to dislike something to take care of something else? So when we, you know, when we, what's the line from Einstein that, or is it Gandhi who says, when an eye for an eye in the whole world is blind. You know, if we think that the only way we can oppose hatred is through more hatred, it doesn't add up. There's not a thing to be disliked. So I'll close and open this for your responses and comments with the most famous, wonderful story from Linji.

[26:22]

One day he sat up in his seat and said, on your lump of red flesh is a true man of no rank who's always going in and out of the face, in and out of the portals of your face, of every one of you. Those of you who have not yet confirmed this, look, look. And a student, an intrepid student came forward and asked, what about this true person, this true man of no rank? And the master Bungie got down from a seat and seized the monk and cried, speak, speak. And the monk hesitated. And once he pushed him away and said, this true person of no rank, what a piece of dried shit he is. He returned to his quarters. I didn't say he was not a person of no, not a true person of no rank.

[27:28]

So, you know, in some ways being a true person of no rank is, maybe doesn't help anything. And yet, you know, when we start liking and disliking and having ranks and status of all kinds, you know, that doesn't help the world. That's just, you know, that's what gets in the way of seeing just this. We start, you know, having, we start classifying, we start having categories, we start, you know, assigning ranks and status and so forth. So this phrase of Wenji's, this true person of no rank, is a wonderful Zen statement. Anyway, but I also like this, from my point of view, there's not a single thing to be disliked. So that's my comments on Wenji for the night.

[28:33]

Any responses or thoughts? Or if some of you want to tell us to proclaim things you dislike, you can go ahead and do that too. Is there, do you think there's choice involved with, well, certainly with some things there's choice involved with liking or disliking, but it seems a pretty automatic function. Good, yes. Well, see that's, there's also this, This line from the, what's it called, the faith in mind verse attributed to the third ancestor which says, the great way is simple, just don't pick and choose.

[29:44]

And that's always sort of bothered me because on some level, of course, we do have likes and dislikes. We are electromagnetic beings. We have positive and negative particles or waves or whatever they are in our atoms. And so, as electromagnetic beings, there is attraction and aversion. But I think this is something different that Linji is saying. He's saying, don't make that into a dislike. So we say, our precept about anger is, you know, sometimes some of the earlier translations say, don't get angry. But I think we say, do not harbor ill will. When you see some negative, so actually the second skanda, which we translate sometimes as S, What is it? So what do we say in the Heart Sutra? Feeling. Actually, it doesn't mean emotion.

[30:48]

It means positive, negative, or neutral responses. So we do have positive, negative, or neutral responses to things. But I think when Linji says, from my point of view, there's not a thing to be disliked, it's like when there's a negative response to something or a positive response to something, we don't have to turn that into some dislike. we can say, oh yeah, there's just a positive, negative, or neutral response. And when we see that clearly, maybe it all becomes neutral, or maybe it's just like, oh, OK, well, so what? We don't have to make that into something we dislike. Does that make sense? So when we're conscious, when we're paying attention to our positive, negative, or neutral responses, that's all they are. They're not that we don't make it into a big thing. We're like, I dislike this kind of people, and I like that kind of people, or whatever. I like Ukrainians, and I dislike Russians, or whatever.

[31:52]

And that takes some work. It's not automatic. We have to be aware of our second skandha. So this is all my interpretation of what he's just saying from my point of view. So that's an interesting clause. From my point of view, he's actually looked at this. There's not a thing to be disliked. I found it interesting, the section where he talks about sort of having faith in yourself, and he talks about sort of like being people who cut off their own heads and then chase them around like before that. Yeah. And then he follows that right up with your, what is this, like sacred beings? You know, and sort of like one foot, how I heard it, not, and chasing things.

[32:58]

And it made me wonder the extent to which the fact that we're already Buddhas, the fact that we're already sacred in some sense, that also is the part of us that struggles the striving gets in the way of us just simply acting as that. Yeah, but in a way, it's a little too much to say it the way you just said it. To say we're already Buddhas is, you know, we don't even have to go there. Forget about Buddha or not Buddha. Just, you know, just Thaigin, or Roy, or Dave, whatever. We don't need to, so to talk about, I think where he's coming from, is you don't have to make sacred and secular, you know?

[33:59]

Just, okay, what's going on right here? You make these categories, you make these ranks of special and ordinary, and then you start chasing after things. And you think you should be something other than just, okay, here I am. So we don't have to do that. And yet, part of acknowledging our ancient twisted karma is to see that, oh yeah, we do that. We do have positive and negative. We do make up sacred and profane, or however you want to put it, pure and impure. We do make up these categories. We do make up these things. So how do we get unstuck from that? And it's making up those categories is what gets in the way of just, okay, here we are. There's nothing to do. And so, since there's nothing to do, let's take care of things, is what I would add to what Lindsey says.

[35:00]

But what's the basis for that? What's the basis? If there's nothing to do, why does it make a difference to choose to take care of things instead of not taking care of things? Because... You like it better. You like, right? No, because we... You like the world without child abuse or without environmental exploitation. So, do we ever really... The basis for that, good, okay, there's not a basis for that, there's a reality of that when we let go of the separations, then we're all connected. So it's not somebody else who's suffering. It's this, so, you know, and this is how I see Sangha too, that we're communal, we're community, I mean, all beings. when there's hurt, okay, how do we take care of that? It's not like you don't have to make up a basis, it's just a kind of response to what's in front of us. But, you know, I really do appreciate the teaching and I understand what you're saying, but sometimes we hear somebody like Rinpoche

[36:12]

So it's a little tricky. It is a little tricky, yeah. And I think people can read something like that and think that it means, oh yeah, well, don't worry, be happy, and forget about it. So I'm commenting on Linji and saying, I don't take it to mean that. And I'm coming from Bodhisattva's side, and maybe from Buddha's side, well, everything's fine. And if the planet disappears, OK, but I don't I don't know, it's tricky. Yeah, but from some point of view, I don't feel like it's a polarity. I feel like right here, now, we're all connected, and so we take care of it. Bill. Uh-oh, we have a couple of hands in. We're actually past time, but I'll... Jan, did you want to go first? Well, my first response is, what are you going to do with time if you don't have to do anything?

[37:36]

And so that is your choice. I heard a scientist speak yesterday, and he said that the chance for a human being to exist is one atom over all the atoms in the universe. The actual fact of existence of the human being. If you took one atom out of all the atoms in the universe, it would be one to all. That's a very old Buddhist teaching, by the way. And so his final thing that he said is, do what you want and be who you are because you have the privilege of living and dying. Yeah. And then he also said that in the Northern Hemisphere there will be no human life in 50 years.

[38:44]

That's possible. But in the Southern Hemisphere there will be no human life in 60 years. Of life, period. Except for insects. Yeah. So in terms of what's... And I also saw that what's happening now, some scientists say climate-wise, is there's a 40-year time lag. So the effects that are... Well, anyway, there are various different calculations about all these things. I don't think that any of this is set in stone. So it's up to what we all do now. So I don't think, I don't believe that it's predetermined. And one scenario might be that there will be no... I think what you just said is kind of an extreme prediction. But maybe not. It's possible that what you said will happen.

[39:46]

But there are many possibilities. So, you know, saying things like that, I think is, you know, just serves to make us all feel desperate and discouraged and is not helpful. But I also don't think it's realistic because it's not, you know, how things develop in time is not set. So what we do and how we are makes a difference. Everything that happens, everything we do makes a difference. And what's definitely true is that things are going to be pretty dire, but how bad it's going to be and how that will express itself remains to be seen. Did you want to add something, Bill? I wanted to, what about just sort of a Harry Belafonte approach of, you know, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, don't mess with Mr. Inbetweener, in the sense that, you know, this business about there's nothing to dislike, partly because there's so much to like.

[41:12]

You know, why even spend any time on things, you know, that you, I guess I'm just thinking of people who... I mean, I have an old friend who, unfortunately, is very cynical and I see sometimes almost every other sentence he begins with, oh, I hate it with this, or, you know, I can't stand that. And I'm just thinking, why are you spending your whole life hating things? Yeah, it doesn't help. Yeah, and anger and hatred, you know, has more of an impact on oneself. So, you know, it's one of the things I learned in the 60s, of being real angry about things going on, just, you know, ah, made it hard to breathe. So, you know, I think there is that, you know, how do we make it better? Well, and on the other thing too, I think, you know, maybe this is a highly politicized reading of the question, but I think a kind of mass letting go is necessary before anything can change.

[42:29]

Just like in a bad relationship, say, people hang on to bad relationships because, after all, it's still a relationship or something, but nothing can really change there until there's a letting go. We don't know how change is going to happen but what's going on now is not sustainable. But people still hang on to it. Yeah. So things are pretty bad now in certain ways. This last winter here is affected by climate damage. If you look at Truthout, there's another name for that now. I forgot now. What did I call it before, Caitlin? I forget now. No, it was Anthro. Anthrogenic. Climate distortion is the new designation for anyway. So something's happening and we don't know what it is exactly, but it's happening and it's going to get worse.

[43:33]

And at some point people just, you know, are going to say, hey, this is, you know, so something will happen in response. Anyway, we're way late, or a little late, and some of you need to get going, I guess. So we're going to stop and sing our closing song, and then I have announcements. are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are irresistible. I vow to end them. Bar my gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The blue wave is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them.

[44:37]

Intelligences are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Narmada is our finalist. I vow to enter them. The way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Wings are numberless. I vow to free them, whose delusions are impossible. I vow to end them, who are my gates are boundless. I vow to end them. A love that awaits, unsurpassable, I vow to realize.

[45:38]

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