Good morning. This is my second talk of this spring practice period. Some of you were at Mel's class the other night. He read a poem that he wrote at the end of practice period in the city when they were studying the Denko Roku which we're studying and I didn't take it too personally because I think it was written before the fact but once more the wooden man with the big nose is here to talk again. It's not quite the same. So for this practice period, Sojan has asked me to study case one of the Blue Cliff Record. Blue Cliff Record is one of the three or four key collections of koans, of Dharma dialogues that we have and we study.

[01:12]

Another one is what we're studying in class, the transmitting the light, the Dinko Roku. Anyway, this is a very famous koan which goes by the title of the highest meaning of the holy truths. So I'll probably give several talks on this and today you and I can begin to share back and forth our understanding of it. So I'd like to read you the case. It is about Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen school, and for this occasion we moved Bodhidharma from his place usually in that corner there to here. Most of you can see him, maybe some of you over there can't, but I just thought it's good to keep him in front of our eyes as we're talking about him, which we'll be doing for the rest of the morning. wild and wooly guy, particularly for somebody of a patrician background, which he was.

[02:20]

He had no pretensions at all. Anyway, it's nice to have him here. So I'll read you the case itself, but I'll also read you the kind of introduction, or pointer, which was written by Yuan Wu, who was one of the people who put together this collection of koans back in China. And then I'll read you the other editor, Shui Tou's poem. and in between the case itself. So here's the pointer. When you see smoke on the other side of a mountain, you already know there's a fire. When you see horns on the other side of a fence, right away you know there's an ox there. To understand three when one is raised, to judge precisely at a glance, this is the everyday food and drink of a patch-robed monk.

[03:32]

Getting to where he cuts off the myriad streams, he is free to arise in the east and sink in the west, to go against or to go with in any and all directions, free to give or to take away. But say, at such a time, whose actions are these? Look into Shveto's trailing vines." And now we have the case. Emperor Wu of Liang Asked the great master Bodhidharma, What is the highest meaning of the holy truths? Bodhidharma said, Empty without holiness. The emperor said, Who is facing me? Bodhidharma replied, I don't know. The emperor did not understand. After this, Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River and came to the kingdom of Wei. Later on, the emperor brought this up to Master Chi and asked him about it.

[04:38]

Master Chi asked, Does Your Majesty know who this man is? The emperor said, I don't know. Master Chi said, He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara transmitting the Buddha mind seal. The emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite Bodhidharma to return. Master Chi said, Your Majesty, don't say you will send somebody to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn't return." And that's the end of the case. Now, Shveto's poem, which also throws some light on the case. The holy truths are empty. How can you discern the point? Who is facing me? Again, he said, I don't know. Henceforth, he secretly crossed the river. How could he avoid the growth of a thicket of brambles?

[05:42]

Though everyone in the whole country goes after him, he will not return. Emperor Wu goes on and on, vainly reflecting back. Give up recollection. What limit is there to the pure wind circling the earth? The master Shveto looked around to the right and left and said, is there any patriarch here? He answered himself, there is. Then call him here to wash this old monk's feet. So I'll read you the case once more. So you have mind along with Bodhidharma in I. Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, what is the highest meaning of the holy truths? Bodhidharma said, empty, without holiness. The emperor said, who is facing me? Bodhidharma replied, I don't know.

[06:45]

The emperor did not understand. After this, Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River and came to the kingdom of Wei. Later, the emperor brought this up to Master Chi and asked him about it. Master Chi asked, does your majesty know who this man is? The emperor said, I don't know. Master Chi said, he is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha mind seal. The emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite Bodhidharma to return. Master Chi told him, Your Majesty, don't say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn't return. So lately I've been thinking a lot about family practice. Although

[07:48]

Some people in my family might say I do maybe too much thinking about it and perhaps not enough doing it. Life is pretty busy. But in the broadest sense, our practice period is kind of an extended family practice. The class that Sochen is teaching on Master Keizan's Tenko Roku, or Transmitting the Light, studies the enlightenment stories of our Dharma family. And my own effort in this spring practice period is to try to settle in the midst of this Sangha, which is family to me, as deeply as I can, and try to absorb some of its capacity, some of its great capacity for the Dharma. So that's kind of a context that I find for myself for looking at this story. The brief record of Bodhidharma, the 28th ancestor in direct line from Shakyamuni Buddha and known as the first Zen ancestor, conveys the real intimacy of Dharma.

[09:00]

This passing of an unspoken family treasure from one generation to another. And in his story, in the whole story, some of which we read here, there's passion and misunderstanding, disappointment, determination, great joy, physical pain, jealousy, you know, kind of all the stuff of our everyday lives. Not so different, but it's written in the language of in the language of a koan, in the language of an archetype, to help us unlock our own lives. But even though this might be archetypal, there's nothing, as I was saying before, there's nothing rarified or abstract about the image of Bodhidharma. He's usually pictured as a kind of Falstaffian figure, big and burly and very earthy and full of feeling.

[10:09]

I'm not quite sure how to say what this expression is, but I've seen him with a wide range of expressions. Sometimes he looks stern, and sometimes he appears just flat-out exasperated. and uh... actually my favorite image when i was in japan uh... a couple years ago uh... at a ceremony in uh... Sojichi uh... which is one of the Sotoshu schools uh... head training centers Mel and some of Suzuki Roshi's heirs were doing uh... a ceremony there and they were all dressed up they were wearing red robes and uh... it was very it was very plush and uh... ornamental and this huge picture of Bodhidharma was staring down from the wall in this ceremonial hall and it was kind of almost cartoon-like, staring down at these formal activities and looking at all this sort of pomp and circumstance of institutional Zen, looking in incredibly great dismay.

[11:23]

If you come up to my place sometime, I actually have a picture of all the abbots in their borrowed gear. sitting in front of this picture of Bodhidharma. And he's looking down on all this as if to say, my God, has it really come to this? I was sitting in a cave. But they do keep the image at least before them. And unlike all the refined and very graceful bodhisattvas and buddhas that we see, we are very familiar with Bodhidharma. His image appears as somebody here has him on a t-shirt, I have a coffee mug, there's There's a computer conference called Body Dharma. There's keychains and children's toys and really sort of a whole realm of Buddhist consumer goods.

[12:32]

And actually I kind of like this five and dime school of Buddhism. In a way, if you don't take it too seriously and you don't consume too much of it, this kind of dharma kitsch, it confirms Bodhidharma's words of empty, no holiness. But that's really an easy interpretation. It's too easy. What we need to do in these next weeks is to kind of push past this roly-poly Daruma doll image to find the core of his Zazen practice and to understand the model that he offers us even today. Dogen Zenji, who's here, writes, need I mention Bodhidharma's transmission of the mind seal, the fame of his nine years of wall sitting is celebrated to this day.

[13:34]

So over the next six weeks as we explore this case, our mutual explorations will be sort of supported by the study of the Denka Roku with Sojourn Sensei, and more centrally by our strong Zazen practice, which it won't be nine years, but it'll be six weeks of wall sitting. So today I thought what I would do is begin by telling some of the stories about Bodhidharma and moving into the koan from there. And I hope that knowing him more closely will open up this koan and help bring some kind of focus to our own practice and also focus to our inner determination. Model that for his perhaps. So Bodhidharma, he was the third son of a warrior king in the kingdom of Koshi in southern India. He was born sometime in the very early 5th century AD.

[14:39]

And he was born to the Brahmin class. And his father, the king, who was more than usually devout in this Buddhist nation, gave alms to the venerable Prajnatara, who we chant. When we chant the lineage here, we chant his name as Hanyatara. And he was the 27th ancestor after Shakyamuni, the way we count. And Prajñātāra could immediately see the young prince's innate understanding and also see that he was going to be his heir. But he didn't give him any further encouragement and said nothing about this, just leaving Bodhidharma to mature by the process of his own questioning and his own inquiry. When the king died, the prince sat zazen, Bodhidharma sat zazen for seven days in front of his casket.

[15:50]

And when he rose from his seat, he went to Prajñātara and he asked to receive ordination and to take monk's vows. And then he sat zazen with Prajñātara for seven more days. during which time Prajñātāra gave him continual instruction as he was sitting, and gradually, by the end of the day, drew forth for Bodhidharma an experience of supreme wisdom. And Prajñātāra said, You have now acquired everything there is to know about all things. And Bodhidharma and Prajantara's understanding had merged. They were essentially as one mind. So Bodhidharma knelt and asked what he should do now, where he should go to preach the Dharma. And Prajantara, who kind of took a long view of things,

[16:53]

said, though you've received the Dharma, you should stay a while in southern India and wait until 67 years after my death. Then go to China and contact those with a large capacity for the Dharma. When you arrive there, do not stay in the South, because in the South they only value conditioned or mundane work, and they don't see the true principles of Buddhism. So he served Prajnatara for 40 years, and taught with his own Dharma brothers, Bodhisena and Bodhisanta. So it was 40 years until Prajnatara died, and after Prajnatara died, and 67 more years had passed, then Bodhidharma embarked for China.

[17:55]

he was no longer a young man. So, we don't have to take this on the literal level, but, you know, we figure even on the literal level he was probably no longer a young man. And somehow the voyage across the sea from India to China took three years. I'm not sure where they went. But Bodhidharma arrived in the kingdom of Liang about 520 A.D. They're about already more than 120 years old. And the emperor of Liang was Emperor Wu, as I read you in the case. And the emperor's emissaries met Bodhidharma at the dock and extended an invitation to the palace where the dialogue that that I read you ensued.

[18:57]

And in spite of his teacher's warnings about the corrupt condition of Buddhism in the South, in the South of China, Bodhidharma still felt he had to make an effort to try and transmit the true Dharma wherever he went. Certainly he wouldn't withhold it from an emperor, particularly a practicing Buddhist emperor like Emperor Wu. Let me back up a little and explain that schools of Buddhism, many schools of Buddhism had already taken root in northern and southern China, transplanted from India and from Tibet, growing there already for about 400 years. They were various devotional and doctrinal schools studying the sutras and some esoteric or tantric schools perhaps.

[20:03]

But they existed primarily among the aristocracy. And it seems like as yet there was not really any family sense of Buddhism. None of this kind of intimacy of face-to-face transmission of the Dharma as Bodhidharma received it from Prajñātara and as we receive it here from our teachers and from each other. So that was the state, the general state of Buddhism in China. But Emperor Wu, for all of his shortcomings in this dialogue, was actually a very devout and sincere practitioner in a country where the understanding of Buddhism was maybe not so deep. In a way, it's kind of like here. Certainly they had never seen anybody like Bodhidharma before.

[21:07]

The famous dialogue between the Emperor and Bodhidharma was referred to in China as the Western Barbarians, kind of like that. There's a case in the Mumonkan, one of the other koan collections, I think it's case four, about Bodhidharma as the Western Barbarians. Anyway, the dialogue that I read you is actually only part of the full exchange between them. And in the commentary in the Blue Cliff Record, Shveto gives us further detail. Emperor Wu, who as I said was very devout and known for his good works and propagating sutras and building temples and doing all sorts of stuff like that. Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, he said, I've built temples and ordained monks.

[22:13]

What merit is there in this? And Bodhidharma replied, no merit at all. And some of the other commentary adds, Bodhidharma's words, all these are just the impure and petty deeds of men and gods, a leaking source of rewards. That's sort of my favorite phrase, a leaking source of rewards, which follows them as shadows follows the body, as the shadow follows the body. Although the shadow may appear to exist, it is not real. The emperor, who was a little perplexed, then asked, well, what then is true merit? Bodhidharma answered, it is pure wisdom. wonderful and perfect, whose essence is silent and empty. One cannot gain such merit by worldly means." Then the Emperor asked, we're into the case here, what is the highest meaning of the Holy Truth?

[23:20]

Emptiness without holiness. And even more perplexed, wanting to know who had Well, it's hard to know from the text. One didn't know either who had the effrontery to give him this blunt answer or sincerely to know who was answering. The emperor asked, who is standing before me? And Bodhidharma replied, I don't know. And the emperor did not understand. And Bodhidharma went away to the north. So from his studies, the emperor knew the question that he was asking was meaningful for him. There was an idea of conventional truth, which is that things exist. And then also an idea of real truth, that things are non-existent. And then a

[24:22]

according to the doctrine that he had been studying, a holy truth, that these two, the conventional and the real, are two, that these two are one, are one in the same thing, that they interpenetrate each other. But he wanted to know what is behind the truth. And Bodhidharma tried to show it to him and failed. So today we're left to answer Emperor Wu's question by ourselves. So the question here is, what is the point of this Dazen we're doing? What's the point of listening to this lecture? What's the point of doing something, if we think we're doing something that's worthwhile or something that will make us feel better, than in that moment that we're thinking that we're missing the very thing that we're doing.

[25:29]

I think Sochin was alluding to this the other day in class and he was talking about time, about the nature of time. that we have the usual idea of time as past, present and future, which seem discontinuous, they seem like separate periods. But any moment we can recognize now, or we can even declare something as now, right now. And in that moment of now, that's a continuous present. We can do it anytime we choose. So we have the opportunity in this continuous present to completely experience ourselves and all things together. And this is the process of the Zazen that we're doing. It's one now after another.

[26:30]

You know, one opportunity after another to be present, to no matter what it may be, we may be calm or excited or sleepy or wide awake, our legs may hurt a lot, we may be quite joyous, and we can't control the way those things come up, but we can recognize each one of them as now, in the present, and honor that as a complete moment. Also, then, to turn to the question of merit, each time we do service, we offer any merit that there might be to the benefit of all beings, not ourselves. Although, we also recognize that these all beings are not any different than ourselves. They're completely connected.

[27:31]

But as long as we wonder about the personal result of this practice or of any activity that we do, or the merit, or whether we have a wonderful or a disastrous personality and things of that nature, each time we stray into that realm of thought and contemplation, then we're cutting ourselves off from the present. We're cutting ourselves off from experiencing something in its real completeness. I think that's some of the impact of what Bodhidharma was trying to communicate. So he took a compassionate but a very uncompromising position. It might not have even been particularly nice, but it was very determined. He did what he felt he had to do.

[28:36]

When it was time to wait and mature, as the teacher asked, he waited for 40 years, and then he waited another 67 years. It's hard to imagine waiting that long. There's lots of things I can't wait a week for, or an hour. So when it was time to meet the emperor, he did it, and he gave him his best effort at communication. He failed. He failed to communicate it. But he just continued in his determination to live the Dharma as fully as he could, whether there was anyone there to receive it or not. And I feel that because of this kind of single-mindedness, We sit here today, the direct result of that, as a community, as a kind of family, and manage to teach each other by the very simple-seeming example of our own sitting practices.

[29:45]

But I also should say I feel a lot of sympathy for Emperor Wu. He kind of doesn't come out looking too good in this particular version of the koan. In another version of the same story, in one of the other koan collections, they give him the benefit of the doubt. They give him credit for initiating this discussion. And I feel that Emperor Wu was, in his own way, as best he could, actually expressing some doubt or some hesitation about the real worth of his religious efforts. Perhaps hoping, kind of like a a puppy seeking his master's approval, hoping that Bodhidharma would say, well, building temples and ordaining monks were great things to do and just keep on doing it, get lots of merit for it.

[30:51]

But that wasn't what Bodhidharma said. But also in sympathy with Emperor Wu, it seems to me that just being born an emperor makes it pretty hard to practice non-attachment. You have all these people bowing to you, and it might not be as auspicious a birth as it appears. So I think we actually even owe him a debt of gratitude. Actually, one of the unusual things about this case, unlike most of the koans, it's not an enlightenment story, and almost all of them are. This is related to the debt that we owe him. The fact that he truly failed to understand, despite all of Bodhidharma's help, somehow means that the door of Zen is open for us. If he had gotten it right, we may not have a record of this dialogue.

[31:56]

Bodhidharma would probably not have gone to Shaolin temple to sit facing a wall for nine years. Zen might have become very early on there, the state religion, and within a couple centuries sunk under the weight of its own self-importance. This is a possibility. There's no knowing. But the record also says that at least Emperor Wu didn't stop practicing. He kept practicing. And one of the stories that I found says that his daughter became a nun and was one of Bodhidharma's four Dharma heirs. That's something I find encouraging. I mean, you don't actually find all that many stories of women as Dharma heirs at all. But one of Bodhidharma's was a woman and at least this one story has her as the daughter of the emperor.

[33:00]

So Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River on a reed boat and he found an unheated cave at Shaolin Temple in the kind of icy northern kingdom of Wei where he felt very much at home. He settled himself in Zazen and facing a wall for nine years. And there are a lot of stories about other things that happened during those nine years, one of which has him removing his eyelids to keep himself awake and throwing them to the ground beside him. And from those eyelids on the ground, the first tea plants grew up. which is quite nice. Another legend cites Bodhidharma as the inventor of Kung Fu, a martial arts discipline that was designed

[34:04]

not so much as a means of defense or offense, but to sharpen the monks' bodies and minds. You probably remember Kung Fu on television with David Carradine. Actually, that took place at Shaolin Temple. That was where it was set, before he wandered off into the Wild West. And another legend about Bodhidharma has him sitting so determinedly these nine years that his legs withered away. Later on, and I'll leave it for next time, there's the story of his transmission to his heir, Wico, and pacifying Wico's mind. And also, we'll talk more about the later part of this koan, which I think is also quite rich. But when the Dharma transmission to Wico and three other disciples was complete, Bodhidharma was then 150 years old and considered his work done.

[35:14]

There had been great jealousy of the stature and the fame that he attained, and also of style of practice which was very different from the prevailing style of Buddhism in China at the time. So the story has it that two embittered monks of the Vinaya and doctrinal schools tried five times to poison him, and five times they failed, but finally When he had completed his transmission on the sixth try, he made no effort to save himself and, sitting in Zazen, passed away. But there is a coda to this. Three years after his death, a Chinese official, Song Yun, was returning from India along high mountain roads in what's now Turkestan.

[36:17]

And as he was walking along the road, he met Bodhidharma. And Bodhidharma was traveling westward only with just his robes and a staff with one sandal swinging from the staff. And he told Sumyon that his destination was India, or the land of the Western Heaven, as it was called. And Sun Yun reported this event when he returned to the palace. And the emperor immediately ordered that the tomb be exhumed and examined. And when they did so, they found it was completely empty except for the other sandal, which was then conveyed to Shaolin Temple where a commemoration ceremony was held. And at this tomb, Emperor Wu left, who was still thinking about Bodhidharma. He never stopped thinking about him after he left.

[37:19]

He left this poignant inscription. Alas, I saw him without seeing him. I met him without meeting him. I encountered him without encountering him. Now as before, I regret this deeply. So, thank you for listening. If you have any questions or comments, we have a few minutes for it, I think, right? Deborah? I don't think there's, by the way Bodhidharma was looking at it, there's nothing that's holy. I mean, emptiness is holy, but as soon as you give it a status, then it's not empty anymore.

[38:29]

And I can't take it much past that. Well, emptiness doesn't mean, emptiness is not the literal idea of emptiness that we have, that there is nothing there. Emptiness is each thing, you know, so it's this piece of paper and the burnt out match in here, any one of those, in a sense is a miracle of interpenetration. I think Bodhidharma honored the emperor by not giving him the baby beginner answer.

[39:33]

He recognized that the emperor was a serious student and gave him the advanced student answer. Right. And so I think he did honor him in that way and recognized also that he was a human being with a life to live. And so he wouldn't, you know, he would get to play the pampered subject with him. So I think he felt a great compassion for him. I think he did also. But I think one of the things about Bodhidharma is he didn't give anybody the beginner answer. And that's the hard part. That's the hard part for me of the Bodhidharma. legend, you know, I mean in Buddhism we read about skillful means. And, you know, the Shakyamuni Buddha, if you read the Lotus Sutra or some of the sutras, he's always finding parables and ways to teach the Dharma that will reach people exactly where they're at.

[40:42]

And the thing about Bodhidharma is that he didn't do that. You know, he just would give them the truth. But maybe that's real humility. Maybe he's saying to himself, I can't really know whether he's going to get it or not. Well, it's not necessarily arrogance. Yeah. So maybe you don't know who No, that's David Carradine. Well, that's nice. Susan? You talked about this being a family practice.

[41:44]

Could you please show me the lotus? Well, there you are. But, you know, we're, we're, we're, it's our family now. Uh, I can't, I can't show you the mothers, mothers of the past in the same way that I can't tell you about my great-grandmother because I don't know, I haven't the slightest idea who she was or what she looked, looked like, but we're doing it now. I hear these stories and, um, I'm not taking the class, but when I hear these stories, I feel left out, because I have no age. And if I was ever to sew a rakasu, I would end up with no female names on it.

[42:50]

I would be alone. Where is my place in all of this? Well, you have to include yourself. I mean, there are no female or male names. Any name that you would have on your rakasu would be, I mean, you'd have your teacher's name and your name. And we are recreating this lineage. We're creating this lineage right now. But look in front of me, all male images. Well, there's actually some discussion about this, but there's a small female image of Avalokiteshvara that we wish were a larger one and we're looking for it. But I can't do anything about that except to honor all teachers now. I have regrets. I regret that also.

[43:59]

And I think that our teaching would be quite different if the cultural setting had been different. I wonder what Bodhidharma would have done if he had children, for instance, would have changed his decisions about what he did. I mean, of course, this is all very theoretical, but when people talk about family practice What I hear through the lectures, he, [...] case of the he, he's, you know, I begin to wonder. But I know that people have good intentions in this practice. I don't doubt that. Well, I think it's good to wonder. And I think it's good to raise that question. And I don't think it's going to go away. Let's hope not. No, it's not going to go away here. When you talked about the Emperor's regret.

[45:04]

I saw him, but I never saw him. But I never really met him. And Bodhidharma leaving, just leaving. I had the sense that he just left. It was just what he did. There wasn't any... anything other than that's just what he did and then the emperor felt regret regret it just cause and effect cause and effect it happened there it just struck me very profoundly and the things in my life that i regret or that i feel you know i could have done Anyway, that's what I... It would be nice to know... I mean, I think that that event really marked his life, but we don't have... I haven't read any other stories about what it was like after that, but it would be interesting to know.

[46:10]

Time for maybe one more? Yeah, I was also sort of touched by the idea that that this is a story in some sense of a failure, or at least that part of the story. And I think personally sometimes failure is really hard to bear, but as you pointed out, sometimes a failure is a necessary preliminary. And when it's the immediate, when the failure is in the now, It's hard to see that, and it's nice to think about the possibility that present failures are necessary for other present successes or reaching what we seek. Yeah, when I was in Thailand I heard a lecture by Sulat Sivaraksa and of course his lecture was talking about the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh as failures.

[47:20]

I mean Thich Nhat Hanh failed to stop the war in Vietnam and failed to protect the monks and nuns of his order, nor the Buddhist people of his larger community. And the Dalai Lama has, to date, failed to liberate the people of Tibet, despite his great spiritual powers. Another consequence is that the teaching of both those people has spread so widely. Failure might be very useful, but if you attach to it and become disheartened, then you lose an opportunity. I think we have to stop. It's a beautiful day outside.

[48:18]

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