Good evening, everyone. Welcome. So I want to continue the prelude I started yesterday to our practice commitment period, which will start in a few weeks, three weeks from yesterday. The theme is for this two-month practice commitment period, Some of us will be doing a more intensive practice, and there are forums about that out in the front. But whether or not you're formally doing that, we'll be talking about these teaching stories about the practice of suchness. So these are all from the 9th century Chinese founder of our teaching tradition named Dongshan, who is considered to have written the Precious Mara Samadhi we just chanted. And actually, a couple of years ago, we used that text as a theme for the practice period.

[01:07]

This year, we're going to talk about various of the stories about him. This is from, well, from the Book of Serenity Koan Collection and also from this new book, of my Just This Is It that will be actually officially out in a few weeks. So, there are many themes, and I wanted to kind of open up one of them tonight. But part of Dongshan's teaching has to do with this illusion of self that we all cherish and carry with us. and project onto our life. So Dongshan said, when he was awakened after leaving his teacher, his teacher said, when asked what his main teaching was, what his reality was, he said, just this. He said, so these stories all have to do in various ways with how do we practice

[02:14]

just this, paying attention to this experience. And all of these teachings, of course, start from this practice of zazen, or just being present and upright and facing ourselves and feeling what it is to be present in this body and mind here tonight, apart from our ideas of who we are and what the world is. And so there's no way to describe this accurately, but we use this nickname, suchness or thusness. And in the story I talked about yesterday, Dongshan said about this, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone everywhere I meet it. It now is me. I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness.

[03:19]

So, suchness we can talk about as related to that which is beyond all the conditioning of our world and our grasping and seeking and striving and so forth. The unconditioned ultimate reality that we get a glimpse of. in the sitting and actually, you know, from the perspective of this teaching of suchness, even if you're here for the first time, if this is your first time doing meditation, whatever brought you here, even if it was just a class assignment, in some ways, something about that impulse to be interested in how to live In reality, how to live with kindness and helpfulness in the world has to do with this practice of suchness.

[04:24]

So that's just by way of a little introduction. So I just want to touch on a couple of the stories. So one of the themes of these stories, there are a few major ones, but one of them is our usual idea of a path. So, in many things that we do, we have various stages, and we accomplish things. For students, you get through various grades, and you eventually get a degree, or you get a job, and you do various things to develop your career, and so forth. This is, of course, ordinary way of thinking, and you may think that you do meditation so that eventually you will have some special experience or get some great understanding and so forth. This is our usual way of thinking. So, of course, we do think that way. But what Dongson emphasizes is just this suchness, this present reality, apart from some idea of some goal in the future or some experience in the future, right now.

[05:35]

What is it like? How does it feel? So, in a number of the stories he uses images or he talks about the way in which we think that we're trying to get somewhere else. And how that's actually not real. Sometimes, you know, it's okay if you think that way, and there are spiritual traditions and approaches that use those kinds of incentives as a kind of tool to encourage us to keep going. But the point is just to stay present. So we call this just sitting. And there are various concentration tools we can use, but the point is just to be present. And not run away from ourselves. Face the confusion and all the thoughts and all the to-do lists and all the, you know, stress and things that come up in the week and so forth.

[06:38]

How do we stay present in the middle of that? Without trying to fix it, without trying to push it around, just really settling into, what is this on our seat now? So, one image that Dongshan talks about is the bird's path. Sometimes he says to follow the bird's path. Very interesting image. And I'm just going to touch on it. So you'll see a lot more about it. One story, a monk asked, Dongshan, one of the students asked him, what is the bird path, which you regularly recommend? And Dongshan replied, one does not encounter a single person. So, that description of it is kind of solitary, but it also has to do with this not seeking the outside that Dongshan spoke about.

[07:40]

And also, not encountering a single person also indicates the emptiness or non-reality of a single self, of oneself or any other selves. Whatever our idea of the self is, it's thrown away by nature. And in each moment, the bird is flying. And so part of the image is the bird flying away. It leaves no traces of itself. There's no remnants. The monk asked again, how to take such a path. And Dongshun said, one proceeds with no self underfoot, or another way of translating that. is with not a single thread tied to your feet, not bound by anything. So this birch path is a funny image and it works in lots of different ways. Part of how Zen works is not through some kind of reasoning process so much, there's some teachings that do that, but more a kind of poetic and through images and to open up some fresh way of seeing our life and our practice.

[08:54]

So this birch path is like that, it has a number of different aspects to it. Again, we don't, when birds fly past, we don't see a trail. We don't see, you know, like if a jet flies by, we might see a trail of smoke or whatever. And yet birds fly the same migratory paths for centuries, sometimes very far, thousands of miles. So, are birds seeing a trail? Anyway, this is, This is about the mystery of how we actually apprehend suchness, and partly how it's conveyed and how it's come down to us through all these generations. So one of the themes of Dongshan Stories is how to share this awareness of just this, of suchness, that we get a taste of.

[09:58]

are sitting, some of the time, in the middle of all the thoughts and feelings. It's not that you should get rid of the thoughts and feelings, it's right there in the middle of them. So Dongshan's view of the path is clarified by this distinction between the general directions towards awakening and the systematic stages of accomplishment. So there are various systems of in Buddhism, too, the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths and various depictions of stages of progression on the path of awakened beings. And those can be very useful. But Dongshan is basically like the Eightfold Path. Very early Buddhist teaching is things like right view, right consideration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, very important. right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. But these aren't eight that you follow in sequence. They're all kind of a circle that we are involved with all the time.

[11:04]

So we can have systems of practice that are not stages of development. And this idea of progress, which is so much a part of our culture in various ways, whether we're making progress or or things are falling apart is something we could discuss, but we have this idea of getting better, you know. And Dongxian is talking about something radically other than our usual way of seeing our activity, and especially our spiritual practice. So, just a little more on this idea of the path. and how we see our way. Suchness is right here. Even when we feel beset by our emotionality and all our distinctions and discriminations, it's right here.

[12:05]

So no neat roadmap can rescue us from the reality of human sadness and confusion. There's no instruction manual to how to fix it all. That's not how our life is. The emanescent bird's path with no discernible tracks or steps to follow may serve as a subtle indicator to the realization of this omnipresent suchness beyond any indicated marked-out path. So he plays with this image of the bird path in various ways. And I'll just say that one image, so there's a lot of things to say about this, a lot of ways to play with it, but well, one image, one way of talking about the bird path is in terms of the Tao or the way. And I'll just reference Gary Snyder and his,

[13:12]

The most important Zen book to read is called Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder. And he talks about the path and going off the path and the wildness of our own life, of our language, because he's a poet. Anyway, he says that, well, he refers to the Tao Te Ching, the fundamental Taoist text, a path that can be followed is not a spiritual path, and Gary Snyder, great Americans and pioneers, says, the actuality of things cannot be confined within so linear an image as a road. So we do have guideposts, we do have guidance, we do have, there's all kinds of systems or paths, but how do we use those without being, without making them into something that we get stuck on? How do we see them as free? One story from a teacher a few generations before Dongsheng, Shuto, whose Harmony of Difference and Sameness we also chant sometimes.

[14:17]

He was asked by a student for the essential meaning of the Buddha Way. And Shuto said simply, not to attain, not to know. So this is so subversive to our usual way of thinking, where we think we have to attain things, we have to know things. one of the big questions in Zen is, how do we know things? What does it mean to know something? So we sit still, upright, enjoying our breathing, and we know things about how we are feeling on our cushion that are not about knowing things in a kind of linear, rational way. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's a deeper way of knowing. So, Shinto said, not to attain, not to know. as the fundamental meaning. When the student asked if there was any other pivotal point, Sita just said, the wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting.

[15:20]

So this sense of the wide sky as a way of talking about suchness, about our deepest reality, this open, spacious possibility of being present and helpful in the world, The white sky does not hinder the white clouds drifting by. That could also be seen as a metaphor for clouds, sometimes refers to unsui or mountain cloud of water monks or practitioners who wandered around China, like Dongshan did, after he studied and before he became a teacher, he wandered around to different teachers. So, wandering around and walking is a part of our practice too. And here in America, too, people go to various teachers and try various traditions. This is part of looking for this deeper reality that we already are, but how do we take it on?

[16:27]

So, we could say that Dongshan's critiques of our usual idea of the path are represent what's sometimes called sudden awakening. So I want to tell a different story, which I just started to talk about yesterday. One of the ways to see the practice in this tradition of Soto Zen is the Japanese word, Saodome, is the name. It's the way you say Soto in Chinese. Not that Dongshan or Dogen were trying to start schools, but there's this lineage of teaching. we can see, that has some interesting consistency, and goes off the path in that way sometimes, too. But in some ways, this practice starts at the top of the mountain. So if you come here to meditation instruction Sunday morning, we start with just sit, be present, pay attention.

[17:33]

talking about. Now, later on, we'll talk about counting breaths, or listening to sounds, or using the mantra, or various other tools to help settle, and that's important. But the basic practice, just being present, is, in many other Buddhist traditions, considered the most advanced practice, that you do only after years and years and years of all kinds of different studies. So, in some ways we start at the top of the map. And that's a little problematic. It's challenging. This is a challenging practice. Not because somebody's going to come around and hit you in the shoulders if you move. And I encourage people to, if you need to change your position in the middle of Zazen, that's fine. The point is to sustain a practice of paying attention. So I encourage people to do this several times a week at least. Take some time to stop and feel your breathing and just be present.

[18:42]

What's going on? Pay attention. And it's not that we have to figure out what's going on or make up some new story about who we are. How does it feel just to be here? So this is starting on the top of the mountain. And there's this story. A student came to Dongshan. And Dongshan asked him, where have you come from? And he responded, from wandering in the mountains. Dongshan asked, did you reach the peak? And this monk said, yes. Dongshan then asked, if there was anyone on the peak? And the monk said, no, there was not. Dongshan said, if so, then you did not reach the peak. Have you noticed some truth here? If really nobody was there, then neither was this student. If this peak experience was true emptiness, in which not a thing exists, then neither could the monk have been there.

[19:53]

But this monk was pretty good, very steadfast. And he said clearly, if I did not reach the peak, how could I have known there was no one there? So that response is worth considering. Dogchen was pleased. But then he asked why he had not remained on the mountaintop. And the monk replied honestly that he would have been inclined to do so. But there was someone from the West, who is probably here referring to Buddha or Bodhidharma, coming from India, who would not have approved. Dongshan praised the monk. So this story is, you know, an example of one of the many stories of Dongshan that has a lot going on in that, again, we have to believe that he reached the mountain peak because he knew there was no one there. What does it mean to see no one right here?

[21:02]

So there are lots of other stories that relate to this. And one of the ways all this Zen talk and these Zen stories work is that there are stories that you start to recognize the echoes of one story in another. But I'll tell one of the stories that relates to this. It's the story of Dongshan's, one of Dongshan's main disciples, whose name was Yonju, who happens to be the, or Ongo Dojo in Japanese, who happens to be the successor of Dongshan from whom our tradition and Dojo comes from. So, once Dongshan asked his student Yonju where he had been. And Yonju replied that he'd been walking in the mountains. When Dongshan asked if he had found a mountain to reside on, Yunzhi said categorically that none were suitable. None were suitable for residing.

[22:03]

Dongshan then asked if Yunzhi had visited all of the mountains in the whole country. And Yunzhi said he had not. Dongshan commented, Yunzhi must have found an entry path. Yunzhi proclaimed emphatically, no, there's no path. Dongshan said, if there's no path, I wonder how you've come to lay the eyes on this old monk. Yunzhu replied, if there were a path, then a mountain would stand between us. Dongshan approved this, saying that henceforth not even 10,000 people could hold down Yunzhu. So the very idea of a path implies some separation. If you think that you have to follow a path to get somewhere else, you're not here. A path means that there's some distance in space or time that needs to be traversed to get to a particular destination, someplace we think we need to get to.

[23:07]

Even if we're not, you know, don't think we know where, even if we're open to it being a surprise destination, still, if we think we have to follow some path, that means, by definition, we're not there, we're not here. right now. So, Yunzhu affirmed his own present community in the Dongsheng. So, you know, a lot of these old teaching stories, they're very slippery and they're subtle. And sometimes it's helpful to just sit with one of these stories. Or just a phrase from him, like Dongshan saying, or Yeonju saying, if there were a path, a mountain would stand between us. If there's a path, then you're not here. Then we're not together. Or going back to the other story, going to the mountaintop story, if I did not reach the peak Hekkodae,

[24:19]

on some level that is mind-boggling, and that's okay. So this is a way of talking about sudden awakening. Sometimes people think sudden awakening means having some sudden, obtaining some sudden flashy experience sometime in the future. becoming an enlightened person sometime in the future, after you follow the path enough, or after you practice enough, then if you sit zazen long enough, or go to enough dharma talks, or read enough books, at some point in the future you'll be whatever you think you should, whatever delusion you have about enlightenment. But sudden awakening is not like that. Sudden awakening is what Dogpa is talking about. This is it. This is your life right now, here, this evening. Whatever's happening on your Kushner chair right now, you might not like it.

[25:25]

That happens plenty of times. You might think, oh, is this it? No, I want something else, I want something more. If you do that, that's how our mind works. I have to get rid of this, then I'll be okay. Whatever habit or, you know, Fear or frustration or craving we think we have to get rid of. Then I can be on the mountain top. But as I was saying before, once you just... The fact that you're showing up here tonight is... Some of you showed up here many, many times, but even if it's the first time, this... this idea of bodhicitta, this thought of awakening. And in some traditions there's a whole process of affirming and developing that intention. And it's not that there's no change, and it's not that there's no transformation that happens in the context of this ongoing practice.

[26:33]

So there are many mountaintops. But it's not that you have to get somewhere else. So the end of the Precious Man Samadhi we just chanted says, if you can do this continuously, this is the ultimate mastery. But in the host, one may try to translate it. But just to keep paying attention. This is difficult. Just to sustain a practice of actually being willing to see what our life is here, now. Just sitting. Not trying to manipulate ourselves or things out there. Sometimes we need to do that. When it's time to turn, like if we're driving a car, we need to turn right or left.

[27:34]

You know, there are times when we have to work with all kinds of stuff in our life. But how can you do that from a place of just this? So as we do this practice in a gentle, kind way, kind to ourselves as well as the people around us, we start to have a wider capacity. The more we befriend ourselves and are willing to be present with our cravings and our fears and our anger, without needing to react, but just to be present in the middle of all that, we start to have a wider capacity to respond. But that's not exactly a path. That's not about being somewhere else.

[28:34]

So Dogen, the 13th century Japanese founder said, just experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. So we talked about a path as a process, but it's a path that's not about going somewhere else. It's just right now, Buddha is reawakening. So this is very slippery stuff and maybe that's enough for one talk. Comments, questions, responses, any question about anything is fine. Please feel free. Can you follow a path that's no path? Can you settle and breathe into a space that's not about trying to get somewhere else.

[29:41]

This doesn't mean we don't try and take care of things in the world. It doesn't mean we don't respond to the situations in our life. It doesn't mean we don't try and, you know, we don't help out. or respond to situations in society, but how to do this from a place of, we're not trying to be someone else. So I might keep babbling if nobody has anything to say, but please. Yes, hi. Thank you, Tim. I was curious how suchness relates to emptiness. In some ways, they're, you know, they're talking, in different ways, they're talking about the same thing, or they're two sides of the same coin. And technically I might, you know, I can, not exactly the same, but they're certainly parallel.

[30:46]

So emptiness, as a technical term, means that nothing, everything is empty of separate, isolated, substantial existence. Everything is interrelated, interconnected. Suchness is a way of talking about the same thing, but kind of in a more positive way. Emptiness says, no, it's not that, no, it's not that. So you can use both, but suchness is more a way of talking about that reality of interconnectedness from, as Junghyun said, just this. just this is it, as a mantra, while you're sitting. But yeah, it's a good question. There are two ways of... So emptiness is not a thing and suchness is not a thing. Suchness is the way things is. And then there's the, you know, this

[31:51]

I now am not it, it is not me. Or no, the other way around, I now am not it, it is exactly me. So this way of seeing, so this interplay of suchness and our constructed self is also something that these Domshaj stories address in interesting, intricate ways. Other questions? Or comments? Well, this considering is not. Another term for the path is the way. And so if there is no path, the equivalent is there is no way. We could see it that way. But part of just this and part of suchness is that it's not static.

[33:00]

Suchness is alive. I mean, suchness is not a thing, but suchness as reality is constantly shifting and changing and transforming. So the way is right here. The way is not somewhere else. There's no path to the way. The way is this process of taking the next breath. I would say there's a way, but it's not the ordinary way, or it's not the way we can describe, or it's not the way we think the way is. So it's still a kind of path? It's a path that doesn't go anywhere. It's a path that is, you know... the breath circulating through the oxygen going throughout your body, carbon dioxide coming out. It's this process of paying attention.

[34:05]

It's not somewhere else. Yes, Brent. Yes, it's alive. So these words get tangled up. It's a process, it's organic. It's happening. It's not static. The world is alive. Things are alive. Everything is shifting. And yet, it's not about some road map to somewhere else. How do we be present? Of course, it's intricate. Presence is not separate from past and future. Everything that ever happened in your life is part of you sitting in that chair now.

[35:10]

So, being present isn't about... Sometimes we want to be here now in a way that gets rid of all of the stuff we regret from the past, or all of the stuff we fear in the future. But actually to be fully present includes all of that. But it's fermenting. I'd say fermentation rather than a progression. Yes, Dan? So, I have a dog that I have to walk twice a day, every day, rain or shine. And we take the same loop, pretty much, a little mile, more or less. And so it's the path that goes nowhere, to the park, around, back, And I find that for me, if I think of it as this chore, this thing that I have to do until I can do all these other things, it just feels like it takes forever. And my dog, every time we do it, she's eight.

[36:13]

We've done this, I don't know how many times. it's always so exciting for her every single time. It's just like, it's the same block. I'm like, it's the same block. And it's just, for her, it's just thrilling. And of course, then often that makes it even worse for me if I am thinking of it as like, I have to walk the dog so that then I can do all the other things I need to do. And the more excited she gets, the more irritated I get. And so of course, you know, the trick that I can't, that I tried to make myself do and I can't do is to just relax. The walk is the walk. It's not going to get me anywhere. She's going to want to stop and sniff that pile of leaves. And apparently it's very exciting. And, um, but do you think it's the same path? Right. What's your name? Rosie. Rosie knows that there's a difference.

[37:13]

sniff different fragments here, and a new fragrance there, and she hears sounds that you don't hear that are happening. So this is a good example of not knowing, or knowing that we don't know everything that is happening right now here, because if Rosie was here, she would go around sniffing all of us, and she would learn all kinds of things about us. For her, she's seeing the freshness. And, you know, people feel this way about satsang. Oh, it's just them going and sitting and doing the same thing. You know, people in the course of their practice get on plateaus and it becomes boring or stale or whatever. But if you're really paying attention and sniffing all the new fragrances or whatever, each breath is totally actually.

[38:14]

But our mind tells us stories about it being the same thing, it's the same path, and I've been by this house before. So that's a good example of

[38:23]

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