Good morning, everyone, and welcome. For those of you I haven't met, I'm Taigen Leighton, a teacher here at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate. I recently started in some of my talks going through the Book of Serenity Koan collection, the major Koan collection in our Soto Zen tradition. And just to say a little bit about koans, because there's various understandings of that, these are all teaching stories, a lot of them from the 9th and 8th century in China. One way they're sometimes used is as a kind of curriculum Well, they're not really riddles to solve, but they seem like that. They're teaching stories, and in some traditions, one goes through them in sequence with the teacher.

[01:07]

In the Soto tradition that the 13th century Japanese monk, Dogen, brought from China to Japan, he kind of introduced these koans, these are teaching stories that we use to look at our practice. So each of these cases or stories is has been studied for 1,000 years because it says something about our own practice. And so we study them in that way individually or in group. And Dogen wrote about them quite a lot. So the one I'm going to do today is case number three in the Book of Serenity. This is about the teacher of Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma was the Chinese, the Indian master who came to China and is considered the founder of Chan, as it's called in Chinese, or Zen.

[02:11]

There's an image of him standing on this side of the altar. But this is about his teacher, Prajnatara is the teacher's name. And just a little more about, these Koan collections. There were traditionally many, many, many different Koan collections. There are a few that are used predominantly now. One of them is called the Blue Cliff Record. And the Book of Serenity is patterned after that. So the They include cases, which I'll start with, and then verses, and in the case of the, in the Book of Serenity, these cases and verse commentaries were written by a Chinese Soto master in the 12th century named Hongzhe, whose practice teachings I've translated some of in a book called Cultivating the Empty Field.

[03:15]

Hongzhe picked the cases and the verses for these stories, these hundred stories that are in this Book of Serenity. And then a later teacher in the Sao Dong or Soto tradition named Wan Song put them together with his introduction, commentary to the case and commentary to the verse. So they're complicated literary events. That structure is patterned after the earlier Blue Cliff record. So I'll start with the case number three. the invitation of the ancestor to Eastern India. So a Raja of an East Indian country invited the 27th Buddhist patriarch or ancestor, Prajnatara, to a feast. The Raja asked him there, why don't you read scriptures or sutras, the teachings of the Buddha? And the ancestor said,

[04:17]

This poor wayfarer does not dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in, does not get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate such a sutra, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls. So that's the end of the case. That's the end of this story. It's this comment by Prajnatara about the sutras or scriptures And this Raja, this king, asked him why he doesn't read these. And Prajnatara talks about breath. This poor wayfarer does not dwell on the realms of the body or mind. And there's a whole Buddhist teaching about the senses and the sense objects and the sense consciousnesses. So this refers back to an ancient Indian teaching, basic teaching, and the skandhas, the five aggregates.

[05:30]

He said, this poor wayfarer, referring to himself, does not dwell on the realm of body or mind when breathing in. Does not get involved in the myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate, I always go through such a sutra, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls. So there's also a verse and an introduction and commentaries, and I'll get to some of that. But the basic issue here has to do with how to read or take the the sutras, the words of the Buddha. So the sutras in Buddhism are said to be the words of Shakyamuni Buddha, who lived 2,500 years ago, more or less in what's now northeastern India. And this king is hosting this great teacher, Prajnatara, asks why Prajnatara does not

[06:36]

read or talk about these scriptures. So one basic teaching in the whole Zen tradition, and there's a statement attributed much later to Bodhidharma, who was Prajnatara's student, that Zen is direct pointing to mind beyond words and letters. So Prajnatara here is just emphasizing breathing. Breathing in and breathing out. So in our tradition, this practice we've just been doing of zazen is what's important. What's central is our own experience. And as we've done just now, this practice of zazen, sitting upright and relaxed, and paying attention to our inhale and our exhale, and just enjoying our inhale and exhale, Prajnatara says that's what's important.

[07:44]

And that is, and then he says he reiterates such a sutra. So the sutra is our own experience. all of the Buddha sutras, some compiled much, much later than Shakyamuni's life, are based on, come out of, this experience of just being present, inhaling and exhaling. And he says not getting, not getting involved with not dwelling in the different aspects of body and mind during inhale, and not getting involved in all the myriad circumstances during exhale. Of course, the myriad circumstances, all the karmic entanglements of our life is what brought us each here, each in our own way this morning, and what brings us to our cushion, what brings us to this experience of just being present.

[08:59]

Just sitting, it's called in suttas, just appreciating Buddha on our seat. What is Buddha? How do we find this awakening on our seat? That's what's essential, and that's what Prajnatara is emphasizing here. So there's a lot more to say about this, though, and a whole teaching about how to read sutras. Well, I'll read you Hongzhe's verse comment first. And I don't know if I'll even get to this today. And I don't know if I may do another talk on this. So Hongzhe's verses are very erudite. He has lots of references to Chinese literature, Taoist literature, Chinese history.

[10:00]

This is kind of like, I don't know, somebody in our time referring to Shakespeare or to the founding fathers or something, to some cultural material that was familiar. So a lot of these references need to be unpacked, and I might do a little of that today, but I'll read his verse anyway. Hung just said about this story, a cloud rhino gazes at the moon, its light engulfing radiance. A wood horse romps in spring, swift and unbridled. Under the eyebrows, a pair of cold blue eyes. How can reading sutures reach the piercing of oxide? The clear mind produces vast eons. Heroic power smashes the double enclosures. In the subtle round mouth of the pivot turns the spiritual works. Hanshan forgot the road by which he came.

[11:03]

Shida led him back by the hand. So Hanshan and Shida are classic Chinese Chan figures. Hanshan means cold mountain, and his poems have been collected. He was a kind of hermit who lived near a monastery. Shuddha was his buddy who lived in the monastery. But Anshan writes about going up into the mountains. Anyway, there's a lot of references in some of those lines, and maybe I'll get to some of that today. But again, the basic story is just when asked about reading the sutras, Prajnatara said, this poor wayfarer does not dwell on the realms of the body or mind when breathing in. does not get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. So, in this practice of zazen, as we teach it, as we talk about it, we call this sometimes just sitting or objectless meditation. So whatever comes up, here we are.

[12:06]

We sit upright and relaxed and settle into that. And doing this regularly, and I recommend doing this at home in your spare time, you know, every day or often during the week, just to have a rhythm of being present and facing the wall and facing yourself. And what is it like to be this person, whatever we are on this seat here now? So there's no object, particular objective or goal, and there's no particular object of meditation, except that, practically speaking, it helps sometimes to have something to focus on. And breathing is one of the best things to do that with. So, Prajnachara talks about breathing in and breathing out. And I often say, just enjoy your inhale and exhale. And notice the space after the exhale. And then please do inhale again. So we try to continue this practice.

[13:11]

And to Prajnatara, that's what was important. And that's where the sutras come from. So when we do the bodhisattva vows at the end of this, we say, dharmagates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Everything in the world can be a scripture, a sutra. Everything in the world can be a teaching source, an opportunity to awaken. So we do have formal sutras and scriptures that we study. And also we study these old teaching stories from the great ancient masters. But there's a teaching in our tradition about how to do that. So I'll read Wansong's introduction to the case. The state before the beginning of time, the awareness that's before and beyond, getting concerned with

[14:20]

What time is it? When do we have to do the next thing? And so forth. The state before the beginning of time. A turtle heads for the fire. The one phrase especially transmitted outside of doctrine, outside of the teaching. The lip of a mortar bears flowers. So often in Zen we have these poetic images or metaphors or something. Then Wansong said, now tell me, is there any accepting and upholding, reading and reciting in this? So the sutras, the Lotus Sutra, for example, recommends, one of our most important scriptures says, accept and uphold this teaching, read and recite it. And so Wansong says, is there any? accepting and upholding, reading and reciting in this story. And Prajnatara says that, write and inhale and exhale.

[15:29]

They go beyond the scriptures, but also, in some ways, these are the scriptures. So, I'll just say in, you know, the sutras and the scriptures are about finding fundamental meaning. What's the point? What's the meaning of our lives? How do we take care of our lives? How do we take care of our world and the people around us and all of our activities? Informed by this deep communion with what? I could say reality. So doing this practice of sitting upright regularly, just paying attention to this body-mind and all the thoughts and feelings that come up, we connect with, we commune with something very deep, some deep interconnectedness.

[16:30]

So there's this word dharma, which means teaching and also truth or reality. How do we find the dharma? And Prajnatara just speaks about inhale and exhale. But in Dogen's tradition, the 13th century founder of Soto Zen, he wrote a lot. There's a huge volume of materials, of essays that he wrote, most of it commenting on these old stories, sometimes commenting on the scriptures. But he also talks about how to read the scriptures. And Suzuki Roshi also, whose lineage we're in, who brought this practice from Japan to California, to San Francisco in the 60s, he was my teacher's teacher, also talks about how to read scriptures.

[17:32]

So it's not that we, so sometimes this idea of Zen being direct pointing to mind outside of words and letters has been taken very literally. Like you shouldn't read anything. There was a monastery I sat sesshin with. It was at in Japan when I was living in Kyoto for a couple of years. where literally the students were not allowed to read anything. And there were a number of American students there who wanted to study Japanese because the teacher didn't speak any English. There was a translator for Doksan for a private interview. And when magazines came or anything came, written material came in the mail for them, it was confiscated. They weren't allowed to read. There are branches of the Zen tradition where this is taken very literally. And they had to ask special permission to get Japanese language instruction books so they could study Japanese.

[18:37]

I like the teacher there very much, but I don't agree with this not reading. It's not part of the way we use breathing in and breathing out. So there is a way to study the sutras and these stories, one of which we're talking about today. And the point of that is not to try and figure out or understand something based on reading, which is what we usually do. literature to get some understanding of something or some instruction manual or something. But these scriptures are to just encourage us to practice, to breathe in and breathe out and pay attention to that. So the point of this story isn't to figure out, the point of koans, the point of sutras is not to get some understanding based on studying them. It's possible to do that. But the point is just to encourage our practice.

[19:45]

So the question is how does this story encourage us to really appreciate breathing in and breathing out, really appreciate our sitting practice and to see right in the breathing in and breathing out, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls of sutras. How do we see the dharma, the teaching, reality itself coming forth in our inhale and exhale? How do we settle into this deep communion? So I'll read a little bit of Wansdong's comment on this story. So there's always lots of background to these stories. The 27th patriarch was called Keyura as a boy as it came to pass that the 26th patriarch, Punyamitra, his teacher, was riding by in a chariot together with a king of eastern India who was known as the Resolute.

[20:47]

That was the name of the king. Teacher Punyamitra, who became Prajnatara's teacher, asked the boy, Kaira, can you remember things of the past? The boy Kaira replied, I remember that eons ago I lived in the same place as you, master. You were expounding Maha Prajna, great wisdom. And I was upholding the most profound scriptures or sutra. I have been awaiting you here to assist you in the true teaching. So in India, they have this belief in past lives. And recently, I saw a scholarly book that came out with discussion of past lives in South Asia and modern versions of this. And we don't have to take that literally. It doesn't fit so much in our science. But one could take it literally anyway. So that's sort of the background of the story. This boy is remembering this past life when he had been studying with the past life of this teacher, Punyamitra.

[21:56]

So we could talk more about that. And we'll have some time for discussion. The patriarch, Punyamitra, said to the raja, the king, this is not one of the lesser holy ones. This is a bodily reflection of the Bodhisattva Mahastamaprapta, the one who has arrived at great power. Then the raja had the boy get into the chariot, took him to the palace, and made offerings to him. Just a little more of this. When the boy put on monastic robes and had his head shaved, that Patriarch Punyamitra drew on the connection with Prajñāra Wisdom in that sutra, the Prajñāpāramitā, to have him named Prajñātāra, Jewel of Wisdom. So that was the name of this person that we're talking about in the story. So it says here, the Lian court took Bodhidharma to be Avalokitesvara. In India, they considered his teacher, Prajnatara, to be Mahastamprapta.

[23:03]

Only Amida Buddha hasn't come down to earth so far, Wansong says. So some. background about this. Bodhidharma, and the last story, the second case, which will eventually be available on the Audio Dharma Talks on our website. was considered by, well, I'll say more about that story. He went from India to China some years after his teacher, Prajnatara, passed away at Prajnatara's instruction, and he went to Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty. Just to tell the story briefly, Emperor Wu said to this great Indian master, Bodhidharma, what is the merit I've gained from all of the wonderful works I've done for Buddhism? He had had translations made of sutras. He had built great monasteries. He had ordained monks and nuns. And Bodhidharma said, no merit.

[24:06]

Even though the sutras talk about gaining merit from studying the sutras. And then the king was taken aback and said, well, what is the highest meaning of sacred truth, of the Dharma, of reality, and the teaching? And Bodhidharma said, vast emptiness, nothing holy. So this story sort of relates to that. Prajnatara had said that he doesn't bother reading scriptures because he fully engages in inhale and exhale without being caught up in body and mind and without being distracted by external conditions. Vast emptiness, nothing holy, Bodhidharma said. And then he left, he split and he went and sat in a cave in northern China for nine years. And then Emperor Wu asked his Buddhist minister, who was that guy?

[25:14]

Who was that masked man? And the minister just said, oh, that was Avalokitesvara. the great bodhisattva of compassion. So we have in our tradition from these sutras, these great bodhisattva figures, awakening beings. There's images of some of them in here. This bodhidharma, Kanon is there and there, Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion who hears the suffering of the world and hears the sounds of the world and responds. That's the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and Bodhisattva Manjushri is sitting on the altar beneath the Buddha, carrying a teaching scepter and riding a lion, because he's the Bodhisattva, fearless young Bodhisattva of wisdom. But this Prajnatara is here considered Mahastamprapta, who's not one of the major Bodhisattvas we've studied, but in Japanese, his name is Seishi, and he's a companion to of Avalokitesvara, when they are connected in the Pure Land Buddhism with Amitabha or Amida Buddha.

[26:21]

So that's what the reference is there. But this bodhisattva, Mahastamprapta, is the bodhisattva of great strength and great power. So they're saying that this is who this Prajnatara is. That's what, that's what Wansong says. that he's considered, that Prajnatara is considered to be Mahastanaprapta, this other Bodhisattva, major Bodhisattva figure. So for those of you who are new here, there will not be a test on all this. Again, the point of these stories is not to remember something or get some understanding of something, but just to encourage our practice. But anyway, Prajnatara is, this teacher who is the teacher of Bodhidharma is considered to be the bodhisattva of great power, great strength.

[27:24]

And, you know, I can go into, there are in the commentary all these comments about when Mahaswamprakta said, he doesn't dwell on the realms of body or mind. There's a whole teaching about that, which actually we refer to when we chant the Heart Sutra sometimes. So this refers to, to the twelve sense, to the five clusters of form, feelings, perceptions, formations and consciousness we chant in the Heart Sutra, and to the twelve sense media, which is eye and sight, and so forth, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste, body and sensation, and mind is considered another sense and sense object. in traditional Buddhism, which is actually interesting in terms of Zazen, that when we're sitting, and I'm sure you all experience that, that thoughts come up and feelings come up.

[28:31]

Now there may have been some of you who had no thoughts during the whole period of Zazen, I don't know. But usually, you know, our mind can sort of race, and we can have all kinds of thoughts and feelings. But that's just another sense object, like the color of the wall in front of you, when you sit with your eyes open, according to Buddhism. So there are various aspects of mind. Anyway, I'm getting into this technical aspect that is part of what Prajnatara is talking about. Another thing to say about Prajnatara, though, which is maybe more interesting, is that in the Korean tradition, they say that there's a tradition in India that Prajnatara was actually a woman. And in modern American Buddhism, there's a whole field of study of women in Buddhism, because the Asian cultures were very patriarchal.

[29:32]

And so in our lineage, Up till now, they are all men, although we also have a women's ancestors lineage because there were women all along who were important, but in those patriarchal cultures, they didn't talk about them. So this is a whole important area of study now and of awareness in modern Western Buddhism, the role of women, and there are lots of good books about that. I'd recommend The Hidden Lamp. which has stories about great women practitioners who kept the teaching going in India, China, Korea, Japan, and the United States, and commentaries on them by modern women teachers. And actually, that book was edited by my friends Sir Moon and Florence Caplo. And Florence Caplo is gonna be here sometime in the next couple of months teaching.

[30:35]

Anyway, but there's this story that Prajnatara was actually a woman. And I don't know, you know, we don't know so much about the history of Buddhism in India. They weren't so interested in history. I think scholars have refuted that, but I'm not sure. So anyway, that's just a, that's not in the Book of Serenity. The Book of Serenity refers to Prajnatara as a patriarch, as a man, but I just thought I'd mention that because it's an interesting question. We don't really know. I don't know if there's any way of really finding out. And again, I think that scholars have, historical scholars have refuted that idea, and yet it is a part of some traditions to think that Prajnaparamita was a woman. So just, I thought I'd just mention that. There's so much more to talk about in this case. These koan collections, these koan cases are great literary events. So there's, so in terms of a hunch,

[31:37]

Well, Hongzhi's verse, there's commentaries on that. And there's more comment on the case itself, but I was going to mention, again, there are references and there's some lines in this, in this verse comment that I like, in the subtle round mouth of the pivot, turns the spiritual works. So the spiritual workings in our practice are constantly turning. It's not about settling anywhere. It's about the aliveness of our practice and the aliveness of our life. There's a comment on one of the lines that I thought I'd mention. Well, this is about the line, how can reading scriptures reach the piercing of oxide?

[32:40]

And it goes through a whole reference to one of the scriptures and a teacher, Yao Shan, who's in our tradition, who said, you must even pierce through oxide. And Wansung said, after all, he had the adamantine eye. The clear mind produces vast eons, he says. And he refers to the third ancestor saying, just do not hate or love, and all will be clear. And there's things that can be said about that, too. There's another teacher, though, who said, This is the one I wanted to read. The whole earth is a student's volume of scripture. The whole world is a student's eye. With this eye, read this scripture for countless eons without interruption. I say it is not easy to read. So part of what's being said in between the lines and in the commentary here is that our own experience is really

[33:50]

Buddha's teaching, or we can see Buddha's teaching in that. The Dharma is available everywhere, so we will chant at the end the four bodhisattva vows, which include Dharma gates are boundless, entries to the reality, entries to the truth are boundless, and how to enter them. So this story, again, points us back to what is it like as we said, just inhaling and exhaling. What are the Dharma gates? What are the scriptures? What are the Buddha's truths that come forth in our own experience, in our own sitting? So there's a lot more that I could say about this case and the first comment by Hongzhe and the comments by Wansong. And maybe I'll do another talk continuing on this case.

[34:54]

I don't know. But I'll stop now and welcome your comments, questions, responses, basic questions, too, about our practice, anything. So please feel free. So again, these old stories Zen is supposed to be beyond words and letters, and yet there are huge libraries of these stories and commentaries on the stories and commentaries on the commentaries, and we're adding to those commentaries. And yet all of them, the point of all of them, as Dogen said and Suzuki Roshi said, is to just encourage us to

[35:56]

find our own practice to settle into our own breathing in and breathing out and allow the dharma to come forth from that. So again, please, responses, questions, comments. I'm caught up in body and mind and breathing out I'm free of exterior circumstances. Yes, that's one way to misunderstand this, yes. Yeah, thank you for that question.

[37:15]

It's the right question. It's one of the right questions. So yeah, so what Prajnatara seems to be pointing to is this deep immersion in our experience through practice, through sasana, as I've said. The Bodhisattva tradition, which he's linked with though, is about how then do we integrate that and express that in our lives and the world, and that's really what this is about. So this practice is not about becoming an expert meditator. It's about communing with, so you asked my view, it's about communing with this deep reality, and then allowing that to inform how we take care of our lives in the world. So a lot of what Soto teaching emphasizes is the integration of this deep communion that Prajnacharya is talking about.

[38:18]

And I think in this case, there's also it's not caught in attachment to emptiness or something. It also brings out, you know, Wansong's question, is there any accepting and upholding, reading and reciting in this? How do we accept, uphold, and take care of this in our lives is very much an issue. So we emphasize, so immediately after this we will have So, that can extend into how do we take care of all the suffering in our world now. And part of the point of this practice and this settling and this immersion and communion in this deep awareness is so that we can be more helpful and available to the difficulties of the world.

[39:20]

But it's a challenging balance of how to do that, and there's not one right answer. Each one of us has our own ways of responding to, as Avalokiteshvara Kanon does, responding to the cries of the world. And Sangha, the community, is one way to do that together. How do we... offer this practice that's not just about immersion in this deeper reality, but then what do we do when we go out into Chicago? So in terms of my own view, I'm also a social activist and get involved in responding to the difficult things happening, obviously, in our society now. But this settling makes us allows us to be calmer and to have a deeper sense of possibilities of how to respond.

[40:22]

So that's, do you have a follow-up to that? So, I think one of the, you know like, you'd say like the fallacies of kind of the idea that what's being pointed towards is like a complete detachment is that there's, it's like emotionless or without care or concern. Yeah. That's a great question. That's a primary question. We're all here because of some caring. There's this term bodhicitta, traditionally in Buddhism, which means the mind of awakening, or that which impels us to practice. So some of you are here for the first time today. What brought you here? What brings you to show up someplace where you can stop and sit and just be present and face yourself in the world.

[41:26]

So there are people who use Zen and meditation as an escape from the world. It's possible to do that. It's possible to get immersed in some deep mental awareness, but the point of that is not to to run away from the world or run away from yourself, but to be more fully present to engage in your life. So each of you is here because in some way you care about your life and the world and how to take care of it. And this practice is about of finding a deeper awareness to use for that. And it's not just about going deeper, it's about then how do we express it. So a lot of our teachings, the transcendent practices, the precepts and so forth are about how we express this in the world.

[42:26]

But there's also the side of just breathing and bringing forth the teaching. And the teaching that's brought forth is how do we respond to the world? So thank you. Other questions, comments, responses? Basic questions, anything? Yes, Phyllis. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I think it's very easy for us to think what if we thought of we don't think of it at all we think of if we approach compassion as part of buddha nature yes which as a buddhist i believe we all have already yes regardless of whether we get emotional emotional so emotion is more like this obstacle that this guy

[44:05]

everything else, how we see the world and affect how we act. If we look at it that way, then the closer, the better we will be clearing up our emotional reaction to phenomena, the closer we get to our true nature. That sounds good. But running away from our emotions doesn't work. So what's difficult about this practice a lot of the time is not some pain in your knees or getting your legs into some funny position or sitting still or being upright, but that as we sit and thoughts and feelings come up, we recognize emotional patterns. So, you know, consciousness is related to emotion, but they talk about sentimental compassion, which is, you know, not so helpful, where we just have an idea of compassion based on some emotional idea.

[45:25]

Bodhidharma is considered the bodhisattva of compassion, and yet he abandoned Emperor Wu. So this is a koan. How is that helpful? How is that compassionate? But as we are present and sit, we see our own patterns of reacting based on our own personal combination of the world's greed and anger and confusion. So running away from that isn't the practice. That doesn't help. We also get to some deeper space, but we have to witness our emotions in our emotional life and get to know it and befriend it, and then we don't need to react based on it so much. if we know our stuff, to use a technical psychological term, then we don't need to be caught up in it so much.

[46:36]

The more intimate we are with ourself and with our own emotional stuff, the more we have the possibility of not reacting but actually acting compassionately, helpfully. So that's what's actually one of the most difficult parts of this practice, is to actually, as we sit facing the wall, we're facing ourselves. The wall is a mirror. We're facing the world. The wall is a window to see how we're connected to each one of you, each one of us is a combination of many, many, many beings. We can never really sit alone where all the people you've ever known are part of what's happening on your seat right now. So how do we face all of that and keep breathing in and breathing out the way Prasanna Tara talks about and not get caught up, caught by it, not get caught up in it, but be present in it and then just settle into something deeper.

[47:47]

So this goes back to your question too. It's not that we avoid the difficulties in the world, and it's not that we avoid the difficulties in our own hearts and minds. We can just, but we don't have to react. We see our patterns of reaction. We see how we act out from our own kind of anger and so forth, but we don't, but the more we get, we become friendly with that, the more we don't need to react. We can choose how to respond more helpfully. So thank you for that question. We're sort of past time, but if anybody else has a comment or questionation. Yeah, how do we see

[48:50]

those who we have difficulty with as teachers to show us something about ourselves and how to be helpful in the world.

[49:30]

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