Today is the second day of our seven-day Sashin here at Bingoch. For those of you who don't know what Sashin is, Sashin is seven-day sitting. Sashin means something like gathering the mind or embracing the mind. not a small mind, but reaching out to expand our mind, embracing totality of mind. And embracing totality of mind by not chopping the world up into little pieces, but allowing the world to be whole. including all of its little pieces.

[01:23]

So in keeping with the spirit of Sashin, I want to talk about Koan from the Blue Cliff a collection of old stories called koans, which were compiled in China in the 13th century by a man who's, in Japanese, they call sepcho. And these stories are examples of understanding for Zen students.

[02:27]

This is case number 43. And it's called Tozan's No Cold or No Heat. No Cold or Heat. And a commentator named Ingo gives the introduction to the case. And in his introduction, he talks about Tozan and praises him for his wonderful way of instruction. And he says, The words which command the universe are obeyed throughout the ages. The spirit able to quell the tiger amazes even thousands of the holy ones. His words are matchless. His spirit prevails everywhere. If you want to go through with your advanced training, you must enter the great master's forge.

[03:32]

Tell me, who could ever show such a spirit? And then he said, take note of the following. And this is the main subject, which is the story. And the story goes like this. A monk said to Tozan, cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them? And Tozan said, Why don't you go to that place where there is no cold or heat? The monk said, Where is that place where there is no cold or heat? Tozan said, When cold, let it be so cold that it kills you. When hot, let it be so hot that it kills you. And then Setjo, the compiler, has a verse.

[04:37]

And he says in his verse, a helping hand, but still a thousand-fabric cliff. Show and hint. No arbitrary distinction here. The ancient emerald palace shines in the bright moonlight. Clever Konrad climbs the steps and finds it empty. In the introduction, the words which command the universe are obeyed throughout the ages. It refers to Tozan's words. In Buddhist practice, we have what we call the Dharma. And the Dharma has various meanings. But in this case, it means the truth or the law of existence, how things really work.

[05:40]

So what Buddhism is about, in teaching of Buddhism, is about presenting how things really work, the law of causation, the law of cause and effect. And If you can come up with something that is more fundamentally real than Buddhist teachings, then as a Buddhist you should practice it. So what Buddhism expounds is the law of the way things are. For every cause there is an effect, and each effect brings a new cause. And each of us creates our own life, endlessly, through the law of cause and effect.

[06:50]

This is Buddha's Dharma. But he's here also talking about Tozan's way of expressing the truth. Master Tozan was the founder of the Soto school in China. And it bears his name, To, for Tozan, and his student's name, So, for Sozon. So it's called So-So-Sek, school, which is where our lineage comes from. So Tozan is considered a very great master. And Engo says, the words which command the universe, or he's referring to Tozan's way of teaching.

[07:57]

are obeyed throughout the ages. The spirit able to quell the tiger amazes even thousands of the holy ones. In other words, he's able to tame the tiger, he's a monk. And his words are matchless and his spirit prevails everywhere. If you want to go through with your advanced training, you must enter the Master's forge. In other words, you must go through the Master's strict teaching. This is Zen training for the teacher. The teacher presents his training, which is Like entering a crucible.

[09:09]

When you want to separate the gold from the clay, the gold must go through the fire. And the gold goes over here, and the clay goes over here. And it's a refining process. So in order to find the goal within the student, the student must go through the teacher's forge. Tell me, who could ever show such a spirit? And he says, see the following main subject. A monk said to Tozan, cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them? In a sense, this monk is Pretty good month, actually. That's a good question. He's saying something like, how can we escape from suffering in this world?

[10:15]

This is the fundamental question. This is everyone's fundamental question. This is every human being's natural koan. how do we escape from suffering in this world? And it was Buddha's koan. And all of Buddha's teaching issues forth from this question. So the monk says, how can we escape from cold and heat? And in other words, he's saying, what is nirvana? How do we find nirvana? Sozon says, why don't you go where there is no cold and heat?

[11:18]

If you want to escape from cold and heat, go where there is no cold and heat. Get out of here. Go find it. And then the monk says, well, where is that place? Key question. Well, teacher, where is that place where there's no cold and heat? Where is that place where there's no suffering, no birth and death? Essentially, the question is, where is that place where there's no birth and death? the arena where suffering takes place. So underneath this question is, where is that place where there is no birth and death? So Tozan very skillfully says, when cold, let it be cold, so cold that it kills you.

[12:24]

When hot, let it be hot, so hot that it kills you. Another way of saying that is, when cold, be cold through and through. When hot, be hot through and through. Kiltio is pretty good. Pretty extreme, but very final. No hedging, no fooling around. Why this is a good example, or a good story, for people when sitting in retreat, sitting sasheen, is because sasheen is a kind of microcosm of our whole life.

[13:36]

To sit sasheen, puts our life into a very small space in time, condenses our life. And we can look at it, at our life, very minutely, like through a magnifying glass. Everything that we do becomes extremely magnified. Since there's nothing to do but sit all day long, all of your movements, everything that you do, everything that occurs becomes significant. In our usual life of moving around in the world, we have so much to do.

[14:43]

that we tend to neglect to really see what we're really doing, what's really happening in our life, in a minute way. But in Satsang, you just sit very still. Don't move. If the fly comes, just let the fly land on your nose. Feel the bottom of your little feet. If your legs hurt, just let them hurt. If you have a lot of thoughts in your mind, a lot of confusion in your mind, just let One of the most obvious difficulties that people have when sitting to cheat is when you sit for a long time in the same position, your legs start to hurt.

[16:04]

So the problem of pain becomes very prominent. The question of what to do is always a big question. Shall I move or shall I sit still? That becomes a big question. Shall I move or shall I sit still? So at every moment you have to make a decision. decision, moment to moment. So your life narrows down to making a decision, moment to moment. And you begin to see how your mind works, making a decision, from moment to moment, what you will do. And Chodan is addressing this question.

[17:07]

is asking Tozan about this question. This question is, how am I going to find that place where I can escape from the pain in my leg? How am I going to find that place where I can escape from the pain in my mind or in my back? How am I going to find that place where I can escape from the discomfort of life. An ordinary way is to find some comfortable position. As we live our life, if you really look at it, what most of us are doing, most of the time, is trying to find a comfortable way to do something. So usually when we become uncomfortable, we shift around and find a way to be comfortable.

[18:21]

And then when that becomes uncomfortable, we shift around to find another way to become comfortable. And so our whole life is involved in shifting around to find various ways to become comfortable, both physically and mentally. Changing our surroundings constantly shifting and changing our surroundings. So that's very natural. In Sashin, or when we sit Zazen, we sit still and don't change when we become uncomfortable. When we become uncomfortable, we don't change our surroundings, or we don't shift to become comfortable. We just deal with the problem at hand. How can we deal with the problem at hand? Poisson says, when you have pain in your leg, just become one with the pain.

[19:29]

When you have pleasure, just become one with the pleasure. Pleasure and pain are opposites. When we have pain, what immediately comes to our mind is pleasure. How can I escape this pain in order to find pleasure? How can I escape this uncomfortable position in order to find comfort? That's what comes to our mind. And our mind creates a split. We're no longer where we are. We're longing for something else. As long as we have this longing for something else, we can't accept where we are. We can't accept our position. So, Tozon says to the monk,

[20:42]

When your legs are painful, just let them be painful through and through. When there's an opposite, or a desire for something else, then we call it suffering. We call our present position suffering. So, how do we escape suffering and enter the realm of nirvana? The problem that we have is, if we think nirvana is to escape from suffering, then every time we can never find nirvana. Because we're always, as long as we're splitting in half, nirvana is gone.

[22:06]

So to become what we are, thoroughly, without craving, without asking for something else, without setting up that split in our mind, we can actually accept where we are and abide in whatever is happening, whatever position we're in, to just abide calmly and peacefully. Nirvana is not an escape from painfulness, although it is an escape from suffering. Difficulty is not necessarily suffering. realm, which is called the realm of suffering, and we must live our entire life in this realm.

[23:32]

And how do we do that? How do we live our life in the realm of reality? This is a big question for all of us. How do we live our life in the realm of reality, rather than the realm of delusion? The realm of delusion is thinking that there's something else besides this. We have some hope that there's something else besides this. The realm of reality is that this is this. Just be it. When we are completely this, This is the realm of nirvana, not escaping from this world, but totally accepting of being this.

[24:56]

Difficult, very difficult, because our tendency is to want to escape. Human tendency is naturally to want to escape. I don't know why that is. We're very tender creatures. So we must be careful of our reactions. Our reaction, we'll want to withdraw, but when we know better, we can stand our ground with life. So, a sign of maturity in our Zen students, or in anybody, is to stand our ground with life.

[26:04]

completely become life itself as it unfolds, not making an attempt to escape. I want to read Satchel's poem. He says, in Satchel's verse, he says, a helping hand but still a thousand fathom cliff. In other words, Tozan is reaching to the monk, a helping hand, but for the monk it's still a thousand fathom cliff. He has to get to... Tozan's telling him about it. He's saying this is the way it is, but the monk has to get to it himself. Each one of us has to get to it ourself, through our own effort. Just hearing it is not enough.

[27:07]

And then he says, shou and hen, there's no arbitrary distinction here. Shou and hen are two Chinese terms. Shou means absolute and hen means relative. He says there's no arbitrary distinction here in Tozan's answer. In other words, there's no thinking about it, no philosophy between the absolute quality and the relative quality of Tozan's answer. He cuts through everything in his answer. Absolute quality means when cold, just be cold, completely through, through and through. That's absolute quality of life.

[28:13]

There's no opposite to cold. No opposite to hot. Just cold as the whole world is nothing but cold. No place else to go. The whole world is nothing but hot, no place else to go. That's absolute quality. Relative quality is as cold and as hot and as bright and as wrong and as yes and as no. But here, there's no distinction. And then he says, the Emerald Palace shines in the bright moonlight. The emerald palette is that place where there's no distinction, only the absolute prevails, and the relative is included, or nirvana.

[29:21]

Perfect peace. within all situations. And then he says, Clever Conroe climbs the steps and finds it empty. This refers to a story about a dog and a rabbit who had a race and they both exerted themselves to the utmost until they fell down dead. And he's using it as an analogy for this monk and fozon. He says, Clever Conrail, he's talking about the monk, climbs the steps and finds it empty. But what is empty? I have a great temptation to explain what is empty. So, the only way to get through the Shin

[30:54]

or one moment from beginning to end. It's just to go moment by moment. If you see the end, oh, seven days. Then you've defeated yourself already. Just one moment after the next. This is a wonderful opportunity. to just live our life from one moment to the next, moment by moment. Each activity is an absolute activity. Walking, sitting, breathing, eating, There's no one activity that stands out any more than another.

[31:58]

Everything is equal. Equal and absolute. Don't compare your practice with someone else's. Oh, he sits so still and I'm wiggling around. is what you do. Don't make judgments. It's very easy when we get into this situation, because everything we do, all the slightest things that we do are magnified. So it's easy to look at your neighbors and say, I can't stand the way they lift up their And you begin to see how our mind works, and how we attach to judgments.

[33:02]

The main thing is to pay attention to your own practice. Don't judge other people. Don't compare yourself with others. Just do your own work. And do your best to create a harmonious atmosphere. In one sense it looks like Sashin is something that's presented by somebody else for us. But actually when we enter into Sashin, we're creating Sashin. Each one of us creates the atmosphere of Sashin. You may feel insignificant, but your presence is very significant. So, in Sashim, there's no coming and going.

[34:10]

Just, here we are. This is our life. And moment by moment, we deal with the difficulty Yeah. You are the boss of your mind.

[35:19]

And nothing can control you. In Zazen, Our point of Zazen is to find total freedom. Within the most restricted activity, to find total freedom. If you can find your freedom there, you can find it anywhere.

[36:06]

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