I bow to Jesus Christ. Case 27 in the Blue Cliff Record. Yunmin's The Body Exposed, The Golden Wind. A monk asked Yunmin, how is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall?

[01:05]

How is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall? Yunmin said, body exposed in the golden wind. When I first came to the Bay Area, I lived in Berkeley and went to Lazendo on Dwight Way for a while, and then to San Francisco, to Page Street. And in 72 or 73, I moved into the building at 300 Page Street. And my house job was to take care of an older woman, Votra Fisk, who was in her 80s, I believe, or at least her late 70s.

[02:10]

And I would help her by cooking her chicken once or twice a week, a couple times a week to give her protein, give her some oxygen. She had lung problems. And just be kind of a general attendant to her. She didn't need that much help, but she needed some help. Votra Fisk was a very unusual person. She'd been an actress. She'd studied with Krishnamurti. She'd studied with Alfred Korsavitsky. She'd studied with Yogan Sanzhaki. She was a famous Hollywood agent. She had a varied life and was a very interesting person. I mean, just a pleasure to sit down and talk with her about anything. And then soon I was going to leave for Tassajara.

[03:17]

After a year or something I was about to leave for Tassajara. And I asked her for a picture of herself that I would like to have before I went to Tassajara. She gave me a picture when she was in her 20s or 30s as an actress. I thought that was quite amusing. I wasn't interested in that 20 or 30 year old whose health might have been in better shape and who may have looked beautiful in a certain way. I didn't know that person. The person who I learned from and admired was different.

[04:27]

She used to say, I've been studying Buddhism for 30 or 40 years, however many she would say, and all day long I chased the Dharma up and around my room. That's the woman who really appreciated. The tree may have been withered, the leaves may have fallen, but the golden wind was very present, even though she may not have known it. She may have thought the golden wind was when she was ganky and healthy and getting rave reviews as an actress. explaining these koans very much.

[05:31]

But this one is case 21 of the Book of Serenity. Yun-Yin sweeps the ground. As Yun-Yin was sweeping the ground, Da-Wu said, Too busy. Yun-Yin said, You should know there's someone who isn't busy. Da-Wu said, If so, then there's a second moon. Yun-Yun held up the broom and said, which moon is this? These guys must have known each other pretty well, having a good time. But I'll just read it again. As Yun-Yun was sweeping the ground, Dao-Wu said, too busy. Yunyun said, you should know there's one who isn't busy. Dawu said, if so, then there's a second moon.

[06:38]

How many moons do we have? Yunyun held up the broom and said, which moon is this? I'll work my way through all these books. I think we all lead, or most of us, lead incredibly busy lives. Whether you're in a Zen center or out of a Zen center, there's work. religious life, meditative life, family, friends. And if you're like me, you may think you're too busy sometimes.

[07:44]

Poetsu Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's son was here, comes here every year or so. One of the last times he was here, he gave me a gift of this raksu. And on it, it says, inexhaustible. I don't know why he wrote this for me. It was at a time when I wasn't feeling particularly inexhaustible. But we should know that there is someone who is inexhaustible, as well as that there is someone who is exhaustible. And we should think about, is this one person or two? In the midst of whatever problems we may have, can you stop and experience the golden wind?

[09:06]

At least a little bit. Not as some golden age apart from where you are, where your self-image was at its highest. But can you experience the golden wind that's present now or whenever? You know, I think we all think about our lives and think we're happy or sad or things are going well or things are going really terribly or whatever descriptions. And it's not wrong. Of course, we always have some evaluation and we can learn from it. But apart from our evaluations, apart from our signposts, apart from a certain emotional feeling,

[10:15]

or whichever cross-section of your life that you're using as a mark, your body may be exposed to the golden wind. exposed, not in some safe, untouchable place. Body exposed in the golden wind. Last book. Long time ago, in China, famous Buddhist poet Tzu-Tung Po wrote an entry, I think this was in his journal, on August 5th, 1088.

[11:41]

One desires pleasures and fears a hard life. These are sentiments one entertains before leading the so-called pleasurable or hard life. After one is in it, one tries to think of the envy and the fear and finds that they are gone. Then where are the pleasurable and unpleasurable moments after they are past? They seem to be like a sound a shadow, a breeze, or a dream. Even these four things are somehow more tangible. Besides, how is one ever going to find happiness by countering one illusion with another illusion? I wish I could express this deep truth to you, but I cannot.

[12:55]

One desires pleasures and fears a hard life. These are sentiments one entertains before leading the so-called pleasurable or hard life. After one is in it, one tries to think of the envy and the fear and finds that they Then where are the pleasurable and unpleasurable moments after they are past? They seem to be like a sound, a shadow, a breeze, or a dream. Even these four things are somehow more tangible. Besides, how is one ever going to find happiness by countering one illusion with another illusion? I wish I could express this deep truth to you, but I cannot. This week, for some reason or other, there are a couple of days I was feeling

[14:21]

I was pretty depressed, and I didn't know why. And it wasn't just the kind of depression that comes from time to time, but it was a pretty kind of deep one, where I didn't know what to do, or I didn't have any energy. And the golden breeze, what was the golden breeze? Is that some phrase? What are we talking about here? But even though somewhere I didn't experience or was skeptical of some golden breeze, I also knew there was a golden breeze. and eventually I could return to my body and my breath and be present with the golden breeze no matter what my karma or circumstances were.

[15:38]

But this is not easy and it's not final. But I ask you, how is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall? Are you dizzy or not? And how many moons have I lived into this Sunday? Rather than say any more or read any more stories, I'd like to hear from you.

[16:48]

Reconcile. Knowledge and that. Well, at first I didn't, you know, I just said, well, this, I'm, wow, this is, how did I get here? And of course, It didn't work this time, but often when I find myself angry or depressed or dissatisfied, I usually ask myself, what is it that I wanted that I didn't get? And usually, when that becomes clear, I can say, oh, yeah, well, I could understand why I wanted that. That would be a nice thing to have that moves on. But that didn't happen this time. But I just said, well, I guess, I didn't say this, but using this analogy, I guess the tree's withering, the leaves are falling.

[18:33]

What's going on? And at some point, I did have some experience of returning to my body and my breath and some ease or some penetration or some loosening of a grip. But, you know, just maybe another moon or another, but it did make some difference. But like Vulture Fisk, it's very easy for us to think of ourselves only when, or want it always, the foliage to be thick.

[19:56]

And the golden breeze is there too, but it's true, exposed. The leaves fall so the tree's exposed. How much of our life do we not... How often do we expose ourselves to anything? Of course we're always exposed, but we're always... Yes, thank you. Yes? I don't understand the second story. Will you talk about it some more? Okay, I'll talk about it a little bit, but I'm probably not going to be satisfied. One guy was sweeping, and the other guy said, too busy. Well, I think we have a sense of that. Sometimes when we're working, we're too busy. And sometimes we don't know we're too busy, but it's clear. I think maybe you have an experience of that, where there's something really extra going on.

[21:02]

Of course this is very usual in beginning Zen practice, when someone has a great idea about what Zen practice is and what sweeping is, you know, this is the way to do a Zen sweeping job, you know. And somebody else may say, you know, it's a little too busy, or get off the trip a little, or something like that. You should know that there's someone who's not busy. No matter how busy we are, it's just the next thing. There isn't a gradient called busy that's preeminent. We're always busy. When we're sleeping, we're busy. You should know there's someone who's not busy, that you're not exactly caught up in I got to get this job done, you know. That's what my mark is. You know, that's what my identity is.

[22:07]

Your identity is, you know, whether you have leaves or not, or you're sweeping. That's what these koans are about, the same thing. Leaves and sweeping. But then, You should know there's someone. But then the other practitioner comes back and says, what do you mean? There's two moons. There's someone who's busy and someone who's not busy. And you're creating this menagerie. And then the other one just holds up the broom, which says, knocking on wood or getting back to what was going on at the time. Anyhow, that's my cliff notes on this column. But there's more going on than what I've said. But does that help?

[23:12]

I've been doing it for years. Of course. I can't ever do anything but that in some way. And this doesn't say you shouldn't do it. There's a certain note that gets added in there of ridiculousness about it, of doing that. And I noticed you said you were depressed, and I tend to connect being depressed to something to do with desiring the fun and avoiding the hard life, and yet depression is more than wind or something. It's a struggle for me in that. How to keep doing this ridiculous thing. Feeling I feel so bad and I want to feel good. That's how people spend money. It's how I spend money. Everything. That's why I'm here probably. There's a sense of the ridiculous in that. At the same time, since you're going to get depressed sometimes. That could be the golden wind. And I don't know what I'm trying to ask you, but there's somehow... Yeah, no, I think you're getting... You are being vague, but you're getting it.

[24:39]

There's something there that you're covering, which is... There's no way around desiring and not desiring. I mean, it's not like you can erase it. I mean, that will really lead to depression, which is like, oh, I can't desire any... It's just to be... How lightly are you taking it? How busy are you with being happy? In fact, there's a certain... Of course, we need to take care of that part of our life which needs to be happy. There are lots of... Needs to be busy, needs to take care of a job, take care of... There are things we need to do. But how locked into them are we? How much are we into a trip over it? There's an element of it, if you're really locked into being happy, you know, it's hopeless. It's possible. That's four noble truths.

[25:42]

However, if you think being happy is impossible, therefore I shouldn't try, you're not even in the arena. You haven't even gotten to, you know, up at bat. There's one other thing I was... Is there a part that I didn't... because there is a part I didn't respond to yet, which I was going to. Well, I had a thought as you were talking. The part was the ridiculousness of it. Oh, okay. And this... I'm wondering if ridiculousness and something very important are just the two moons and stuff like that. Uh-huh. Well, when I say about ridiculousness, whenever I feel some big emotional block, I usually say to myself, what is it that I want that I didn't get? And when I did, when it's like I wanted a relationship, or I wanted a job, or I wanted money, or something's going bad, it's both ridiculous and appropriate.

[26:47]

If I get the answer, which is, oh, I wish I'd gotten that job, It's both ridiculous that I should be so depressed about it, or I would really be happy if I got the job. It's both ridiculous, but it's also completely understandable. It's like, of course you should want that. Of course it would have been nice if you had that. Of course that desire is, I don't know, understandable. And it's not bad that you had that. But it's ridiculous that you were so tied to it. So in a way, it's ridiculous how much you invested in it, but the situation is not ridiculous, or the impulse is not ridiculous. It's just that you're so, or I'm so, locked to it. You can stand on either side.

[27:56]

You should just stand in the middle and take them both. Both points of view, or... Which, which... Referring to, you know, if it's ridiculous, it's not ridiculous. No, you have to include both. Include both? If you cut out either one, you're hurting your life. You need to include both. Or I could say both are essentially true. And which one of those should we leave out? Anyhow, I should have disclosed my bias in practice, which is one of not excluding anything. from the highest to the lowest. Not necessarily acting on your lowest or anything like that.

[28:58]

Not that. But not... It's not a matter of that. They're both there. Their desires are there. And it's not a matter so much if one is right or wrong, though of course you need to make, we always have to make those judgments. I don't mean to say that, but it's, they're there. Therefore they're true. she was going to share that with you.

[30:18]

And if she gave you a picture of herself at 80, you wouldn't be telling the story here. There would have been no... And so that's also the golden minute. Right. And I could give that back to her, which said, well, you know, that's a nice picture and so, but no, I know you. And that's who... You know, and then she could, that could help her to the extent that she was caught in the difficulty of her life and thinking that she was just struggling and she was just an old woman trying to make do. When in fact, she was as high an expression of Buddhist practice as I've ever seen. But of course she couldn't, or we, it's hard for us to see that. And in a way she had to act it out too. Because it would have been a, And that's what I was trying to say. I don't mean to say, oh there's the golden wind so therefore this depression really isn't happening.

[31:22]

No, there's something going on and I have to respect that. separation from it. That puts you right in the middle of your suffering. And to just answer your question, and that's why if you conjoin with your depression, you're no longer separated. Even though the depression is still there, but the valence changes. It's not like you're swept away or caught up in it or something.

[32:26]

You are, but it's not like you control it. But, yeah, you're joining instead of separating. The more you separate from your depression, the more you're increasing that mode, to some extent. These are all generalizations and, you know, often it's good to separate from your depression and not to go into it in a certain way because what I found about depression, particularly because what struck me this week is that, you know, I get depressed from time to time, but the strength of that I hadn't had in, you know, over ten years. I mean, that kind of was very powerful. And one of the things I learned about depression, for me anyhow, was a lot of it was self-indulgence. So when I say, join with depression, that could lead to a certain kind of increasing of self-indulgence, which is not what I meant either. So I think you understand that any prescription is up to a particular situation.

[33:30]

Yes? What was the part about how can we be happy covering one emotion? With another. That's trying to get at, I think, don't rationalize your life. Oh, there's the golden winds there. I'm depressed, but the golden wind is really there. Or, my life is miserable, but if only this happened, then it would be okay. Is an illusion the same thing as a delusion? I know they're different. I don't have a dictionary, and some of you may know better, but just my projection about this is illusion is, I have a very kind of, illusion is something you see through.

[34:48]

It's like a lens that actually you can sort of take away or it's like floats before. Delusion seems more solid than that. But I don't know if that's true or not. You can look in your dictionaries, but that's my feeling about it. They're similar. They're the same kind of not seeing clearly or The illusion is more solid and it's more proactive rather than the illusion is more passive? No. Could it possibly be that an illusion is possibly something that you're not responsible for?

[36:10]

Like an illusionist creates an illusion for you, but a delusion is something that you create. Whatever. Illusion and delusion are... I mean, I think it's useful to make those distinctions, but what is meant here is, don't be fooled. Don't be fooled by either your desires or... It's too narrow an understanding of either your desires or your non-desires. The world is vast and wide. That leads to another poem, but I won't go into that. I was just thinking, I seem to learn a lot from my children.

[37:12]

Yes. Just be upset because it happens. Yeah, that's what I meant by, I can find out what it is that I wanted.

[38:21]

Then you can move from it. If you don't know what it is, you can't move from it because you don't even know what you're moving from. Is that simply eliminating the struggle? Well, you know, Paul Goodman said that, you know, if you're If there's some conflict, you're probably not being creative enough. I don't think it's giving up the struggle, but it's being bigger about it. It's not a passivity. There may be more juice put into the situation, actually. Getting to say, well, what is it you really wanted? There's a lot of energy being put into the situation, but it's creative energy. One side's going to win. So, is this... Do you think the con's irrational thinking?

[39:48]

I've blown it. Thinking, on some level. Nature of thinking, I think, because that may be your question. What, is this the two moons again? You know, I think, I always say, we're thinking beings, we're feeling beings, we're... intuitive beings where... and to have a lobotomy is not... Thinking is a great tool and a terrible master. Not that I want to put up something else to replace thinking as a master. It all has its realm. You know, if you're very smart and you think you can think your way through the world, it's true. You try to do everything with your mind and you're more or less successful. If you're beautiful, you try to get by on your looks.

[40:50]

If you have a kind of emotional ease, you try to use that. But actually, the world is You know, physical appearance is important, intelligence is important, emotional flexibility is important, intuition is important. All of these things we need to develop, and not to denigrate one, except that it gets in the way of us using our other muscles. So, you know, that's what these koans are about. Sometimes they're very rational, but there's somebody else who's, you know, somewhere else, you know, off the charts and using some other way. And they criticize each other, and it's not that one is right or not. These guys sweeping, you know, which is the bigger wise guy?

[41:51]

The guy who's too involved in the sweeping or the other one says, you should know that there's someone who's not thinking. I mean... But together, they're expressing big mind. Together. Even in the koans where there's one person who's obviously got the answer and the other one who's being the straight man, it actually... It actually takes both of them. You need a straight man to tell the joke. Is it possible that, you know, our desire, for example, if we become depressed, to escape from depression, to bring it to an end, to replace it with contentment or something or happiness, If we could succeed at that and would be the total master of everything that occurred, in other words, any feeling we disliked having, we could end and produce any feeling we desired, then it seems to me that it would really be depressing.

[43:04]

Well, no, no, I know what you're saying, and of course there's some truth to that, and there's also some depression, and when you get locked into that, that is very depressing. To the extent that when we begin Zen practice, or any practice that we try to control, and to the extent that control is somewhat successful, it's ultimately not successful, but if somewhat successful, leads to that kind of depression. I think, but in fact, This is really another lecture. But Buddhism isn't about either being a victim or being a master. It's about participating. And of course, to participate, you have to try to control. I mean, you have to go out there You have to push the control issue a little bit. Otherwise, you're not up at bat, as I was saying. Otherwise, you're not even trying. Otherwise, you're just being a victim.

[44:08]

But of course, when you try to control things, or you try to do your best with things, they fail. Because you can't control things. You can participate. In fact, we're always participating with things. Whether we're playing the role of victim, master, or participant, we're always in relationship with things. So could it, in some sense, the fact that leaves fall and we maybe sink into despair or some morose feeling, that's when, and could it be that the body being exposed to the golden wind is our ability to feel that, to feel depressed? Yeah, we were exposed. We'd given up our control. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to push that either. I don't want to push that either, but there's something in what you're saying. I don't see it exactly that way.

[46:02]

I think it's true it could be that way. I think it's like a doorway. A doorway can be a barrier or an entrance. Succeeding in work, developing work, talents, they can be barriers or they can be entrances. Being smart can be an entrance. If you try to push smart, To everything, it's a barrier. To take care of physical needs, wealth, et cetera, is an entrance. And to the exclusion of emotional life, it's a barrier. These are, you know, they're kind of all opportunities, but opportunity has an up and a down side. There are opportunities for us to get caught, or there are opportunities to open. Once again, I see it both ways.

[47:14]

I think it's true, modern society, which emphasizes greed, really is a big barrier. However, society in general, which is looking at what the common good is, how we work together, rather than my own you know, if I'm depressed or not, or something like that, in the bigger sense, it's a great opportunity. Even though, as an opportunity, it's also an opportunity to get lost in other people's greed, hate, and delusion, or our greed, hate, and delusion. And it's true, you know, I agree that The way we understand society, the way we look as groups together, has taken a beating in the past hundred years, and certainly in the past ten or twenty years, into a kind of very self-centered, individualistic kind of niche. But the understanding of that is that's what society is about, it's part of the same thing.

[48:17]

rather than noticing how individualistic our society is and finding institutions or Zen centers or schools or et cetera, opportunities where we can break that pattern. Because there's no way around society, institutions, our thoughts about society, how they affect us. There's no way around it and we can't run from it. It's just another where we have to work and it's true that it may be at a low ebb, and we may have to do more giving than getting from that situation. One thing I've found in trying to contact some people, I traditionally have run away from that sort of thing. Yeah, in some way we know we're, particularly in the Bay Area, but in America we're a group of individuals who are in a way anarchistic.

[49:31]

And we like to be angry at society, we are angry at society, which is a mess, for good reasons. And of course we're always perceptive critics of it, but we're never actually part of You know, when people complain to me about Zen Center, which they do time to time, I say, Zen Center isn't a perfect place, and if it was, I wouldn't be there. And that's true of our institutions, it's true of our society, it's true of our practice, it's true of us. It's important for us to be idealistic, but not too idealistic. It's important for us to strive but not to have too negative a balance around failure. The trees are withering and the leaves are falling, but that's because we're destroying the forest. Where is the golden wind?

[50:36]

If you're trying to correct the people who are chopping down trees, do you think the golden wind is there? Yes, the golden wind is there. If the golden wind wasn't there, it's hopeless. But in fact, there's a golden wind. In fact, when we start to trash the environment, people notice it and say, hey, let's stop trashing the environment. And also, the leaves are falling. The leaves would fall even if a man wasn't here. That level of leaves falling happens, you know, for some trees, six months out of the year. Now, it's true, we can join with the harmful aspects, but we can try to nourish. But too much nourishment without recognizing that it's in the order of that leaves are going to fall.

[51:39]

You know, it's not seen in the picture. But that doesn't mean we should egg on the... I'll shut up in a minute. We should egg on those who have destructive and very limited ideas, that don't see trees as beings and contributors, only as what their monetary worth is. But the fact that we see that, the golden wind is present, our understanding of how we're related to trees, and how we're one big organism doing this together. How in the koans, whether you're stupid or smart, you're a part of presenting the Dharma. That in fact, if you say something not so bright, and someone says something, and something else comes out of it, some better understanding, some wider thing that can help, the golden wind is there, and it's being manifested.

[52:49]

I'm sorry. Thank you.

[52:56]

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