Good morning. We've been speaking this week about the founders of Chan or Zen in China, the first six ancestors, from Dogen's 90-case koan collection and verse commentary. In his extensive record, we spoke the first day about Bodhidharma, just at the end of the Bodhidharma story, Dogen reduces to Bodhidharma faced the wall for nine years. So, we're facing the wall, we're allowing the wall to face us. And then yesterday, we talked about the second ancestor, showing Dogen's commentary on Bodhidharma facing the wall.

[01:02]

He talked from the point of view of Bodhidharma, erasing his eyes from his cave up in the mountains with no companions, geese crying in the sky, and him brushing away the weeds to look up at the wind, but then an astonishing snake emerging. who might be his match. So that's referring to the second ancestor. We talked about some yesterday. In terms of his meeting with the third ancestor, and again today we're going to talk about the third ancestor. And the third ancestor, as I said yesterday, was a leper. And he complained to the second ancestor or asked for help with how to become free from his misdeeds, his evil karma, which he assumed had something to do with his situation.

[02:06]

The way of thinking in Asian Buddhism, that karma was personal, and it is, but it's also communal. Anyway, today, This case is about the third ancestor later on when he was a teacher. So, the case in the verse. At the place of great teacher, third ancestor, Janja Zongsang, once the novice, Sayi Daoshin, at age 14, made prostrations to the ancestor and said, I entreat the master with your compassion to give me the dharma gate of release and liberation. The ancestors said, who has bound you? The novice Daoshin said, nobody bound me. The ancestors said, then why are you seeking for liberation? Hearing these words, Daoshin had great realization and worked as a follower there for nine years.

[03:17]

Dogen says, A phoenix chick is born from a phoenix, but they are not the same. A dragon gives birth to a dragon child, but they are not separate. If you want to know the meaning of a wheel freely spinning, only someone turning somersaults can show you. So there's a lot here. So at the third ancestor's place, this novice who became the fourth ancestor, Daya Dasa, started early, started at age 14. Dogen himself started early. They say that he had some awakening or decision to leave home, as it were. When he was at age seven, looking at the smoke arising from the incense at his mother's funeral.

[04:21]

But no matter how old we are as we start, as we start again today, we can hear this novice saying, I entreat the Master with your compassion to give me the Dharma gate of release and liberation. So we say, Dharma gates are bound as I vow to enter them. And our practice is about release, about letting go, about dropping body and mind, about getting free from all the tangles of our personal and communal karma, causes and conditions. Letting go, being free. Zazen, Dogen describes this, is the door to gated ease and bliss. And sitting here for these days, we sometimes feel that. And also, as we talked about yesterday and we'll continue, we also feel the pain.

[05:37]

And it's important, it's necessary to feel the pain, to feel the sadness, to feel the to be open to the suffering of the world on your own seat and in Chicago and the rest of the world. So he asks, with your compassion, please give me the Dharma gate of release and liberation. And the third ancestor, who had gone to Bodhidharma to become free of his sins or misdeeds, karma said, oh, who has found you? Who has tied you up? And again, you know, these stories, they sound like they're back and forth. And sometimes, but sometimes they don't report that, you know, one of the people may have gone, the novice here might have gone away and considered that for,

[06:40]

a few periods of meditation or a few days or a few months. Or maybe he just heard the question and said, oh, don't worry about me. And then there's this very important question. Why then are you seeking for liberation? This is, this is not, this is, there's a lot to this question. Why are you seeking for liberation if nobody enslaved you? Hearing these words, Dushan had a great realization and he stayed on and worked helping there

[07:43]

the Third Ancestor's Temple for nine years. So this is the case as Dogen frames it. Dogen says, well, I'm going to stay on that case for a little bit. I want to go back to the Third Ancestor's situation as a leper. But first, there's another story that's related to this in some ways. This is a story that Dogen, it's an old story that Dogen tells, at least one of the places he tells it is in his early essay, Ben-Dawah, Negotiating the Way, one of his first real writing. And he tells a story about, who was, you know, after Huining, the sixth ancestor who I'll talk about, actually starting tomorrow.

[08:53]

There were these first six ancestors, somebody asked me about this, why isn't there a seventh? Well, there were a couple of seventh ancestors, and there were many others after that, and then there were, in Chinese Chan history, five houses. One of them was Saodong, or what is in Japanese called Soto. There was Renji, or Rinzai. There was a young man's house. All of these are just different lineages with slightly different styles, and a lot of the teachers worked with each other, or worked as students with teachers from other houses too, so they're not separate schools. But one of the five, there was also the Guiyang School, but one of the five is Fayan, founded by Fayan, The guy who told his teacher he was going out on pilgrimage, and the teacher asked him, whoa, what's the purpose of your pilgrimage? And he said, I don't know. And the teacher said, not knowing is nearest. So when you start getting into these stories, these old teaching stories, there's stories that relate.

[09:59]

There are many stories that come up in connection with each one. Anyway, Fayen once went to his director. His name was Bala Yonja. And he asked the director, how long have you been in this assembly? And the director said, I've already been here for three years. And Fayan said, oh, you were a student. Why haven't you ever asked me about Buddhadharma? And sometimes people come and say to me, well, I don't really have any questions. the director said, I cannot deceive you, O teacher. Once when I was at Zen Master Baizhou's place, Seiko in Japanese, I realized the peace and joy of Buddhadharma. So again, we're talking about this other story where the future fourth ancestor is asking for, how,

[11:00]

how to find release and liberation. And this, the director at Fayyaz, Baon, said that he had already realized the peace and joy of the Buddha way with another teacher. And Fayyaz said, oh, with which words were you able to enter? So what was, what, helped you to see through all the tangle. And Bao En replied, I once asked him, what is the self of the student? In other words, what is the self? What is my own self? And he said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. So this is a famous story. Bao En said, good words. However, I'm afraid that you did not really understand them. And Bayon, the director, said, my understanding is that the fire boy belongs to fire.

[12:14]

Already fire still is his head, just like seeing self and seeing self. And Fayyad said, now I really know that you don't understand. If Buddhadharma was like that, it would not have been transmitted up to today. And Bayon was overwrought and left immediately, he says. On the road, he thought, oh, wait a second. Fayan is one of the world's finest teachers and also the guiding teacher of 500 people. I guess he had a large community. Certainly, there must be some point to his saying this about Mayer. So he returned to Fayan and did prostrations and repentance and asked, oh, what is the self of the student? And Fayan said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. At that point, Bhawan was greatly enlightened to the Buddhadharma. But what I really wanted to mention is Dogen's brief commentary about that. Understand clearly, he says, that to comprehend the self itself as Buddha cannot be called understanding Buddhadharma.

[13:21]

If the comprehension that self is itself Buddha was the Buddhadharma, Zen Master Phayen would not have used that saying. for guidance or made such an admonition, he wouldn't have repeated it either. So it's not just understanding Buddha nature. From the time you first meet with the teacher, Dokyeom says, just genuinely inquire about the manners and standards for practice. Single-mindedly engage in the way of Zazen. Do not keep your mind stuck on one single knowledge or half comprehension. the wondrous method of Buddhadharma is not without purpose." Anyway, somehow this story of the third and fourth ancestor reminded me of that. The future fourth ancestor said, I ask for your compassion to give me the Dharma gate of release and liberation.

[14:27]

And the ancestor said, And Ayyana said, nobody bound me. Then why are you seeking for liberation? Why are you seeking liberation? And Daushin realized. So all of these stories of questions and responses have many facets. We're still studying them, not as some historical relic of some ancestral legacy, although it is that, but because they have something to do with our own practice life. Sitting here in Sashin, we all have a chance to go deeper, to settle more. There's no end to that. Why are you seeking for liberation?

[15:32]

Why are you looking for awakening? Why are you looking for ways to more deeply connect your life with your life and with the world, with compassion? So, Dogen's verse says, well, yeah, Dogen's verse says, a phoenix chick is born from a phoenix, but they're not the same. A dragon gives birth to a dragon child, but they're not separate, or it could be read as the child is not extra or superfluous. To me, this is like we talked about Dongshan, the founder of, formally, the founder of Tsao Tso-Zen's saying, I am not him, he actually is me.

[16:45]

Or I am not it, it actually is me, about suchness, but also about his teacher. I am not him, he actually is me. I kind of hear that in these two lines. A phoenix chick is born from a phoenix, but they're not the same. Well, they say that phoenixes are actually born from ashes. I don't know. If the European phoenixes were different from the East Asian phoenixes, I don't know. Maybe there were some different, slightly different species or something. But anyway, this says a phoenix chick is born from a phoenix, but they're not the same. A dragon gives birth to a dragon child. Hooray. But they're not separate. So the first line is like, I am not him.

[17:49]

The phoenix chick is not the phoenix. The phoenix mother, phoenix parent. A dragon gives birth to a dragon child, but they're not separate. He actually is me. There's this dynamic. in terms of our relationship to liberation. So how did the future fourth ancestor hear, why are you seeking for liberation? Did he hear it just as, oh, why are you bothering with this? all beings, all being Buddha nature. What brought you here is it. But why are you seeking for liberation? What's going on?

[18:53]

What is this seeking? The dragon gives birth to a dragon child, but they're not separate. So we're talking about these different generations of The people who kept this alive, you know, and so now we are able to do this practice together and each settle in our own seat and find some possibility, some deepening, some sense of opening. So dragons and dragon children are not separate. That's nice. Here are the ancient dragons that came. Then Dogen says, if you want to know the meaning of a wheel freely spinning, only someone turning somersaults can show you.

[20:00]

So the dharma wheel is always freely spinning, you know. Dharma's free. It's, you know, Maybe it wasn't available until Suzuki Roshi or Yoko Sanzaki came to the West, but it was always here. Walt Whitman realized something. Arturo Rimbaud realized at least I am not him. Anyway. This wheel is freely spinning. Only someone turning somersaults can show you. Well, I'm not physically agile enough to turn somersaults, literally. Probably Paula could do that for us. Yeah. Yeah, so... Only someone turning somersaults can show you.

[21:06]

Only someone who can turn these old stories. Only that part of you that can turn these old stories. Only that part of you that is alive. So turning somersaults is a pretty good image for vitality and energy and liveliness. These stories are alive. Dogen is always turning, somersaults, turning around the words and the meaning of these old stories and of the sutras and of our experience. Sometimes, you know, the practice feels a little stale. You know, this is part of the natural rhythm.

[22:09]

practice, at times when it feels like you're on some plateau or it's not so interesting and some of you keep going anyway. But we don't really know. Our idea of turning somersaults is not really turning somersaults necessarily. There is this vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. But part of the point is how do we spend, you know, when we realize, oh yeah, this practice has been kind of dull or boring for, you know, for a couple of weeks or for a couple of years or whatever, how do we turn, how do we somersault into going deeper or opening up more widely, developing our capacity to express this in our activity?

[23:12]

in our weekly activity. Only someone turning somersaults can show you. So I want to go back to the part of this that I talked about yesterday about the third ancestor. So this story is after the third ancestor became a teacher. sort of passing along to the fourth ancestor what, in some way, he had gotten from the second ancestor. But there's something kind of, well, there's something more elegant in the question of the fourth ancestor. The third ancestor was a leper. And he came to the second ancestor and he said, this disciple's body is bound up in illness. Please help me repent for all my misdeeds of bad karma, which he assumed was the cause. And I mentioned from Rebecca Solman's book, The Far Away and Nearby, in her section, talking about Che Guevara's travels through South America as a doctor before he just became, just spent full time as a revolutionary.

[24:34]

And he ended up in a leper colony And I didn't know about this until I read this, but it's not, so just reading from some of what Rebecca says about this, it's not the disease of leprosy itself that caused so much damage to hands and feet. The disease strangles nerves, kills off feeling, and when you cannot feel, you cannot take, what you cannot feel, you cannot take care of. not the disease, but the patient does the damage. You begin nicking, burning, bruising, abrading, and otherwise wearing out your fingers, toes, feet, hands, and then losing them. So pain serves a purpose. So I think this is relevant to the story too. Why are you seeking liberation? Pain serves a purpose.

[25:35]

If you're not open to feeling the pain of your nose and eyes and fingers and toes, if you're not open to feeling the pain of your heart, if you're not open to feeling the sadness of the world around us, you're in danger. What you cannot feel, you cannot take care of. It seemed shockingly accurate at the time, a new and brutal version of an old truth. Anyway, she reads up on leprosy and found out that it's a bacterial infection to which most of us are immune, and the small percentage who aren't have a hard time catching it. It is among the most incommunicable of communicable diseases. When you catch it, many years may pass before symptoms appear, making the method of contagion mysterious even now. People who get it have all the may have only minor symptoms on their skin, rashes and so forth. But this bacillus is particularly at home in the cooler parts of the body, the skin, the hands, the forearms, the feet and lower legs, the nose and eyes.

[26:48]

And when people don't feel the pain, This could cause damage. So pain protects you. So this future fourth ancestor asks this leper, this third ancestor, with your compassion, please show me the Dharma gate of release and liberation. The Third Ancestor's compassion, I think what he received from the Second Ancestor was that he was able to feel his pain. And for us sitting sashim, you know, some periods we may feel release and liberation. Some periods we feel pain. And in our lives, how do we stay open

[27:52]

How do we not become numb? At the same time, being overwhelmed by the sadness and the suffering is another kind of numbness. So we have to stay open to it, but find our balance in it. How do we stay upright between periods of just great sadness? or loss, or sorrow, or concern for loved ones, and between that sense of release. So why are you seeking liberation? The fire boy comes seeking fire. It's not that the fire boy already has fire. Of course, he already is fire. Buddhas sit and listen to Dharma talks as well as giving Dharma talks. So again, there's this thing here about Tathagata Zen and patriarchal Zen.

[28:59]

There's this way in which you're all Buddha already. Each one of you is beautiful and beautiful. And yet, why are you seeking to relieve suffering? Why are you seeking to be helpful instead of harmful in the world? Why are you seeking for liberation from suffering? So we all have some responsibility. As phoenix chicks, we're not the same as the phoenix. As dragon childs, we are not separate from a whole lineage of dragons. So these stories are the background to how it is that we're here practicing in Chicago.

[30:03]

And maybe some stories speak more loudly to you than others. That's okay. And each of these stories, you know, it's not about understanding them. That's easy. That's not the point. Why are you seeking? Why does the fire, fire girl or fire boy come seeking fire? So how do we feel what we feel? And then again, how do we find that letting go that allows us to drop down into that deeper space that you've all already connected with here? And yet, still there is seeking, still there is searching, still there is settling, still there is opening. Dale, what's the physiological term you use for this?

[31:13]

The parasympathetic surge? Yes. Yes. Please enjoy that. Please allow this deep settling. Please allow yourself to feel what you feel. So maybe I'll go back to Mary Oliver, who I talked about on the first day, because Dogen talked about Bodhidharma, sitting in his cave for nine years, Raising his eyes with no compassion, geese crying in the sky.

[32:18]

Duncan says, don't laugh at him, crushing away leaves to look up at the wind. So, maybe Duncan was kind of inviting Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver's wild geese, She says, you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. So maybe, you know, Bodhidharma sat for nine years in a cave. We don't need to do that. He's already done it for us. You don't need to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting like the second ancestor felt he had to do, or the third ancestor felt he had to do. What is leprosy? You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

[33:20]

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain move across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese hide in the clean blue air. are heading home again. Who are you listening for? Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over, announcing your place The third ancestor asks the future fourth ancestor, why are you seeking for liberation? The fire girl comes seeking fire.

[34:23]

If you want to know the meaning of a wheel freely spinning, only someone turning somersaults can show you. But that's what I thought of, like it's a little bit disorienting. It's a little bit disorienting. Thank you for demonstrating. So how do we allow ourselves to turn and be turned? Dogen talked about the Sixth Ancestor Huineng in another story.

[35:35]

We're going to get to him tomorrow, but told a monk who had memorized the Lotus Sutra that he didn't understand it, that he was being turned by the Lotus Sutra instead of turning it. You know, Dogen talks about the Dharma flower, being turned by the Dharma flower, or turning the Dharma flower, and says either way, it's just the Dharma flower turning the Dharma flower. We have to keep looking for this. So, we have this opportunity this week to turn somersaults in various ways, to turn these stories, to bring them alive. The dragon gives birth to a dragon child, but they're not separate. How do we awaken to our numbness?

[36:39]

Because we all are numb. And we're numb to it. We're living in a world of numbness where mass shootings happen every week. Actually, I've seen that there have been more shootings in this country this year than there have been days. But, you know, we need to support the gun industry and we need to support the weapon industry. It keeps creating more wars. How do we not become numb to all of that? How do we not become numb to our own pain? How do we keep seeking fire? Even though we know that our heads are already on fire. So please, in this Sashim, remember your balance.

[37:48]

It's okay to go deep. down into the pool to feel the blazing light all around. Then when the bell rings, please get up and join us in walking meditation. How do we find our balance? Not being overcome, overwhelmed, That's another kind of numbness. At the same time that we're willing to feel the sadness in our own hearts, feel the difficulties, feel the pain in our knees, whatever. So there is wondrous settledness, wondrous openness available.

[39:01]

There is pain and sadness available. Don't run away from either. Don't get bound by either. Please enjoy your inhale and exhale. Please enjoy your zazen. Thank you. Beings are numberless. I love to free them. Delusions are impossible. I vow to end them. The Dharma is surroundless. I bow to her, to her. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[40:06]

I bow to real life.

[40:10]

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